[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t is slightly disconcerting for one to be informed that they are conversing with a dead man. “He’s dead. Died four days,” so claims the artist formerly known as Tafari Pesto, one half of rising Dublin hip hop duo Dah Jevu. He goes on to explain that he is retiring this identity, and has been reborn as I&I Is The Far Eye, a name he draws from his interest in Rastafarianism. The other half of the act, Bobby Basil, is a bit less dramatic in his introduction. In explaining his choice of name, he says, “There’s not really much meaning behind it, it’s just fun to say.”

Dah Jevu are generally reluctant to tell too much about their lives outside music, my questions often being greeted with oblique answers or attempts to waive off questions. Bobby talks of how he was musically inclined from a young age, but he began to find himself on his current path in his teenage years: “When I was 16 I started writing poetry, but I started [rapping] in 2011.” For I&I, it seems that he got into rap as a form of catharsis. “I don’t mean to sound like a sob story or anything, but it was when my dad passed away,” he says. It’s quite clear that the pair regard themselves as poets just as much as rappers, and want to be regarded with some amount of integrity. Bobby notes, “When people hear that you’re a rapper they kind of turn their head a little bit.” Recently the duo have been working with a live band, something they hope will cause people to give them more credibility. “When people see the live instruments it’s more believable to people who don’t really listen to hip hop, and they can relate to it more,” says Bobby.

Hawks of Nepthys is thus far the duo’s only single. It’s a dank and murky track, with an equally disturbing video. Dah Jevu have been slow to release further material since the piece came out last June, but this has very much been a conscious decision on the part of the pair. Bobby explains that “I don’t feel an eagerness to get my stuff out as much as a lot of artists probably do. As long as you’re proving yourself to yourself it doesn’t matter what people see, or what people hear. If it’s going to go out, it’s going to go out.” That said, the duo are currently working on new material. They currently have two videos in the works, and hint at a number of festival appearances this summer. They are also hugely in demand at the moment to play support slots for visiting rap artists in Dublin, having already opened for the likes of Smoke DZA, Mobb Deep and Dead Prez. Dublin itself has a wealth of hip hop artists coming through at the moment, with the pair making specific reference to their friend Luka Palm as an example, but Bobby laments that despite this fact there hasn’t really been any crystallisation of a strong hip hop scene: “There are definitely some really good individual artists, but you have to really go off by yourself if you want to do something. There’s no point in just hanging around, that’s like suicide.”

Throughout the conversation it becomes increasingly apparent how well Bobby and I&I complement each other in terms of their personalities. They are like yin and yang, with Bobby being the more considered and thoughtful of the pair, and I&I being more erratic and prone to taking off at tangents. When discussing influences, the latter draws particular attention to his admiration for Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of China, explaining, “He went after the elixir of life. He literally wanted to be immortal. He didn’t want to die.” It’s this aspect of his character that I&I particularly admires, and something that he sees Dah Jevu as being able to achieve. “I’ll live on through my music,” he asserts. If their output in 2015 is as good as Hawks of Nepthys, that might just be something we see them achieving.

Dah Jevu open for Dels in Whelan’s on March 13. Tickets are €12 + booking fee and are available from Hidden Agenda. Photo by Benedict Shegog.