Fortune Igiebor

I headed to the Grand Social to catch up with Fortune Igiebor to talk about his upcoming mixtape VSTW, out March 6th. From world building to vulnerability to Robbie Williams as a monkey, we covered all bases.

Tell me what this record is about, what does it mean to you?

It’s a continuation of a story I built over the last 2 EPs. I love world building so much, I’ve put all my listeners in this world with Mr Rage (more on this later), and the things he’s going through. I was faced with a version of Dublin where all of the love had dimmed away, I was facing a lot more hate than anything. It’s the documentation of me going out and learning about different parts of the world and broadening my sound. I can play my music all around the world now, when my focus before had just been Dublin.

Is there much of a hip-hop scene and space here in Dublin

I didn't realise there was space for myself here until I started making spaces. When I put myself in the room to be considered, I was considered. I started creating those opportunities for myself. I built the core support system and fanbase, people you connect with on a human to human basis, at live shows.

You mentioned the New Rage concept, can you expand on this.

New Rage is the collective, the name, the family, its the label, it's everything that we do, it's the umbrella we keep everything under. Mr. Rage is a character, allowing me to go apesh*t on stage. It’s a part of myself I tap into. Before times of support, there's a heavy version of the world that really shunned me. I kind of had a chip on my shoulder and I needed a healthy outlet to ring my cloth out. Everything would’ve become a ‘I told you so’ otherwise. It’s not just 2 minutes and 30 seconds of getting to show how class I am at rapping, it’s about giving people a sense of familiarity- that they’re not alone in whatever feeling they’re going through throughout the day.

Your live shows are fun and full of energy, how does this inform the recording and writing process or vice versa?

When it’s all said and done, I want to be one of Ireland’s best performers. With VSTW, with recording and writing,I wanted to prioritise honesty.

2025 was a year of having my foot on the gas the whole time, playing my first festivals, playing on RTE, traveling, and there was so much celebrating. I dawned so many masks that weren't me, making music that wasn't me.

VSTW was about going back to the roots, verses I felt too vulnerable, insecure and honest, and working on them.

I appreciate vulnerability from my favourite artists, it's one thing to hear something sonically and love it. But when you take the time to deep dive and understand and relate to the music, that moment, the butterflies that gives you a listener was something I really wanted to prioritise. Especially in hiphop, it's not seen in Irish hiphop enough.

Yeah, in Ireland we’re afraid to talk about our feelings and be vulnerable.

It’s something really similar between Irish and African culture, our parents didn't talk about anything, they kept everything bottled up. We’re in this generation where, as black and Irish kids, we're going to school with Irish kids and there’s so many things you see first, of why we aren't the same, but there's this big elephant in the room of why we’re all the same. I’ve opened up those conversations with friends and I'm realising that communication that hasn't happened there, it's so crucial now, I wanna be that person that opens up those conversations again.

Is there any collaboration on VSTW?

There's actually just one. It's Danzi, who's been on the last two. It was a conscious decision that I made, because it’s a continuation of previous records, there’s a story that's happening and Danzi was the main person who travelled the world with me, and we saw these things for the first time together. He's just that person in my life where I don't have to explain anything at all because he was there for the entire thing.

I didn't want to be as honest as I was on the tracks and have another artist take it as like 8 bars to like outrap me, I trust Danny to be able to take his mind to a place in a way I need for my projects. I think the song that we got on there is our best song yet, and it's cool to say that because we have so much music out.

That's called No Light, No Love. ​​I realised that in the action of going out and clubbing, there was no love in a lot of the company that we had at that time, there's no genuine love there. Even though there’s these mad strobe lights, there was no real light in those spaces for us at that time.

We’re actually recording a music video for that track in Paris after Paris fashion week.

Is there any you want to shout out on this track?

An artist called Reii, he produced a lot of the fan favourites on there, he produced the lead single Dublin Cousins. And Reii Kwanga Mukanda Kwangz, I've been making music with him since I was 16. The first time Danny made music with me was with Kwangz in the studio. It was a little thing that we had on weekends after school. 
So it's class for our growth as producers and as songwriters to be tracked through these projects.

We've talked about like real life experiences that have inspired the record but what music were you listening to, movies were you watching?
You know, give me the niche stuff that you kind of feel maybe filtered in a bit.

Did you see Better Man, the Robbie Williams biopic, where he's a monkey? Wild one, I thought it was an interesting topic, it had me thinking Robbie Willliams was the coldest guy from the UK! I was listening to an album called Rudebox by him and there's actually a sample of a song called the actor in No Light No Love. And yeah PJ Harvey is always in my rotation and Paris, Texas and I AM MUSIC by playboi carti was a major influence.

If you had to describe VSTW in three words, whether its the songs or the concept or the world, what springs to mind?

Redemption, honesty and euphoria.

VSTW is out now on all streaming platforms.