INTERVIEW | IVAN MICHAEL BLACKSTOCK BRINGS TRAPLORD TO BREAKIN’ CONVENTION NATIONAL TOUR 2026

Lon­don has always been a breed­ing ground for innov­a­tion in hip hop cul­ture, but few artists have reshaped its bound­ar­ies quite like Ivan Michael Black­stock. Mov­ing between theatre, dance, film, and lived exper­i­ence, his work refuses to sit still or be eas­ily defined. At the centre of that move­ment is TRAPLORD, a pro­duc­tion that began as a deeply per­son­al release in an aban­doned East Lon­don space and has since evolved into one of the most import­ant state­ments in con­tem­por­ary hip hop theatre.

Now, over a dec­ade since its incep­tion, TRAPLORD returns to the stage as a head­line pro­duc­tion for Breakin’ Con­ven­tion 2026, the UK’s lead­ing plat­form for hip hop theatre cur­ated by Jonzi D. Run­ning from 9 May to 6 June 2026, the tour will take in cit­ies across the coun­try includ­ing Can­ter­bury, New­castle, Not­ting­ham, Cov­entry, Glas­gow, Brighton, Poole, Don­caster, and Black­pool. Tick­ets are avail­able via ven­ue box offices and offi­cial list­ings, with high demand expec­ted as the pro­duc­tion con­tin­ues its cul­tur­al impact.

In this con­ver­sa­tion Black­stock reflects on the evol­u­tion of TRAPLORD, the respons­ib­il­ity of telling hon­est stor­ies around Black male iden­tity, and why build­ing plat­forms for the next gen­er­a­tion is just as vital as the work itself.

TRAPLORD star­ted as some­thing deeply per­son­al in an aban­doned East Lon­don space back in 2015. Now it’s head­lining Breakin’ Con­ven­tion 2026. How has your rela­tion­ship to the work changed as it’s grown from a safe space into a glob­al statement?

When I first cre­ated TRAPLORD, it came from a very real place. It was per­son­al, raw, and hon­estly some­thing I needed for myself more than any­thing else. At that time, it wasn’t about stages, head­lines or recog­ni­tion. It was about expres­sion, heal­ing, and cre­at­ing a space where I could be truth­ful without com­prom­ise. It was some­where I could con­front things intern­ally and turn them into some­thing physical.

Now see­ing it grow into some­thing that res­on­ates glob­ally, my rela­tion­ship with it has nat­ur­ally evolved. It still holds that same hon­esty, but now I under­stand it belongs to people bey­ond me too. Audi­ences con­nect with it through their own exper­i­ences, their own pain, their own ques­tions around iden­tity, mas­culin­ity and free­dom. That’s powerful.

So what star­ted as a safe space has become a shared space. That means everything. It reminds me that when you tell the truth deeply enough, it can reach far bey­ond you.

You’ve described TRAPLORD as sit­ting between dream and real­ity. What does that in-between space allow you to express about Black male iden­tity that tra­di­tion­al theatre or dance cannot?

That space between dream and real­ity is where I feel most free cre­at­ively. Real­ity can come with expect­a­tions, ste­reo­types, lim­it­a­tions. Espe­cially when it comes to Black men, people often decide who you are before you’ve even spoken. You can be reduced to an image before being seen as a full human being.

In that in-between world, I can chal­lenge all of that. I can show soft­ness, fear, power, vul­ner­ab­il­ity, joy, con­fu­sion, love and all the things that make us human. Not just one ver­sion of mas­culin­ity, not just one emo­tion­al register.

Tra­di­tion­al forms can some­times ask for things to be clear and lin­ear. I’m more inter­ested in emo­tion­al truth than neat storytelling. Life isn’t always lin­ear, trauma isn’t lin­ear, heal­ing isn’t lin­ear. That dream­like space allows me to express what words alone often can’t.

Win­ning the Laurence Olivi­er Award for TRAPLORD was a huge cul­tur­al moment. Did that recog­ni­tion shift how the industry engages with hip hop theatre, or do you still feel like you are push­ing against the same boundaries?

Win­ning the Olivi­er was an import­ant moment, not just for me, but for the cul­ture. It recog­nised a form that has always had depth, bril­liance and value, even when insti­tu­tions didn’t always acknow­ledge it. There are com­munit­ies who have been innov­at­ing for years without being giv­en that same spotlight.

Did it shift things? In some ways, yes. It opened con­ver­sa­tions and cre­ated vis­ib­il­ity. It made cer­tain spaces pay atten­tion in a dif­fer­ent way. But there’s still work to do. There are still old ideas around what is con­sidered theatre, what is con­sidered art, and who gets access.

So while pro­gress has been made, there are still bound­ar­ies to push. I just think now we’re push­ing from a stronger place, with more proof that the work belongs at every level.

Mas­culin­ity and men­tal health are cent­ral to TRAPLORD. How do you nav­ig­ate vul­ner­ab­il­ity on stage without it becom­ing spec­tacle or being mis­un­der­stood by audiences?

For me, vul­ner­ab­il­ity has to come from truth. It can’t be per­form­at­ive. It can’t be there just to shock people or make them emo­tion­al. If it’s not rooted in some­thing hon­est, audi­ences can feel that straight away.

Everything in the work comes from inten­tion and care. Some­times vul­ner­ab­il­ity is loud, some­times it’s quiet. Some­times it’s in move­ment, still­ness, silence, or ten­sion. It doesn’t always look the way people expect. Some­times the strongest thing a man can do is be still and present with what he feels.

As for mis­un­der­stand­ing, that can hap­pen with any hon­est work. People bring their own exper­i­ences into the room. But I trust authen­ti­city. If it’s real, it lands where it needs to land.

Your work pulls from street cul­ture, Jamaic­an her­it­age, film, and theatre all at once. Do you see TRAPLORD as a fusion of influ­ences, or as some­thing inten­tion­ally res­ist­ing labels altogether?

I think it’s both. Nat­ur­ally, my influ­ences come through because they’re part of who I am. Lon­don cul­ture, Hip Hop Cul­ture, Jamaic­an her­it­age, music, dance, film, theatre, it all lives in me, so it lives in the work too. Noth­ing is forced. It’s just an hon­est reflec­tion of the envir­on­ments and his­tor­ies that shaped me.

But I’m also not too inter­ested in labels. Labels can be use­ful for cat­egor­ising things and cre­at­ing con­tain­ers, but they can also lim­it how people exper­i­ence them. Once some­thing gets boxed in, people some­times stop enga­ging with what it actu­ally is.

TRAPLORD is meant to move freely. It doesn’t need to sit in one box. It can hold mul­tiple lan­guages at once.

You have worked on glob­al pro­jects like Black Is King. How does step­ping into main­stream pop cul­ture spaces impact the way you approach more intim­ate, auto­bi­o­graph­ic­al work like TRAPLORD?

Work­ing on large glob­al pro­jects teaches you scale, dis­cip­line and col­lab­or­a­tion. You learn how to execute vis­ion at the highest level, how to com­mu­nic­ate clearly, and how to move with pre­ci­sion inside big sys­tems. Those les­sons are valuable.

But intim­ate work like TRAPLORD asks some­thing com­pletely dif­fer­ent. It asks for hon­esty. It asks for cour­age. There’s nowhere to hide in per­son­al work because the source mater­i­al is you.

So in many ways, those big­ger spaces sharpen the craft, but they also remind me why intim­ate storytelling mat­ters so much. Spec­tacle can impress people, but truth can trans­form people.

Breakin’ Con­ven­tion has always been about elev­at­ing hip hop theatre. What does it mean for you to bring TRAPLORD into that space now, along­side acts like ILL-Abil­it­ies and Femme Fatale?

It means a lot because Breakin’ Con­ven­tion has always been a real home for the cul­ture and it’s my Hip Hop Theatre roots. It has con­sist­ently cel­eb­rated hip hop artistry in all its forms, long before many main­stream spaces caught up. It has giv­en artists legit­im­acy without ask­ing them to dilute themselves.

To bring TRAPLORD there now feels full circle. There’s his­tory there, com­munity there, respect there. Those things matter.

And shar­ing that space with artists like ILL-Abil­it­ies and Femme Fatale just reflects how broad and power­ful the cul­ture really is. Dif­fer­ent voices, dif­fer­ent stor­ies, same spir­it of excellence.

You are build­ing eco­sys­tems through ALTRU­VI­OL­ET and CRXSS PLAT­FXRM, not just mak­ing work but cre­at­ing infra­struc­ture. Why is that as import­ant to you as cho­reo­graphy itself?

Because cre­at­ing one piece of work is import­ant, but cre­at­ing path­ways is legacy.

There are so many tal­en­ted people with ideas, vis­ion and abil­ity who just lack access, oppor­tun­ity or sup­port. Infra­struc­ture helps change that. It cre­ates sus­tain­ab­il­ity. It cre­ates own­er­ship. It gives people room to grow and build careers on their own terms.

Art moves people emo­tion­ally, but sys­tems can move people for­ward in real life. Both mat­ter. If we only focus on per­form­ance and not oppor­tun­ity, we leave too much behind.

Photo cred­it: Paul Hampartsoumian

TRAPLORD inter­rog­ates being judged or defined before you have fully lived. Do you feel that pres­sure per­son­ally as a Black artist oper­at­ing at the inter­sec­tion of under­ground cul­ture and major institutions?

Of course. There are always assump­tions. People often decide who you are based on image, back­ground, suc­cess, where you come from or where they think you belong. Some­times they cel­eb­rate you for one thing while mis­un­der­stand­ing everything under­neath it.

That pres­sure is real, but I’ve learned not to live inside oth­er people’s defin­i­tions. Growth requires free­dom. If you keep per­form­ing who oth­ers expect you to be, you stop evolving.

My focus is stay­ing truth­ful, evolving, and not becom­ing trapped by expect­a­tions, wheth­er they come from insti­tu­tions or the cul­ture itself.

What do you want the audi­ences to take away from your per­form­ance at Breakin’ Con­ven­tion 2026?

More than any­thing, I want people to feel some­thing genu­ine. I want them to exper­i­ence hon­esty in motion.

If someone leaves with a deep­er under­stand­ing of them­selves, that’s power­ful. If someone rethinks mas­culin­ity, iden­tity or vul­ner­ab­il­ity, that mat­ters too. If they simply feel moved, inspired or seen, that’s enough.

I want people to leave know­ing that com­plex­ity is human, vul­ner­ab­il­ity is strength, and trans­form­a­tion is always pos­sible. Some­times art can open a door in people that con­ver­sa­tion alone can­not. If that hap­pens, then the work has done what it needed to do.

Tick­ets for Breakin’ Con­ven­tion are HERE

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Rishma

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds

Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voiceless.

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