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Joey Bada$$ is due onstage in less than half an hour and I’ve been squeezed in haphazardly for a quick interview right before the show.

The New York-rapper, just 22 years old, is one of the brightest hip-hop talents to emerge from the US in recent years and has been the subject of incredible hype ever since releasing his first two acclaimed mixtapes in 2012.

His last album All-Amerikkkan Bada$$ reached number five on the US Billboard 200 and his videos have collectively racked up hundreds of millions of views on YouTube. So far he’s reached a more niche following in the UK, but you get the sense it’s only a matter of time before he’s reaching a bigger audience.

Climbing the stairs to his green room backstage at the Kentish Town Forum, I find Joey dressed head to toe in black military gear, beret and all, which is one of the most striking stage looks I’ve ever seen.

He spends most of our chat slumped on the sofa with a bottle of water but he speaks articulately and he’s quickly up and animated while making more passionate points.

He’s a young rapper with a whole lot so say and his music has been described as some of the most politically and socially aware hip-hop of 2017. When I ask about this though, he’s unimpressed with the description.

“Define political. I’m not a politician. I’m not trying to be…I’m not talking about passing laws and signing treaties. I’m just talking about real shit that I see on the ground, on the surface. This is what's going on around me.”

Joey goes on to say that while he has an issue with the 'political' tag, he believes “every artist should be reflecting the times” they live in.

“This is not political music, this is real music. This is the first body of work I’ve made where it wasn’t for myself but it definitely wasn’t for politics. I have a hard time accepting people calling it political music.”

His song Rockabye Baby, one of the more incandescent tracks from All-Amerikkkan Bada$$ features the lyrics, "Fuck Donald Trump", which has become one of the most spoken-about moments on the album. However, Joey insists the problems he’s addressing on the record are much bigger than Trump.

“This album was being made before Trump got elected,” he says. “People need to hang themselves off of the whole Trump thing. This problem, these issues that I’m talking about pre-date Trump. I had these issues even under Obama. People need to open their eyes and realise that.

“Yes, there’s a f***ing popularised douchebag in the office right now but he’s only making these problems worse, he’s not the reason for the problems. Like, we had these problems with Obama. Stop thinking Donald Trump is the only problem. Like, he’s one of the many problems. I wish I didn’t even f***ing say his name on the album because in every interview people are asking me about him, and I don’t give a f*** about him.”

He goes on to say: “Yeah, I said ‘f*** him’ but who’s not saying that? Who’s not on that type of wavelength? He’s a part of the times, but just a little part of it.”

Whether he believes himself to be political or not, there’s no doubt that Joey Bada$$ is making some of the most thought-provoking and insightful hip-hop of the last decade.

He’s certainly not afraid to rap about heavy themes either. Pausing for thought, he says: “There’s levels to it. At the very microcosmic level, I’m a black man in the US and I’m describing my problems. That is the very lowest level of my album. But once you raise it up, I’m a human being in the world and I’m speaking for oppressed people in the world.

“I believe the human race cannot be good until we’re all good. You can’t have a piece of us suffering and say that we’re all good. I don’t care if it’s black people, or it’s Asian people, or it’s Latino people… until we’re all good and we’re all treated fairly and respectfully then we don’t have peace.

He continues: “We got s*** to figure out. We got problems, we got struggles, and that’s the very macro-cosmic elements of this project. It transcends just being a black man in America and it becomes just being a human being in the world.”