Clondalkin rapper Selló is making big waves.
Since releasing debut single Dublin in 2021, he’s racked up millions of streams, broken into Ireland’s top ten albums, and signed a major record deal in the UK and Ireland.
It’s swift progress for the 22-year-old Gaelic drill pioneer, who is still working part-time in social care.
“When I left for college, I was coming back to Dublin on the weekends,” he told Buzz.
“Some of my old schoolmates were asking me, ‘Oh, do you still rap?’, ‘Do you make music now?’ Cause everybody just assumed I would make music because of what I did in secondary school.”
In fifth and sixth year, Selló – real name Michael Afam – would make up freestyle raps for school friends in the yard.
Crowds of lads would circle him, pumping him up. It was his first real taste of performing music.
“It was rapping at those types of levels that they listened to,” he explained.
“To be honest with you, I’m self-taught. But I taught myself to rhyme with those proper like old school beats, and then I graduated to more modern beats.”
As a teenager, he listened extensively to UK grime – in particular Skepta, Stormzy and AJ Tracy.
“Those guys entered my head and… my dopamine levels would just be like through the roof. I used to watch a lot of grime stuff, like a lot of freestyle stuff. That’s why I got better.
“But I never said to anyone let me become a rapper, or let me rap like them,” he continued.
“The only reason I was good is because I felt that.
“Like the feel that I get from their music, I can transfer that feel.
“If you’re listening to me you might feel that you’re listening to somebody else that you already listened to.
“So that’s why people always thought, ‘Like yo, this guy’s technique gonna blow. You should be a rapper, bro.’ I was like, let me go to college anyways.”
Music festival circuit
The young rapper had never even been to a music festival before he started performing at them last year.
Since then he’s played the likes of Longitude, Forbidden Fruit and performed live on The Late Late Show earlier this year.
Next weekend, he’ll appear at All Together Now on the Jameson Connects: The Circle stage with a host of other rising Irish stars.
At this year’s Longitude Festival, Selló was brought out as a special guest of TraviS x Elzzz – the only Irish rappers on 2023’s line-up.
“Obviously them being good, down-to-earth guys, they thought, ‘Yo, it would be a statement if we bring Selló up.’ That we’re still here, Irish rap is still here,” he told Buzz.
“I’m very pessimistic when it comes to rap music that the industry or certain brands just want to lend a hand when it’s suitable for them. It’s all conditional love, I always feel.”
Nevertheless, the rising star is determined to bring his distinctive brand of rap – which he calls ‘Gaelic drill’ – to the masses.
“For me, drill in itself is the BPM [beats per minute] of the beat,” he told Buzz.
“The beat is what makes the track. So you could be talking about anything. But if it’s on a drill beat then it’s drill music.”
Drill music, originating in the US in the early 2010s, typically features “skippy” beats, ominous 808s and – more often than not – gritty, aggressive lyrics about life in impoverished areas.
Selló’s own version adds a pinch of the Irish language, a dollop of Dublin slang and frequently samples classic Irish tracks by the likes of The Chieftains and Sinéad O’Connor.
It’s both novel and refreshing, as well as exciting, as an old Ireland merges with a new on the tracks, forging a modern music identity that incorporates both.
Dublin from his debut mixtape Sellótape includes the lyrics: “I got love for the boys from the C-Side, cause the C-side got love for me. Seasaigí, that’s my clan, my family.”
While in Molly Malone, he raps, “That’s Molly Malone not Molly Mae, if she got back like Lizzo whine and jiggle, come let’s play,” in a strong west-Dublin twang.
Drill hits the mainstream
The Dubliner couldn’t have timed it better. London rappers Dave and Central Cee recently hit the number one spot in Ireland, the UK and beyond with the laidback drill track Sprinter.
With the likes of drill pop star Ice Spice at the top of the charts, the urban genre has officially hit the global mainstream, and Selló is perfectly positioned to capitalise on its success.
But perhaps the most attractive feature of his own unique take is that it is so unapologetically Irish.
Selló is a proud black Irish man – a combination that is still confusing to some.
He addresses the issue head on in his latest single, Irish x2, released last April.
At the beginning of the track, a voice says: “You’re black though, you can’t be from Ireland. Where are you really from?”
It’s the type of question Selló has faced all his life, despite growing up in Clondalkin in west Dublin and being as Irish as they come.
His music videos feature lads with hurleys, Dublin GAA jerseys, pints and packets of Tayto.
Selló is not putting it on either – just reinforcing and celebrating his own identity, whether people like it or not.
“It’s a weird buzz sometimes for people to understand. And then they ask you questions like, ‘Where are you from?’, ‘When did you come here?’ As if it’s an interview.
“Like, how do you not accept that this fella is black and he’s Irish.
“The same way you wouldn’t ask a black British lad, ‘Oh, were you born in Africa? Were you born in the UK?’ Cause people understand that there’s black people in Britain.”
The Irish rapper wrote the track after an experience he had in the Netherlands.
“I walked in, and a couple of guys were like, ‘Yo, this guy can’t be from Ireland! Where you from?’
“So I was like, this is a bit weird. Let me write about this. If you listen to the lyrics, I always say it’s actually very, very deep.
“The concept of the track was to just to completely allow people to understand that, ‘Look, I might not look like I’m from Ireland genetically. But I am.”
Putting Ireland on the map
As for his own ambitions, Selló is keen to put Ireland on the map when it comes to urban music.
“I want everyone just to know about Irish rap,” he told Buzz.
“What it is, who are involved. The same way people know about Dermot Kennedy, Cian Ducrot… Everybody knows Ireland for the boybands. Westlife. The Script. Everybody knows about U2. And singer-songwriters, and guitar boys.”
Where he leads, he hopes others will soon follow.
“My purpose is to allow the next generation of artists get to that stage. I’m one of the forefathers of the ting. So I shouldn’t be bogged down if I don’t get 100 million streams.”
Nevertheless, Selló’s sound has a distinctly commercial edge, with an organic fanbase that continues to accelerate and industry accolades including three Choice Music Prize nominations last year.
“I don’t want to be pessimistic,” he told Buzz.
“I always say I’m so pessimistic. But the aim of the game is just to leave a mark for the country.”
As for his Irish peers on the urban music scene, the rapper said: “I feel like everyone is doing good stuff.
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