Bricknasty
Summary
Conflict is interesting in art. It forces conversations, and asks questions that often still need to be answered. On “Black’s Law”, the third body of work from Irish quintet Bricknasty, some of society’s most complex topics are explored — religion, political disillusionment, nationalism, human mentality. For mercurial frontman/guitarist Fatboy and co, it’s less about seeing the light themselves — and more pointing others in the right direction. The winding road to releasing the nine-track project has been arduous but enriching. After forming while studying at BIMM university in Dublin, the five initial members of the band, including the aforementioned masked maverick Fatboy, production whizz Cillian McCauley and drummer Korey Thomas, released their debut EP “INA CRUELER” via FAMM (Jorja Smith, Maverick Sabre) in June 2023, turning heads critically and garnering a loyal fan base with its idiosyncratic style and soulful tonal core. Their inaugural project was a stinging reflection of Fatboy’s life in Ballymun, the troubled North Dublin estate where he grew up, and a vivid rumination of the familial turmoil and crippling addiction he endured during his young adulthood. But the band’s follow up mixtape a year later was “just songs,” the frontman says. That’s even what they named it — or “XONGZ አስቀያሚ ጡብ” to be precise. Although by no means a sub par end product, Bricknasty internally were never quite content with “XONGZ”; and the assembling of the mixtape proved a tumultuous time for McCauley and Fatboy’s personal and professional relationship, having fallen out in the process of making its predecessor “INA CRUELER”. “[XONGZ”] wasn't really a hard thing to pull off,” the latter says. “Me and Cillian, we felt like we didn't give the best account of ourselves. We didn't push ourselves as hard as we should have.” When it came to approaching this latest, third outing, the band hit the reset button. Both Fatboy and McCauley were working on music individually, but were struggling to progress beyond initial ideas. So the pair decided to escape from the drudgery of the everyday in order to gain some perspective, and booked a B&B in Ard Mhaca on the Irish border to tackle the starting foundations of the new work. The process was reminiscent of the early days of their artistic partnership; a time prior to Bricknasty’s genesis when, having stumbled upon each other on Soundcloud as teens, they’d have stints making music in each other’s bedrooms until the early hours. The full circle return to this familiar DIY process rejuvenated the duo’s vision, and the roots of “Black’s Law” were born. The entire project was made in six months — only six of those days were spent in a professional recording studio. Two of those months were spent on tour. “It was a huge amount of work that we had to get done in a tiny amount of time,” Fatboy recalls. “It was a bit too much for everyone to be honest.” With much to do, limited time and pressures high, the band hit a tipping point. Founding members — bassist Dara Abdurahman and keyboard/saxophonist Louis Younge bowed out of the collective, now replaced by Sam Healy and Chris LaMotte. Despite the difficult turn of events, the remaining Nasties plowed forward to finish “Black’s Law”, largely thanks to the symbiotic musical bond between Fatboy and McCauley. The producer holds the craft and patience to condense his frontman’s volatile creativity, chiseling his bursts of genius into a digestible palette. “I can spin my wheels until the cows come home,” Fatboy laughs. “Cillian definitely is like the Quincy Jones. He finds the right spot for the right thing. I'll come in aggressive from the out go and start dancing and moving around and just trying to find stuff.” “When it gets real sweaty,” McCauley takes over, “when it gets hot in the room, sometimes you just need to be able to see the take. That is the job.” His counterpart interjects: “I’m in the heat of the chase. I have to make mistakes. I'm obligated to shit the bed. The testing creative process was ultimately worth its endeavour. Rip-roaringly ambitious in its song structures, “Black’s Law” crams vast sonic and thematic themes into sharp, groove-laden, often luscious compositions that never end as they begin. The musical variety is wide-spanning — from the house-tinged varnish of “imperret illi deus " to the wonderful Irish trad folk on “is é a locht a laghad”, and a hardcore edge on the backend of “go get that blade”. The EP plays out like a musical encyclopaedia, stunningly original with an almost competitive edge to its eclectic interior; a desire to “put the audience in the tumble-drier and stamp on their neck,” Fatboy jokes. The frontman’s lyricism is instinctively written and delivered through pained gasps and vibrato’d whispers. His words put religion at the centre, the foundations of such narrative stemming from his own finding of God in the darkest of times. Stricken by drug and alcohol ad...
- Format: Jazz
- Category: Jazz
- Event Type: showcase
- Presented By: Music From Ireland
Contributors
- Bricknasty
Raw Event JSON
Large nested arrays are compacted for page readability. Full payload remains in dataset files.
Open JSON payload
{
"id": "MS63230",
"track": null,
"focus_area": null,
"category": "Jazz",
"event_id": "MS63230",
"event_type": "showcase",
"format": "Jazz",
"genre": "Jazz",
"subgenre": "Hip-Hop / Rap",
"name": "Bricknasty",
"presented_by": "Music From Ireland",
"publish_at": "2025-11-11T09:22:00.000-06:00",
"reservable": false,
"reservable_id": null,
"reserved": false,
"date": "2026-03-13",
"end_time": "2026-03-14T00:40:00.000-05:00",
"start_time": "2026-03-14T00:00:00.000-05:00",
"message": null,
"image": null,
"credentials": [
{
"name": "Music Badge",
"type": "music"
},
{
"name": "Platinum Badge",
"type": "platinum"
}
],
"contributors": [
{
"id": 73773,
"city": "Dublin",
"country": "Ireland",
"entity_id": 2238994,
"genre": "Jazz",
"name": "Bricknasty",
"subgenre": "Hip-Hop / Rap",
"state": null,
"type": "artist",
"artist_connection": null,
"image": null,
"details": "Conflict is interesting in art. It forces conversations, and asks questions that often still need to be answered. On “Black’s Law”, the third body of work from Irish quintet Bricknasty, some of society’s most complex topics are explored — religion, political disillusionment, nationalism, human mentality. For mercurial frontman/guitarist Fatboy and co, it’s less about seeing the light themselves — and more pointing others in the right direction.\n\nThe winding road to releasing the nine-track project has been arduous but enriching. After forming while studying at BIMM university in Dublin, the five initial members of the band, including the aforementioned masked maverick Fatboy, production whizz Cillian McCauley and drummer Korey Thomas, released their debut EP “INA CRUELER” via FAMM (Jorja Smith, Maverick Sabre) in June 2023, turning heads critically and garnering a loyal fan base with its idiosyncratic style and soulful tonal core. \n\nTheir inaugural project was a stinging reflection of Fatboy’s life in Ballymun, the troubled North Dublin estate where he grew up, and a vivid rumination of the familial turmoil and crippling addiction he endured during his young adulthood. But the band’s follow up mixtape a year later was “just songs,” the frontman says. That’s even what they named it — or “XONGZ አስቀያሚ ጡብ” to be precise. \n\nAlthough by no means a sub par end product, Bricknasty internally were never quite content with “XONGZ”; and the assembling of the mixtape proved a tumultuous time for McCauley and Fatboy’s personal and professional relationship, having fallen out in the process of making its predecessor “INA CRUELER”. “[XONGZ”] wasn't really a hard thing to pull off,” the latter says. “Me and Cillian, we felt like we didn't give the best account of ourselves. We didn't push ourselves as hard as we should have.” \n\nWhen it came to approaching this latest, third outing, the band hit the reset button. Both Fatboy and McCauley were working on music individually, but were struggling to progress beyond initial ideas. So the pair decided to escape from the drudgery of the everyday in order to gain some perspective, and booked a B&B in Ard Mhaca on the Irish border to tackle the starting foundations of the new work. \n\nThe process was reminiscent of the early days of their artistic partnership; a time prior to Bricknasty’s genesis when, having stumbled upon each other on Soundcloud as teens, they’d have stints making music in each other’s bedrooms until the early hours. The full circle return to this familiar DIY process rejuvenated the duo’s vision, and the roots of “Black’s Law” were born.\n\nThe entire project was made in six months — only six of those days were spent in a professional recording studio. Two of those months were spent on tour. “It was a huge amount of work that we had to get done in a tiny amount of time,” Fatboy recalls. “It was a bit too much for everyone to be honest.” With much to do, limited time and pressures high, the band hit a tipping point. Founding members — bassist Dara Abdurahman and keyboard/saxophonist Louis Younge bowed out of the collective, now replaced by Sam Healy and Chris LaMotte. \n\nDespite the difficult turn of events, the remaining Nasties plowed forward to finish “Black’s Law”, largely thanks to the symbiotic musical bond between Fatboy and McCauley. The producer holds the craft and patience to condense his frontman’s volatile creativity, chiseling his bursts of genius into a digestible palette. “I can spin my wheels until the cows come home,” Fatboy laughs. “Cillian definitely is like the Quincy Jones. He finds the right spot for the right thing. I'll come in aggressive from the out go and start dancing and moving around and just trying to find stuff.”\n\n“When it gets real sweaty,” McCauley takes over, “when it gets hot in the room, sometimes you just need to be able to see the take. That is the job.” \n\nHis counterpart interjects: “I’m in the heat of the chase. I have to make mistakes. I'm obligated to shit the bed. \n\nThe testing creative process was ultimately worth its endeavour. Rip-roaringly ambitious in its song structures, “Black’s Law” crams vast sonic and thematic themes into sharp, groove-laden, often luscious compositions that never end as they begin. The musical variety is wide-spanning — from the house-tinged varnish of “imperret illi deus \" to the wonderful Irish trad folk on “is é a locht a laghad”, and a hardcore edge on the backend of “go get that blade”. The EP plays out like a musical encyclopaedia, stunningly original with an almost competitive edge to its eclectic interior; a desire to “put the audience in the tumble-drier and stamp on their neck,” Fatboy jokes.\n\nThe frontman’s lyricism is instinctively written and delivered through pained gasps and vibrato’d whispers. His words put religion at the centre, the foundations of such narrative stemming from his own finding of God in the darkest of times. Stricken by drug and alcohol ad...",
"links": {
"apple": "https://music.apple.com/us/artist/bricknasty/1497426463",
"bandcamp": "https://bricknastyband.bandcamp.com/music",
"instagram": "https://www.instagram.com/bricknxsty/?hl=en",
"soundcloud": "https://soundcloud.com/bricknasty-421280554",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/artist/3BcbwxzJm5f0yppgo2Vatd?si=m_6Jqx7sQvu7DTkBFyffFw",
"tiktok": "https://www.tiktok.com/@bricknxsty",
"website": "https://bricknasty.com/",
"youtube": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp2KENEqphA"
}
}
],
"venue": {
"accessible": false,
"age_policy": "21+",
"floor": null,
"id": "V0282",
"indoor_outdoor": "OUTDOOR",
"name": "Swan Dive Patio",
"parent_id": "V0230",
"parent_venue_name": "Swan Dive",
"venue_entry_info": null,
"formats": null,
"location": {
"address": "615 Red River St.",
"lat_lon": [
30.2671738,
-97.736684
],
"city": "Austin",
"postal_code": "78701",
"state": "TX",
"name": "Swan Dive"
},
"root": {
"accessible": null,
"age_policy": "21+",
"floor": null,
"id": "V0230",
"indoor_outdoor": "INDOOR",
"name": "Swan Dive",
"parent_id": null,
"parent_venue_name": null,
"venue_entry_info": null,
"formats": null
},
"events": "[omitted 5 venue events]"
},
"description": null,
"accessibility": [
"High sensory experience"
],
"accessible_venue": false,
"add_bcl_url": false,
"add_slido": false,
"age_policy": "21+",
"american_sign_language": false,
"apple_url": "https://music.apple.com/us/artist/bricknasty/1497426463",
"audio_description": false,
"caption_url": null,
"closed_captioned": false,
"cpe_credit": false,
"has_subtitles": false,
"hash_tags": [],
"high_sensory_experience": true,
"live": false,
"long_description": "Conflict is interesting in art. It forces conversations, and asks questions that often still need to be answered. On “Black’s Law”, the third body of work from Irish quintet Bricknasty, some of society’s most complex topics are explored — religion, political disillusionment, nationalism, human mentality. For mercurial frontman/guitarist Fatboy and co, it’s less about seeing the light themselves — and more pointing others in the right direction.\n\nThe winding road to releasing the nine-track project has been arduous but enriching. After forming while studying at BIMM university in Dublin, the five initial members of the band, including the aforementioned masked maverick Fatboy, production whizz Cillian McCauley and drummer Korey Thomas, released their debut EP “INA CRUELER” via FAMM (Jorja Smith, Maverick Sabre) in June 2023, turning heads critically and garnering a loyal fan base with its idiosyncratic style and soulful tonal core. \n\nTheir inaugural project was a stinging reflection of Fatboy’s life in Ballymun, the troubled North Dublin estate where he grew up, and a vivid rumination of the familial turmoil and crippling addiction he endured during his young adulthood. But the band’s follow up mixtape a year later was “just songs,” the frontman says. That’s even what they named it — or “XONGZ አስቀያሚ ጡብ” to be precise. \n\nAlthough by no means a sub par end product, Bricknasty internally were never quite content with “XONGZ”; and the assembling of the mixtape proved a tumultuous time for McCauley and Fatboy’s personal and professional relationship, having fallen out in the process of making its predecessor “INA CRUELER”. “[XONGZ”] wasn't really a hard thing to pull off,” the latter says. “Me and Cillian, we felt like we didn't give the best account of ourselves. We didn't push ourselves as hard as we should have.” \n\nWhen it came to approaching this latest, third outing, the band hit the reset button. Both Fatboy and McCauley were working on music individually, but were struggling to progress beyond initial ideas. So the pair decided to escape from the drudgery of the everyday in order to gain some perspective, and booked a B&B in Ard Mhaca on the Irish border to tackle the starting foundations of the new work. \n\nThe process was reminiscent of the early days of their artistic partnership; a time prior to Bricknasty’s genesis when, having stumbled upon each other on Soundcloud as teens, they’d have stints making music in each other’s bedrooms until the early hours. The full circle return to this familiar DIY process rejuvenated the duo’s vision, and the roots of “Black’s Law” were born.\n\nThe entire project was made in six months — only six of those days were spent in a professional recording studio. Two of those months were spent on tour. “It was a huge amount of work that we had to get done in a tiny amount of time,” Fatboy recalls. “It was a bit too much for everyone to be honest.” With much to do, limited time and pressures high, the band hit a tipping point. Founding members — bassist Dara Abdurahman and keyboard/saxophonist Louis Younge bowed out of the collective, now replaced by Sam Healy and Chris LaMotte. \n\nDespite the difficult turn of events, the remaining Nasties plowed forward to finish “Black’s Law”, largely thanks to the symbiotic musical bond between Fatboy and McCauley. The producer holds the craft and patience to condense his frontman’s volatile creativity, chiseling his bursts of genius into a digestible palette. “I can spin my wheels until the cows come home,” Fatboy laughs. “Cillian definitely is like the Quincy Jones. He finds the right spot for the right thing. I'll come in aggressive from the out go and start dancing and moving around and just trying to find stuff.”\n\n“When it gets real sweaty,” McCauley takes over, “when it gets hot in the room, sometimes you just need to be able to see the take. That is the job.” \n\nHis counterpart interjects: “I’m in the heat of the chase. I have to make mistakes. I'm obligated to shit the bed. \n\nThe testing creative process was ultimately worth its endeavour. Rip-roaringly ambitious in its song structures, “Black’s Law” crams vast sonic and thematic themes into sharp, groove-laden, often luscious compositions that never end as they begin. The musical variety is wide-spanning — from the house-tinged varnish of “imperret illi deus \" to the wonderful Irish trad folk on “is é a locht a laghad”, and a hardcore edge on the backend of “go get that blade”. The EP plays out like a musical encyclopaedia, stunningly original with an almost competitive edge to its eclectic interior; a desire to “put the audience in the tumble-drier and stamp on their neck,” Fatboy jokes.\n\nThe frontman’s lyricism is instinctively written and delivered through pained gasps and vibrato’d whispers. His words put religion at the centre, the foundations of such narrative stemming from his own finding of God in the darkest of times. Stricken by drug and alcohol ad...",
"meeting_url": null,
"meeting_url_live": false,
"mentorly_url": null,
"mobile_audio_url": null,
"open_captioned": false,
"playlist_tag": null,
"rebroadcast": false,
"recommended_ids": [],
"search_conversions": null,
"short_program": false,
"slido_url": null,
"sort": "BRICKNASTY",
"source": "Official",
"squad_up_url": null,
"stream_embed": null,
"stream_id": null,
"stream_url": null,
"strobe_warning": false,
"subdiscipline": null,
"summit": null,
"summit_display_name": null,
"tags": [],
"talent_attending": null,
"title_only": false,
"track_display_name": null,
"trailer_id": null,
"trailer_url": null,
"video_on_demand": null,
"vimeo_id": null,
"vod": false,
"xr_project_type": null,
"youtube_id": "gp2KENEqphA",
"related_sales_client": null
}