Tender tales of togetherness told to sensationally catchy beats. That’s the allure of Joshua Idehen. The poet and musician has long moved through the UK’s jazz, electronic and spoken word scenes via bands such as Benin City (named after his family’s home city in Nigeria) and Calabashed, as well as collaborations with The Comet is Coming, Sons of Kemet, Daedelus, Metronomy and many more. But a move to Sweden and meeting of minds with producer and instrumentalist Ludvig Parment (Saturday, Monday) during lockdown has sparked his latest sonic chapter. And goddamn, it’s good.

Take 2023’s ‘Learn to Swim, A Mixtape’, its 10 tracks steeped in loving and learnings; in hope and understanding. We hear his reflections on despair and his gratitude for group hugs on the dancefloor. These unite with sounds of gospel choirs and Parment’s rich, pulsing soundscapes, resulting in a cadence that holds you one deep breath away from tears and one shoulder shuffle closer to the light.

Then comes 2024’s ‘Mum Does the Washing’, Idehen’s uncomfortably on-the-nose guide to ‘isms’ (Zionism, male feminism, narcissism) as told through a wise matriarch’s spin cycle. What started out as a series of tweets, then became a poem and ended up his biggest hit to date – as well as being shortlisted for the 2025 Forward Prize. Meanwhile his recent collection of poems, ‘Songbook’, was selected as a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

This summer has kept the duo busy shimmying across the festival circuit and taking on Yttling Jazz’s ‘Illegal Hit (edit)’ – all hinting at an ever-more groovesome direction for their soon-come debut album. We meet at Glastonbury Festival, where they perform three shows, to over 5,000 people, in a single day.

Nataal: Hello! So, are you a seasoned Glastonbury goer?

Joshua: I did my first one 18 years ago. I performed in a cabaret tent just after a Burlesque artist. She came on with feathers and nipple tassels. I came on with poetry and hip hop. She had 800 people. After my first poem, I had eight.

Nataal: Ah.

Joshua: Her abilities were way greater than mine at that time. And now, I’m back for three shows in one day. The first one on the Greenpeace stage was the biggest crowd we’ve ever performed to. The size, the energy – now I understand all those myth-making stories about what it’s like to play here. It’s a real moment.

Nataal: Talk to us about your Nigerian wave.

Joshua: We always try to make each song an interaction with the audience so for one of our new tracks, we’re asking them do a Nigerian wave. A Mexican wave is left to write but this one is front to back. Most audiences are too small but here it's a proper wave.

Nataal: What’s the magic that ties your spoken word and music productions together?

Joshua: We have respect and trust for what the other person does. Ludwig is happy with whatever I write and when he shares a beat, it’s exactly what I want. We’re our own dictators but when we come together, we help each other out and it all fits together.

Ludvig: We’re rarely ever at odds as to what makes a song good. Whenever Joshua gets excited about taking it in a direction, I’m excited too because I know that in the end it’s going to be a banger.

Joshua: And Ludvig is always kind. He’ll say something like, ‘I like it, but I'm not sure if it's the best we could do’. And by that he means go away and re-write it. And I do. I kill my ego. We’ve both had individual careers and been in different bands so we’ve learnt to be humble and understand the collaborative process of any great artistic venture.

Ludvig: It’s been like that from the very first track we made together in 2021. We started sending tracks back and forth during isolation and the mixtape came together. It’s a patchwork but we’re happy with how it turned out and where it’s taken us since.

Nataal: The mixtape makes you laugh and cry and wince in equal measure, especially the lead track ‘Learn to Swim, Pt 2’.

Joshua: It’s this idea of embracing your cringe and then you’re invincible. Especially when it comes to the idea of compassion and kindness. There is a concerted effort by fascists to make compassion seem uncool. Oh, they care too much, they’re woke, blah. Because if we don’t care about each other, then they can bend us towards our worst impulses, and they win. But I believe empathy is our best quality, it’s what makes society run, you know? It’s what makes us look at someone having the worst time and tell them they’re going to be okay; ask them to come and dance. So that's our mission. Take grief. Make it a bop.

Nataal: That message comes across loud and clear in the story behind ‘Could be Forever’.

Joshua: Yeah. It was from a time I was bartending and talking to the toilet attendant, who was from Benin City. I told him I was trying to be a poet. And he told me that back home he was a dentist. I mean, you’re university educated and come to a country that’s so racist you have to sell Chupa Chups in a toilet. And then you send your pay check home so that your kids can go to school. I held onto that conversation for years.

Nataal: We have to talk about ‘Mum Does the Washing’. What’s your mother’s verdict on it?

Joshua: She’s down with the track. When she came to one of our shows at Jazz Café, I had to point her out to the audience and she was like, ‘Yeah, it’s about me.’ And when I go to stay with her, I tell her not to do my washing because I’ve literally written a song about it, but she does it anyway. I’m like, stop, you’re making me look bad!

Nataal: You must have moved many hearts with the emotional candour of your music. What feedback do fans give you?

Joshua: It’s surprising sometimes. I write a line​ that I think is funny and then people will tell us it really touched them. So, I don’t always know how things connect but I’m just happy that they do. They might not see the humour but they hear the truth.

Nataal: And there’s an album on its way.

Joshua: We’ve finished it and it’s coming out on Heavenly Recordings, which is one of my favourite labels, so we feel pretty honoured. The album is about redemption and friendship so we have invited quite a few voices to contribute to the narrative so that it feels well rounded. It's definitely one of the things I'm most proud of. Top is my daughter, then it’s this album. Although, it’s a bit crazy that I’ve gotten a chance to do something I love when the world is crapping itself out.

Nataal: I guess you’ve still got to shine even in the depths.

Joshua: Yeah, I might as well take the grief and the shame that I’m feeling and spill it into joy.

Nataal: What sounds will we be hearing?

Ludvig: We’re chasing a new direction. It’s more clubby, more accessible. There’s always the fear that maybe we’ve strayed too far from the source but when we play the new material live, it’s really taking us to a new level.

Catch Joshua Idehen supporting Dury Baxter on his European tour this November and December.