“Fuck the Sunday Independent and their write-ups…” – The People of Ireland (allegedly) vs Versatile

Anyone can tell that Fifty Shades never received professional editing, that Cyberpunk 2077 was rushed from development, or that Cats— never mind. Black Sabbath were once described as the Titanic band on the eve of Armageddon. Ke$ha was dismissed for years despite being legitimately talented (No, seriously, listen to The Gag Order). George Harrison called Elton John formulaic. Yet convincing their millions of fans proved fruitless. Music depends entirely on subjectivity, making the profession of a music "critic" more useless than your average TD, though some "critics" still insist upon their own self-importance.

In recent years, such "critics" have become ideologically driven, assuming a moral duty to impose conformity upon others. And in contemporary Irish culture, that’s where the alternative hip-hop group Versatile comes in.

Easily the most rebellious act in recent years, with a fanbase sick of dictation, Versatile exists on the fringes of an industry that hates them. They began as an internet sensation and weaselled into becoming Ireland’s most hyped act, achieving momentum that the then-struggling Irish hip-hop community had only ever dreamed of. State-funded artists and enterprises took umbrage to this and booted Versatile further beyond those fringes under the guise of impiety and "social justice" over dodgy lyrics. Cancelling rappers for dodgy lyrics, eh? That’ll keep you busy.

Just like Eminem in the late 90s, Versatile’s earlier singles We Sell Brown, Dublin City G's, and Scorching Again saw them hollowly reported as an Irish parent’s worst nightmare. "Upsetting" lyrics aside, it’s easy to see the actual reason as to why Versatile ruffled feathers, the number one being that their emergence bore no backing, virtuous box-ticking for the increasingly territorial Irish Arts Council or state-financiers (Who funds that Arts Council?). A minimum standard in the already timid world of Irish entertainment is for artists to prove their political affiliations, and while Versatile never did, one thing is for absolute certain: they unwittingly exposed the ugly nepotism and outright poison among some of Ireland’s most allegedly virtuous characters.

Under Versatile’s belt are Live at the Marquee, two 3Arena gigs (the latter 3Arena gig didn’t sell out but still stands as being one of the largest domestic Irish hip-hop events), and having toured two continents with Snoop Dogg without any council’s help.

And some still think it was about social justice?

The hatred for them mirrors the days of The Sex Pistols, where the BBC condemned them despite enabling Jimmy Saville, or even Marilyn Manson cursing Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst as nothing beyond a misogynistic bully, despite Manson’s numerous sexual misconducts. Sure, Durst was known to be an immature prick because of his allusions to being God's gift and his causing Eddie Van Halen to drive a tank through his garden and put a gun to his head, but where’s that same criticism directed at Steven Tyler, Pete Townshend, or even Rick James? And wasn’t one of Versatile’s harshest critics mutinied for spousal abuse?

Such hypocrisy also takes the form of preferred art; another critic, who predictably stated their fictional antics should have firebombed their act long ago, publicly shared his proud ownership of D12 World on vinyl. Fantastic album, but it contains Just Like U, where two pimps casually describe raping and abusing women, which I can’t recall a moral behind. The same person, like other well-to-do "critics", has frequently cheer-leaded his virtuous Irish rappers while condemning those who’ve chosen Versatile over them.

What that person seems to forget is that our flag doesn’t feature a hammer and sickle, though I imagine such a "critic" wishes it did. Art is the final frontier of a safe space to push boundaries and test the moral, political, or taboo outlines and societal norms of being a human without actually hurting anybody, though similar critics are doing their hardest to stamp that out. What they also forget is that music is a product for consumers; as a consumer, I purchased and enjoyed Fuck Versatile, both digitally and physically. I’ve also bought their clothing. Who is anyone to dictate how I should spend my money? I don’t want to hear music advocating victimhood and how the young are being screwed. Am I not reading that every day and living in it?

There’s also the “better lyricists” argument which again (shock horror), is subjective. One of my favorite novels is Ulysses; plenty, including Virgina Woolf, hated it and some still do. I personally thought Mrs Dalloway, Woolf’s response to Ulysses, was boring despite it being a shorter book. Just because one likes hearing their favorite artist use a few fancy words doesn’t mean everyone else has to cream themselves over it.

The reality is, it's popular to back up the credibility of one’s own music taste by dissing the right art, whether it’s Limp Bizkit, Versatile, The Sex Pistols, Black Sabbath, or anyone else. Lest we forget, the music "critics" are regular Joe Soaps who need reassurance for their own fragile egos by taking pot-shots at easy targets.

Unlike a certain Irish post-punk band, who were especially well-versed in their market, Versatile accidentally uncovered a gap that nobody knew existed in Irish entertainment. Again, their music isn’t political, nor is it weaponized, but their appearance alone is seen by fans as an antidote and a trashing towards an elitist, timid, and regurgitated arts scene. Going back to the 90s, Durst was similarly seen by fans as the ultimate anti-hero against the onslaught of cheesy boybands and pop stars. That’s not to say Bizkit weren’t cheesy; their trashier songs are their most popular. But make no mistake, while Durst’s fans might have claimed him as their man on the inside of the increasingly corporate music industry, that status wasn’t half as legitimate as they believed. Because shareholders happily reaped the rewards, he was allowed to upset the apple cart, and was still as tailored as any visibly corporate-established act. The Sex Pistols, at their time, were similarly tailored by Malcolm McLaren, but it was the resistance from John Lydon against that tailoring that saw them fall apart three years into their reign.

Where this compares to Versatile, is they were barely facilitated. Their media attention was mostly derived from the bewilderment or bitterness of their successes. But their successes stemmed from themselves; they are completely self-made. But the outrage over the lyrics of Dublin City G’s, from IAC consultants, “critics” and other artists, was less about social justice and was merely a low-hanging fruit to mask the reality of the anger. Here were three lads, a talented multi-instrumentalist, and two frontmen with no musical training whatsoever, unintentionally making a well-deserved mockery of an elitist scene and making its consultants look nearly redundant. It simply boils down to a pompous group unable to fathom how such a transgressive act snuck through the barriers without ticking the necessary boxes, and thus that same pompous group tries to gaslight and force a resistant fanbase into conformity in response. So unlike Bizkit, that aspect of Versatile’s fandom is partly based on something legitimate, since Versatile were not tailored specifically for this.

As well as that, for me and other fans, Versatile put on a good show and are entertaining. The hedonistic lifestyles of fictional personas Casper Walsh and Eskimo Supreme are gleefully depicted, highly reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange, with Alex Sheehan (Eskimo) being a fan of Stanley Kubrick. Their shenanigans, generally involving copious amounts of drugs, sex, violence, and general insanity, hark back to Guy Ritchie’s earlier films and even, in my opinion, a superhero film like Kick-Ass. We’ll go into that later.

But, yes, Versatile are tasteless; I enjoy that. I don’t owe any explanation for it, the same way nobody owes an explanation for enjoying horror movies or whodunnits. Versatile are not making music to appeal to everyone; they’re making music for me, but their detractors’ attempts to alter and gaslight my preferences while pushing theirs on me borders on fascism. And before I’m accused of bashing, I do enjoy some of their acts, but I cherish The Slim Shady and Marshall Mathers LPs, or The Rolling Stones album, Beggars Banquet, or Grip It! On That Other Level by Geto Boys. I also can’t decide which novel I prefer, Trainspotting or American Psycho. See a pattern yet?

Dublin City G's, Versatile's most controversial song, depicts Casper and Eskimo as absolute dirtbags going about selling drugs, killing people with dodgy ecstasy tablets, and the gravest offence, having sex with black women. It's easy to pinpoint which part sparked The Irish Twitter Wars of 2019/2020, and while the lyrics are indeed gratuitous, they don’t sound any less similar to what one would hear in a lot of old school horrorcore, like Eminem killing his girlfriend, Geto Boys rapping about necrophilia, or Bizarre sexually assaulting everyone, or Ganksta N-I-P (a 90s rapper from Texas who you absolutely have never heard of) hiding suffocated babies in his house or getting a woman to give him head while the cockroaches and rats eat her alive.

Then there was the complaint that Scorching Again used the homophobic f-word, despite it not actually being used in a homophobic context. It doesn't make it right of course, and I’m not going to dictate what anyone should feel about either song, but if folks are going to flog Versatile, then old school hip-hop needs to be held accountable too, because that’s where they’re getting their inspiration from.

One journalist found it unfair that Versatile were still allowed to perform in the UK with such controversial lyrics, meanwhile Tyler, the Creator was banned over his, but I struggle to understand why one should care about the country that voted in Brexit. Indeed, it was moronic to ban Tyler; that was Britain’s loss, and as far as I'm aware, we haven’t been part of the UK in over seventy-three years, so I don’t see how that affects us. But nobody actually sits listening to Dublin City G's, thinking Eskimo Supreme is a solid role model in the same way nobody thinks Slim Shady, Bizarre, Ganksta N-I-P or over half the male artists from the 90s are. It's meant to be tasteless; the Eskimo character is someone you'd avoid in the street, no different to a horror movie villain. Alex Sheehan in real life? The total opposite. It's a piece of nihilistic fiction; where are all the complaints about characters such as Sick Boy and Begbie in the Trainspotting series? Both behave like animals and recieve very little repercussions.

Other rappers, who won’t be named, are so concerned with virtuously savaging an obviously fictional piece of work, they’re highly reminiscent of Rage Against the Machine having public bitch-fits to Limp Bizkit overtaking them in popularity, despite Limp Bizkit never actually harming RATM or anyone else. I don’t ever recall Casey Walsh or Alex Sheehan inciting divide; some of their detractors did and still haven’t been held accountable for it. And similarly, to how Rage Against the Machine slowly became Rage On Behalf of the Machine, it’s funny that some of the most outspoken Irish “critics” and rappers curse the broken system despite being mouthpieces for it.

They also deliberately whitewash Versatile’s success by suggesting that they are merely a parody, novelty comedy act, or "wannabe gangsters with audiences full of edgy kids." The first points prove that naysayers haven’t actually listened to Versatile, only the popular songs. Contrary to popular belief, Ketamine isn’t comedy, nor does it glorify drugs. Yes, it has comedic moments, but it’s also a fairly intense concept. Lost and Found, an overlooked horrorcore track centering on an Illuminati-like cult, features a demonic Casper and Eskimo child-snatching and sacrificing stillborn foetuses. Filmed at the Howard Mausoleum Pyramid in Arklow, the cinematography is fantastic, with Sheehan’s Kubrick fandom shining, obviously inspired by Eyes Wide Shut.

The latter point about "wannabe gangsters" is easily dismissed by their refusal to engage in pathetic feuds. I discovered the "edgy kids" point firsthand to be nonsense when I saw them live. The tickets were a Christmas present, and I was nervous, convinced I’d be the oldest person there (I’m 28). As I panicked leaving the hotel, I had to be assured several times that I wouldn’t be the oldest, and lo and behold, wasn’t the crowd diverse? Yes, there were kids getting thrown out for having drugs, just like at any other gig in Ireland (well, maybe not Garth Brooks), but it was one of the best gigs I’d ever attended. But it’s almost like naysayers were full of shit with their so-called critiques, which in no way sounded like they were trying to ideologically push their more allegedly virtuous acts.

Their hatred isn’t even based on anything legitimate. If one dislikes the music, fine. But most of the hate and sneering stems from the allegations of racism, sexism, classism, "posh lads thinking they’re hard", etc., from folks who are either unwittingly ignorant or purposefully ignorant, for the evidence disproving the allegations is all there. The few Irish Times articles were mere hit pieces after they’d been rebuffed several times. Why don’t people listen to the very real interviews on the Talking Bollox Podcast? A lot of Versatile’s detractors were the ones rolling around their floors the last three years, screeching about “staying informed”, only when it came to deplatforming Versatile, it seemed the real message was “stay informed with the information we deem acceptable.”

The Ice Cube Halloween costume is a clear example of this. Why did none of these virtuous, informed people seek context on why Casey was in that costume? Does context matter? When there comes a point where narratives are being manipulated, then yes. Is blackface wrong? HARD YES. Did he know it was? Did even half the world know when the picture was taken, before he was of drinking age or played his first gig? Yes, it was acceptable to seek an apology, which he did give, but people are quick to forget that blackface wasn’t properly taught in Irish education, and there were reports in the past of some schools performing Hairspray and having the white actors covered in fake tan, but that cannot have been done knowingly. You also had mainstream figures, and fully grown adults, like Jimmy Fallon, Kimmel, Sarah Silverman, and Julianne Hough, among others, not only doing blackface, but also enacting negative stereotypes (might I add here, that Silverman actually donned black minstrel make-up; how did she ever come back from that?) and dropping the N-word, and they would have had far more education on the issue than Casey Walsh did. And I can nearly guarantee the Twitterati only skimmed over it when it became trendy.

On the other side, there's Kojaque, similarly independent but plays ball with everyone. But somebody has already tried tarnishing him with things he allegedly said in interviews (I couldn’t find any evidence of this). There’s that previously mentioned post-punk band. Their success stems from time and place, but what’s shielding them from criticism is their ownership under a corporate entity that owns the popular gig venues in Dublin and probably worldwide. It’s in others’ best interests to stay on good terms with them because it’s already known that the band members are not who they claim to be.

The other problem with these "critics" is that they’re so caught up in their virtuous public floggings that they refuse to see any of the actual problematic aspects of the acts they cheerlead for, specifically the manufacturing from the same factory as that previously mentioned post-punk band. They cry about the horrors afflicting our country, despite the marketing coming from organisations that afflict the horrors. Kojaque’s debut album, Town’s Dead, despite being a great album, unwittingly exposed a similar irony that was lost on most of its listeners. This is nothing in comparison to two state-televised shows featuring another rapper performing a song about how resilient he and his fellow Dubliners are to the coprorations ruining their city. Who funds Other Voices? Sure, another independent rap group seems to be in aghaidh an grán by being deemed "offensive" by the Tories, but nobody likes the Tories anyway? That’s an easy fight, but it’s sticking out a mile that this group could become mouthpieces for the state too. Hopefully, I’m wrong.

In Versatile’s case, they’re battling any artist’s worst nightmare: censorship. Twitter warriors, left and right, shun censorship until it comes to artists they don’t like. "#deplatformversatile" was a hashtag created by those warriors in the wake of false allegations, narratives, and hearsay, all of which are easily debunked. Following this rubbish comes the repeated argument that Versatile "fell off", but when judging Irish hip-hop as a whole, it’s easily dismissible. Unfortunately, its moment has passed. The whole art form has diluted now with state media propagandising their artists, or everyone and their mother being rappers now, with Versatile being among the very few who stand out. Any artist who once got millions of views, like MC Pat Flynn, Kojaque, Ink, or Versatile, isn’t getting half that anymore. Look at the video for Town’s Dead and tell me that it shouldn’t be up there with some of the best Irish-directed music videos.

Ketamine and Prefontaine, bearing no radio play whatsoever, are ingrained so heavily in parts of modern Ireland that it’s easy to imagine why bitterness impeded state-championed artists across genres. And it’s true, everything following Prefontaine hasn’t achieved the same milestone, but that doesn’t mean they’re experiencing DaBaby’s fate. Ireland is a small country; half of Versatile’s success originally stemmed from morbid curiosity rather than fandom. They came at a time when Ireland had never witnessed anything remotely like it. Now, such interest is almost prohibited, so what’s left is a loyal fanbase. For fear of backlash, media outlets rarely report on Versatile, though when they do, they never fail to virtue signal. DaBaby was set for mainstream success; his real-life antics plummeted his reputation, so the media enjoyed his downfall. Meanwhile, Versatile were always outsiders, and their removal from the spotlight only dumped them further underground, where they’ve landed deep into cult status. Personally, I think they’re far better this way. But let’s not lie to ourselves; the traditional mainstream route is always preferable. Everything is already catered and paid for, but you’re still at the mercy of corporate overlords who pillage art to suit their pockets.

And this isn’t limited to just music but also film, television, and even literature. Look at the works of Louise O’Neill or Sally Rooney and tell me they’re not tailored to a large demographic. It’s rare we get outsiders like Roddy Doyle or Irvine Welsh to show us a hard-to-find side entrance into the mainstream. Doyle’s The Commitments, a comedic masterpiece, was originally self-published; it didn’t meet traditional narrative formulas. Meanwhile, Trainspotting, as Welsh has admitted, only saw the light of day due to nepotism. Lurid content aside, it met no standard criteria for genre fiction.

Art can be repugnant, and whether that comes from Versatile, or film directors like Harmony Korine or John Waters, you’re seeing what they have fully intended. It’s clear that the material has come before the want of money and fame, though money is always a nice thing to have. Versatile’s cult status reminds me of Insane Clown Posse’s, and while Juggalos and the carnivalesque act are major no-no’s for me (though Hate Her to Death is a guilty pleasure), I admire their values and resolve, down to their FBI lawsuit and fleecing record companies instead of being fleeced.

Similarly hated by the establishment, they famously feuded against Sharon Osbourne, who, despite being responsible for history’s greatest rocker, was shamelessly cutthroat. This she inherited from her father, Don Arden, a figure in the 1970s British music scene known for using foreheads as ashtrays.

Where Versatile differed in their handling of these attempted feuds is that they didn’t acknowledge their condemners’ names, a bigger affront as the condemners were smaller acts piggybacking for notoriety. It’s pretty ironic that “sophisticated and educated” people will label Versatile as “pussies” for this, despite it being the far more mature action. One person received public acknowledgement but won’t be named here, though her crocodile tears while falsely accusing Casey Walsh of harassment make her easy to identify. Were his actions stupid? Absolutely. I wouldn’t have even darkened the same vicinity as somebody so opportunistic and who had already tried tarnishing my career. Most disturbing was the insanity of her posse admonishing Walsh for sharing the CCTV footage that exonerated him, as well as her and her posse smugly facilitating death threats to his family and friends.

But what this incident also exposed was how dishonesty and hypocrisy are favoured when virtuous pundits and "critics" choose to ignore a perjurer getting a state-sponsored programme after she tried to scapegoat somebody who, contrary to ignorant belief, is miles below her class.

"Oh, but he facilitated dodgy lyrics," will always be the dull answer.

But when hasn’t rap music contained dodgy lyrics? It’s obvious that the works of Versatile are fictional, which people lately seem to struggle with distinguishing from reality. A good portion of the UK drill scene has artists mocking actual murder victims (some as young as sixteen) and then there are folks who still love Chris Brown despite his completely real-life antics, and he’s still permitted to sell out the 3 Arena to screaming fans?

Ultimately, I enjoy Versatile because of my love for Guy Ritchie’s earlier films, Snatch and Lock Stock. They feature tones that are difficult to recreate, that thrill and amuse, but shine in Matthew Vaughan’s (producer of those films) cult superhero film, Kick-Ass, about a comic book nerd who wants to be a superhero. With uproarious hilarity and purposely laughable superhero suits, it’s a film with serious stakes, character moments, tastelessness and brutal violence involving a murderous Batman figure, played by Nicholas Cage, impersonating Adam West, and his equally murderous eleven-year-old.

There’s a moment where two ridiculously dressed "superheroes" drive towards a trap; the music is scored so deathly serious by Marius De Vries, that when I first heard Raytown eleven years later, that scene immediately sprang to mind.

This over-reaching comparison doesn’t stop there. Kick-Ass was originally a graphic novel written by Mark Millar, who also penned Wanted, which was about supervillains engaging in the worst crimes imaginable, from murder to Nazism to rape to paedophilia to animal husbandry. It’s a story that incessantly alters between serious and silly, one example being the protagonist Wesley defeating Shithead, an Australian made from the excrement of the 666 most evil people, including Hitler, with bleach.

The introduction to the supervillain, The Killer, engaging in gay sex just because, springs to mind constantly when Eskimo in Fat Gangster Laugh alludes to blowing grandads for kicks.

And yes, a lot of Versatile’s content is satirical; satire doesn’t have to be aimed squarely at the powers that be. A small section of their supporters, and all of their detractors have serious trouble using the word, with those few supporters simply not understanding it and thinking Versatile are simply taking the piss out of hip-hop, which is beyond untrue. Satire was originally intended to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted, but nowadays it can be used simply as an exaggeration of society’s most heinous vices. With Versatile, Casper and Eskimo manifest some of Ireland’s more heinous vices similar to Slim Shady manifesting Detroit’s, and once Versatile’s nihilistic and startling portrayals are unpacked, it’s easy to see this. Meanwhile, their detractors purposely misrepresent satire to misrepresent the group’s intent, and have absolutely no intention of engaging with the music, probably because Versatile don’t preach some moralistic viewpoint after the horror. Where Casper and Eskimo differ to Slim Shady, is that Casper and Eskimo don’t switch to a real Marshall Mathers counterpart, but anything Mathers uttered was far more appalling than anything Versatile did. Kim wasn’t a Shady tune, and it’s well-documented that Mathers’ very real relationship with women was far troubling than either Alex Sheehan's or Casey Walsh’s.

That said, while I’m a fan, I’m also critical of them, unlike "critics" who cheerlead their can-do-no-wrong acts, and I have been before. Not everything Versatile has released has satisfied me. Hell, the Stones are my favourite band, and they’ve released flops. Flashy Flashy was a disaster, and with it being Versatile’s first song following the controversies, I thought this was the middle of the end. A song about expensive watches, its most offensive word was "boner" and it seemed they had descended into "comedy rap". The only upside was the video, which was extremely well put together. The follow-up, Babyproof, with Offica, while an improvement, was a wasted opportunity (promoting safe sex), though it did have minor significance.

Meanwhile, there had been teases here and there of a debut album over the years, and with Flashy Flashy and Babyproof in mind, I thought the best was behind them. Relieved sighs were emitted after hearing Terminal 1. Then a week later, I woke up at 4:00 am to buy their debut, Fuck Versatile, named after one of the decrying hashtags and the first album I had bought since Strut by Lenny Kravitz in 2014. Now, despite Fuck Versatile being among my favourite rap albums, did it fall into the same depraved depths as The Slim Shady LP?

Only in my dreams, but Fuck Versatile wasn’t toned down either. It was obnoxious, flamboyant, outrageous, and hilariously nihilistic at times, and it was far superior to everything before, technically and lyrically, but it was criminally under-promoted, though it’s impressive that they secured a number 1 spot on iTunes, beating new music from Pink, Madonna, and Bob Dylan. Such a small success may mean little to those three, but it means everything to an independent act against a nepotistic system of Catholic Church-era finger-wagging (It's amusing how all these virtuous figures want to dismantle the Catholic Church despite them bearing more resemblance to it by the day). No media outlet mentioned Fuck Versatile, but they did praise the similarly independent Town’s Dead two months later. Make no mistake, Kojaque’s success should be championed, but to have the same broken system that inspired his material unironically sing his praises feels disingenuous. He only behaves accordingly, as any of us would.

The lack of acknowledgement towards Fuck Versatile’s technical aspects—other than one sneering reviewer who hates them anyway—is clear evidence for the kind of pretentiousness that persists among the Irish media. The fact that this forty-minute LP wasn’t even recorded in a studio is a testament to genius producer Evan Kennedy, whose experimental beats smash his frontmen through a multitude of different hip-hop genres. While it performs open-heart surgery on numerous topics such as love, loss, and triumph, the album still contains the usual Versatile shtick, the Satanic lifestyle of sex, drugs, and general insanity, but creates a more coherent storyline of the characters triumphing, slipping into degradation, and then triumphing again.

Fat Gangster Laugh opens Fuck Versatile by plunging listeners headfirst into the insanity. The personas are out in force, from Eskimo’s blasphemous opening to Casper flashing at grannies and throwing somebody from a flat, both absolutely revelling in what the characters mean to their fans and their detractors. It’s interesting that Kennedy is quoted as saying the first album he ever bought was Hybrid Theory because a nu metal influence can be heard mixing with the track's East Coast beat. Unfortunately, there was no music video for this song, but because that falls under another criticism I have, I’ll touch on that and Billy the egg salesman’s appearance after.

Then comes Loaded, with its very specific cloud rap sound, detailing the characters’ extravagant wealth with some heavy allusions to McGregor's antics. Fantasy sees the pair degenerately fawning over others’ girlfriends. Strangely, it’s their most level-headed song, despite Casper’s grungy, sexually explicit lyrics mixing with the playful Hawaiian beat. Raytown is a shocker, softly underscored by a one-woman choir, yet it offers a perfect mix of serious and hilarious lyrics, consisting of the two characters reminiscing about their teenage years. There’s some slick imagery provided, with Eskimo sailing around Dublin Bay and Casper being denied by the father of some young one he’s trying to shift or shag. Man On, featuring Dania, offers a tropical/EDM beat as he laments a failed romance while on holiday, dominating the track with Casey’s chorus in between and brief input from Eskimo.

Kylie’s Cocktail Bar, a dance interlude, opens the latter half in a seedy gay nightclub, with Alex repeating, "I’m going to lick your arse tonight," in a British accent. The behaviour worsens with three narratives in the track Ballymun 2001. Amidst the high life, Eskimo seeks instant gratification in all the worst ways imaginable. He’s an absolute dirtbag here, gloriously backed by Kennedy’s demented combination of dark synth and J hip-hop, the former of which encapsulates that Clockwork Orange inspiration. Then comes a feature from Costello of Street Literature, one of Irish hip-hop’s original pioneers and a modern Dublin poet. Here, he easily inserts himself into Versatile’s realm, detailing a series of grimy drug and sex sessions. Meanwhile, Casper dives off the Luas to attack another ne’er-do-well for disrespect.

It’s interesting that both Dania and Costello were two of three earlier support acts for Versatile, yet they are the only two main features on this album. They rejected what would have been an easy attempt to profit from the controversy, while that third group actually did it.

Lemon Juice, a method of dissolving bad water-soluble heroin and crack, has Kennedy brilliantly straddle between electro rap and heavy rap-rock as he depicts the duo slipping into degradation and growing increasingly aggressive. It makes me wonder if Versatile could do a purely rap-rock song. We begin where we left off with Casper, cocaine fueling him, and easily one of his most hilariously disturbing verses. When Eskimo re-enters, he gets into a car chase, recreationally uses anaesthetics, and sickeningly suggests that two-faced pals’ tongues are excellent replacements for toilet paper. The song concludes with a phone call between the pair, leading into Panic Attack, where we see them getting injected with another dangerous cocktail of drugs and released into the world, where they rave and take more.

A short interlude with Coolio calling them comes afterwards, wondering where they are, followed by the two ignoring calls in 2:22am. Though short, what’s depicted here is a comedown, with the pair's real-life counterparts coming through, with Casper referencing the online abuse he had been subjected to, and Eskimo’s final verse depicting a wasted life.

Wealth Belly lets them back out into the world, fresher-faced. Casper walks around flaunting his wealth, reflecting on the day a juvenile liaison officer appeared at his flat when he was fourteen and getting a hiding from his mother over it. Meanwhile, Eskimo is up to his usual nonsense. The part where Casey gets a 40k-person audience to scream "Fuck Versatile" is a moment of triumph that the lads may never see again, but it’s present as a reminder of what their real-life personas achieved. Kennedy’s messing with several different genres makes it almost impossible to pinpoint, but he expertly conveys the story’s gradual conclusion, and it manages to get a shiver out of me with how well done it is.

The final track, Terminal 1, brings the pair back full circle with an absolutely brilliant 80’s G-Funk beat, celebrating the end of their romp of violence, sex, and drugs with more violence, sex, and drugs. It’s clear that Casper and Eskimo have learned nothing from their shenanigans and probably will learn nothing in the next album, and I absolutely cannot wait for that.

But back to Billy, the mysterious egg salesman, with the tight buzz cut and sport sunglasses, making him into a mystical sage. He first appeared hanging a Garda, then chronicling stolen hash, but his most pivotal scene comes in Dublin City G’s. After all the monstrous and ludicrous behaviour from Casper and Eskimo, Billy pops up, coarsely reminding us that everything about them is fictional and that he’ll thump the head off them, further emphasised by his revealing their very real names. It's always been make-belief, and Billy is an essential character that grounds them, though it's done in a very tongue in cheek manner; they knew the territory they were diving into with this song.

His appearance at two intervals throughout Fuck Versatile, just after Fat Gangster Laugh and Wealth Belly, further adds to his grounding of Versatile into reality, between his advising the group to make as much music as they can as quick as they can—for who knows how long Versatile will be around?—or his sad but funny lamenting on falling asleep at thirty-two and waking up one morning to find himself at forty-six. There should be more dialogue like this in the follow-up.

The latest release, Northside Arse, speaks for itself and shamelessly emulates Blueface, especially Casper’s part. Like Versatile, Blueface polarises a two-way response: love or hate, with little in between, though with Blueface, the latter response is slightly more deserving with his ridiculous personal life. I see him as essentially the Adam Sandler of West Coast hip-hop, self-aware and choosing to make silly, fun, or utter trash music while every so often producing a serious verse like in Better Days.

While Northside Arse is definitely subpar compared to anything in Fuck Versatile—though nowhere near Flashy Flashy disappointment—it entertains and perfectly emulates that modern West Coast vibe, though it wasn’t produced but rather overseen by Kennedy, and it’s obvious. The lyrics contain the usual, from Casper admiring his woman’s "ring" which made me choke on my water, to Eskimo crossing Samuel Beckett Bridge in search of "pipe", probably the grimmest synonym in existence for "arse."

The video itself is quite well-made, with sunny shots of Sheriff Street, Cabra, Portmarnock, the aforementioned bridge, and Coolock, but it lacks Versatile’s usual visual spectacle. Back in May 2021, Terminal 1 was the first time I found that the focus was purely on the music rather than the video, which was simply the Outburst crew enjoying a sunny day out. Once you see it, it doesn’t really compare visually to Ketamine, Lost and Found, Prefontaine, or Perfume, Perfume especially with its stunning colour palette, the standout shot being this beauty of O’Connell Bridge.

While Terminal 1 does contain some amazing shots and has a true feel-good vibe to it, and while its simplicity and relatability can be blamed on COVID, it’s the actual song I keep returning to. But Panic Attack reclaims that creative spectacle, where Casper and Eskimo are turned into puppets, with a few particular scenes giving Gaspar Noé vibes with dazzling Into the Void imagery while facilitating the drug-infused terror the song encapsulates.

The third video from the album was supposed to be Fat Gangster Laugh, which would have been a perfect chance for us fans to see Casper and Eskimo causing havoc again. And it would have seen the final appearance of the late Darren 'OneSup' Nolan. But its canning is what leads me into my second major criticism of Versatile.

It’s hard to know whether simple misjudgement or COVID messed with Fuck Versatile’s release; the release of Dublin City G’s Mixtape makes the latter speculation the likeliest. It saw them produce three fantastic music videos: Dublin City G’s, Done Deal Season, and Scorching Again. Each one was released in the build-up to the EP. Its quality was rusty in parts, as with any mixtape, but the intro brilliantly predicted the perfect storm that was coming for Versatile. Music videos are perfect promotional material, and three music videos (sometimes four) per album are not only a must but a minimum standard in the industry. And with Sheehan's near flawless directing and editing, Fat Gangster Laugh should have been the biggest video of that album.

Versatile fell short here, despite Fuck Versatile being one of my favourite albums, period, because it encapsulates what I cherish about media and because it was produced close to home. But I can admit they didn’t build it up—even despite securing that number 1 spot—with too much focus going on two inferior, completely unrelated (and in Babyproof’s case, wasted) singles that contained almost none of Versatile’s trademarks. Excitedly waking up at 4:00 am to buy Fuck Versatile and then hearing Fat Gangster Laugh followed by everything else was like being relieved to find an old friend hadn’t drastically changed since some kind of scarring incident.

In the past two years, they’ve teased numerous unreleased tracks, one possibly featuring Blueface and more underground LA artists, and a final feature from the late Coolio. Hopefully, one will have Dubzeno, who, like Costello and Dania, didn’t seek to profit from the hassle. Some of these songs were created in LA, and while that sounds promising, I feel barely any instrumentals in Irish music full-stop—or further—hold up to the intricacies of Kennedy’s. It’s part of what makes Versatile stand out.

But judging from some of the lyrics I’ve managed to make out, it seems Versatile are sticking to their roots, and while I’m excited for it, that underbelly aspect will stagnate if it remains their footing ground. I would like to see them aim their antics elsewhere in society. That doesn’t mean they have to start preaching positivity; quite the opposite.

They survived what world-renowned artists would have ended over, and it’s positioned them to explore the bleakest areas of society, with their tastelessness attached, while other acts are utterly compromised. Ireland has plenty of seediness for Casper and Eskimo to indulge in, whether it’s sleazy landlords, the Gardaí, prison, a certain Dublin Circuit Criminal Court judge, Leinster House, the sex trade, any sort of scandal, Epstein, the music industry, perverted killers, Irish Entertainment as a whole, the Catholic Church, ANYTHING.

Their Illuminati death-cult portrayed in Lost and Found showed that they are capable of venturing outside the box. The “controversial” clip of Eskimo receiving head from the Taoiseach is a perfect direction to go in, since the Eskimo character seemingly has no qualms about what he shafts. Versatile already exists outside the fringes of Irish entertainment; why not use that to their advantage? There would also be more honesty in such exaggerated portrayals, since their detractors harped, moaned, and preached (and still do) vomit, despite their already-mentioned marketing sources influencing the stomach bug that produces that same vomit. It also depends how far Versatile is expected to go in terms of longevity.

Perhaps Alex, Casey and Evan have an endgame in sight? Alex wants to be a film director; Casey an actor, and Evan obviously dreams of working on his own projects. But whether the three like it or not, right now, they have an artistic responsibility; they’ve shown state enterprises up for what they are, and have set an example for other potential artists. They’ve shown that it’s possible (whether it’s film, writing, music, anything) to create what one enjoys creating, without fear of genuine shutdown.

Some say that’s a dangerous precedent; I say that calling it a dangerous precedent is blatant fascism. Legitimately dangerous art is easily spotted and "critics" are fully aware of this. As we saw with the Irish Twitter Wars, there is a desperate attempt to control the art people consume, and a need among certain parts of society to be patted on the head and given a bone in exchange for fighting whatever they've chosen to be offended by on the day. And funnily enough, I actually think that along with more inclusive sex education, there should also be education centred on spotting mediums designed to incite negative behaviour. But Outburst Pal are absolutely not one of them.