Joshua Idehen - I know You’re Hurting…

I sat down to chat with poet and musician Joshua Idehen on Friday 6th February. The weather in Britain was cold and dreary, reflecting the surreal disquiet of the current political climate. Idehen was dressed for the conditions, a black puffer coat and beanie insulating him from the bite. He was in the UK to promote his upcoming record, I Know You’re Hurting, Everyone Is Hurting, Everyone Is Trying, You Have to Try, out 6th March via Heavenly Records. While the title forgoes any brevity, the message behind its 17 tracks couldn’t be more clear.

On the day of our conversation, the news cycle felt particularly bleak on both sides of the Atlantic. To say we are living through dark times would be an understatement, with hopefulness hard to find in an era where injustice and moral decline have become increasingly de rigueur.

Nevertheless, on his new record Idehen manages to offer a glimmer of hope, a lightning rod through the murky skies above us. The idea that, between us, some form of deliverance might still be possible. “The thing you can do to make the world better is to make your life and the people around you better,” he says. “If everybody committed to doing that, then a lot of the messaging that has been fed to us won’t ever reach us.” He references recent community resistance in Minnesota as an example of the power of collective action. “It is very easy to get despairing at the world and feel helpless,” he adds, “but we’re not helpless.”

What does Idehen see as his role in these trying times? “The best thing I can do is make music that makes people feel less alone and happier,” he declares. “You have to practice the joy you want to see in the world.” It’s this kind of radical positivity that has drawn so many people to his work and his creative collaboration with Swedish producer Ludvig Parment over the course of the past twelve months.

Despite how they might read on the page, his words land as neither glib nor naive. The Joshua Idehen that sits before me is, of course, the same man who collaborated with Sons of Kemet on their explosive 2018 release Your Queen Is a Reptile. On the album’s opener, My Queen Is Ada Eastman, the poet skewered the institutional injustices of the time with powerful words that still ring true today.

Photo credit: Joshua Idehen by Fabrice Bourgelle

“At that point I was angry, I was grieving, I was sad, and I’m still all those things,” Idehen says. Becoming a father, however, forced him to interrogate those emotions more closely. “You’ve got all this grief and all this shame, but what is that in service of? How does creating work about that make the world a better place for your daughter, and for yourself?”

These questions feel increasingly universal. As many of us turn our backs on institutions that no longer seem fit for purpose, it can feel as though we are left to confront the world’s ills as individuals, but we are not alone. “We can create little pockets of light that attract other people,” he tells me. “That creates a bubble of light, and suddenly there’s a fucking lighthouse somewhere that other people can reach out to. Suddenly it’s not so dark in the world.”

This sentiment runs throughout his work, and his positivity is undeniably infectious. As I Know You’re Hurting… plays through, it becomes difficult to keep a smile from your face. Writing in hard times, however, does not always come easily for him. “I’m currently trying to work on the second album and I do end up stopping myself, thinking, ‘Why are you writing about joy at a time like this?’”. Despite these doubts, or perhaps because of them, Idehen remains steadfastly committed to the pursuit of lighting a path forward. As the title of his album insists, you have to try.

As is clear, Idehen’s lyricism and vital political commentary are integral to the record’s resonance, but so too is the contribution of Ludvig Parment, the Swedish producer also known for his solo project, ‘Saturday, Monday.’ The album hums with warm, sepia-toned textures as Parment imbues the tracks with a moorish vinyl crackle, chopping up soul samples that shimmer and swell beneath the boisterous bounce of heavy bass. Despite its political weight, this is fundamentally a dance record, one that lifts you from your seat with its propulsive energy.

The pair’s live performances contain the same sense of joyful abandon. With Parment controlling the decks, Joshua is free to roam the stage: an animated, interactive performer, he serves like a pastor at the pulpit, cultivating a sense of communion throughout the room. Seeing the two of them perform at last year’s Manchester Psych Fest, the atmosphere was suspended somewhere between Boiler Room and Wildfires Festival. In a moment where so much of life feels fragmented and isolating, that night and that room briefly functioned as proof of concept - a collective body moving, listening, and responding together in unison. 

“There is so much darkness in this world,” Idehen sings on ‘You Wanna Dance or What,’ the opener of his new record, “but not in this room and not between us.” It’s a line that neatly encapsulates both the philosophy behind I Know You’re Hurting, Everyone Is Hurting, Everyone Is Trying, You Have to Try and the experience of seeing it brought to life.

Joshua Idehen is on tour across the UK throughout the month of April and his album I Know You’re Hurting, Everyone Is Hurting, Everyone Is Trying, You Have to Try is out on Friday 6th March via Heavenly Records.