Simi Crowns speaks with an accent that reveals both sides of his history. Born in Lagos, Nigeria—a country best known musically for its pulsating Afrobeat and traditional Juju—the 26-year-old and his family left their native soil to start anew in Dublin when he was just 11, and while the rapper’s voice still holds onto his West African roots, there are times when he’ll lean into a syllable in a way that reveals his adopted homeland.

“I speak Yoruba, which is the native language in Nigeria,” says Simi. “That plays heavily into what I am. I’m trying to fuse some of that into the music, in terms of the language, the slang, the attitude. I really feel like I have the best of both worlds."

On the ear, it’s an unusual mash-up. Nigerians tend to speak with a rhythm, their words popping in time, as though being delivered by a well-tuned jazz drummer. Heavily-accented Dubliners, on the other hand, often sag into a consonant-free drawl, as if their jowls have been doused in Novocain. But Simi’s particular mix has become more common in the city as the children of Africans who first arrived on Irish shores over a decade ago come of age.

For Simi, rap offers an outlet to tell his story—a story mirrored by many young Irishmen of West African heritage. The young MC channels his natural vocal tics in a barbed flow that punctuates his intelligent lyricism and strong songwriting chops. Having hit the Irish summer festival circuit last year, his career is starting to gain some traction, with appearances on a handful of national radio stations and a few favorable blog write-ups to his name.

It’s October 23, 2015, and Simi is headlining a show in Dublin’s snug, seated Sugar Club venue in support of poverty eradication and disaster relief charity Oxfam. Calling the small crowd to rise to their feet and surround the stage, he uses the intimate gig to consider his experience of coming to Ireland and the hardship of growing up with a label over his head.

“Instead of being Simi Crowns, I started being the guy who’s black, the guy who’s an immigrant, the guy who’s a nigger—I wrote this track in reflection of those times,” he explains to the crowd before launching into “Lagos (Where I’m From),” a song that flips Anthony Hamilton’s “Comin’ from Where I’m From” into an ode to Simi’s hometown, warts and all. “Welcome to the state of Lagos, where they claim everything starts but with chaos,” he spits, “and we know that the government never cease to fail us.”

“Growing up we had no role models from our background,” Simi tells me after the show. “There was always that element of being shut out or misrepresented. But now, people are realizing that my story is just as important to tell as that guy with a fucking guitar’s.”