Rejjie Snow on Creative Expression, Global Influences Ahead of Tokyo Performance

Rejjie Snow was nine or ten years old when he first recorded a song, using a USB microphone designed for PlayStation games and the free audio software Audacity. He rapped over an instrumental from "Dead Presidents." That moment—layering his voice over someone else's beat with tools meant for something else entirely—taught him something he still carries: the pleasure of making sound, the power of saying something that matters to you.

Now, more than a decade into a recording career that began with that bedroom experiment, Snow is preparing to perform at CIRCUS ODAIBA in Tokyo, a festival run by the Shibuya-based venue known for championing underground music and UK bass culture. The Dublin-born rapper has spent those years building a sound that refuses easy categorization. His voice is low and composed, almost conversational. Beneath it sits a palette drawn from jazz, soul, funk, and hip-hop—influences he does not simply reference but absorbs and remakes as his own. His 2018 debut album Dear Annie explored vulnerability and loneliness with a directness that earned him serious attention. Since then, he has released two more albums and continued to expand what his art could be: music videos, fashion choices, visual imagery all treated as essential to the work, not decoration around it.

When Snow talks about expression, he speaks of it as something close to a calling. Making music means laying bare what is inside, he says, and that vulnerability is what allows connection to happen. He thinks of people as souls on a floating planet trying to understand what it all means, and art as one of the last sacred things left. This is not abstract philosophy for him—it shapes how he moves through the world, how he listens to cities, how he treats strangers.

He has lived in Dublin, London, and the United States, and each place has left its mark. But he approaches new cities with a particular kind of attention: trying to feel the energy without imposing himself, absorbing what he can and folding it into his own journey. When he visited Japan before, he ate at a quiet restaurant where an older owner prepared food with visible care and attention. They exchanged photos. It was a small moment, but it stayed with him—the kind of human exchange that matters more to him than any headline or streaming number.

Snow does not keep up with new music online the way he once did. As he has gotten older, he has moved toward solitude and what he calls a place of peace. He has a particular attachment to the era between 2006 and 2016, though he does not feel stuck there. What concerns him is whether hip-hop retains what he calls its purity—the beauty that emerges when the form is properly understood. The genre has blurred its boundaries in recent years, and he watches that shift with interest but also with a kind of protective attention.

When he creates, Snow is conscious of character and showmanship. He sees himself as the protagonist of his own universe. But his life outside music is calm and simple, and when he steps into that creative world, he tries to express himself as he actually is, without forcing anything. The laid-back quality of his rap, the mellow production, the visual choices—these are not calculated effects. They are him.

As he prepares for Tokyo, he is thinking about food, about tea fields, about his friend Bim, an artist he respects deeply. He is also preparing new music, moving into what he calls his next chapter. He says he is a little surprised, in a way that sounds genuine, that he is still doing this and still remaining somewhat himself. What he wants from Japanese listeners who see him live for the first time is simple: he wants them to have fun with him. He will show up as himself and take the stage with love. If he can connect with everyone during those sixty minutes, he will have done what matters.