TIM HUGHES talks to the innovative, and refreshingly honest, writer, musician and producer Ghostpoet

Obaro Ejimiwe, is more than a musician. Crafting narrative verse and gritty observations to electronic beats and beautiful piano and guitar lines, the artist known as Ghostpoet is groundbreaking and hard to categorise.

The Mercury Prize-nominated artist is under no illusions, however. “I make sound and mumble over it,” he says.

In a way he’s right. But what mumbling!

His debut Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam caught the attention of smarter music-lovers; people like Radio One’s Gilles Peterson, who, a year earlier, took a punt by signing this enigmatic wordsmith – easily recognisable in a tweed hat and thick glasses.

His second effort, Some Say I So I Say Light, released earlier this month, picks up were that left off. It sees Ghostpoet leaving his bedroom and moving into the studio to strike out in elaborate and ever more experimental directions under the direction of Richard Formby (Wild Beasts, Darkstar, Egyptian Hip-Hop).

So what exactly is it that Ghostpoet does? “It’s not anything in particular,” he tells me, talking on his mobile from London’s Liverpool Street, where he is on a mission to get his watch fixed (“It’s not a Rolex... it’s a Swatch!” he says).

“It’s a vocal delivery, but I don’t rap.”

It’s a sound that is rooted in the grittier side of the capital. Obaro, who lives in Dalston, rhymes in a strong London accent about hard times while his videos are filmed on high-rise estates and night buses.

“I don’t think of it as London, I think it’s just me,” he says, thoughtfully.

Self-effacing and with no hint of ego, Obaro’s honesty betrays a pensive, if leisurely, intelligence. He considers every question and answers them seriously and in his own time.

“It’s about soaking up life,” he says. “I go around living and use whatever sub-consciously goes into my brain. I don’t go around writing things down.

“I’m very conscious that I don’t want to think over-autobiographically. I want the listener to see themselves in songs. So if it’s about me, it’s also about the lives of others.”

His lyrics – a finely-crafted flow of ideas – come across, as his name suggests, as poetry. Though the 30 year-old Coventry University media production graduate shies away from the word. “I’m not really a fan of poetry,” he confesses.

“I had to chose a name a long time ago. It was about creating a name enabling listeners who don’t have a clue about you to know what direction you’re going in. I wanted a name which was more of a doorway than what I’m about. “The ‘poet’ part was me not wanting to be classed as a rapper. It’s about the music behind it, not me as a person. But if I knew what was going to happen I wouldn’t have chosen that name.

“But your name chooses you,” he adds. “And the ‘ghost’ part was a self-conscious thing as I wanted to be transparent and more in the background.

“I love making music, but this is not about me as a personality. It’s about making music and giving it to people to make what they like of it.”

Obaro plays the O2 Academy Oxford on Monday to promote the new album. He returns to the county in August to play the lovely Wilderness festival, at Cornbury Park, near Charlbury.

The record features the vocal talents of singer-songwriter Lucy Rose and Gwilym Gold, and guest slots from Dave Okumu from The Invisible on guitar and Charles Hayward from This Heat. And it sees Obaro exploring the minutiae of his immediate environment – with references to Amazon, Pringle packets, Chinese food and, on beat-laden stand-out track Meltdown, the gradual break up of a relationship. In its accessibility it speaks to everyone; these are songs everyone can identify with.

“I’m very much a part of my environment,” he says. “And wherever I move to it would influence what I make. It’s like everything in life. You can’t help but be influenced by the immediate world around you.”

So how did he start? “In the beginning I was very shy,” he says. “Making music was very much a chance for me to express my feelings and, as men, we don’t do that very well.

“Poetry is not something I’ve pursued or read. It was part of English classes at secondary school and I’ve never read a poem. It would be insulting to poetry as a great art form, to say I am a poet; I mumble words.

“All I want to do is be creative, and my vocal delivery is all about me tailoring my words around the music. I don’t have any musical training and I can’t play anything on a professional level. It’s very much 70 per cent lyrics because that’s what I know.”

So is he a perfectionist? “Not at all. I like things to be rough and ready. Life isn’t perfect, so why should my music be? My music is full of happy accidents and mistakes, but if they work, let’s keep them.”

  • Ghostpoet plays the O2 Academy on Monday. Tickets £12 from ticketweb.co.uk
  • He also plays Wilderness festival. Wilderness runs from August 8-11. Adult weekend tickets are £146.50. Go to wildernessfestival.com