Yusuf Ismail

Butetown, Cardiff. 

Date: 2025.

Yusuf discusses growing up in the Butetown area of Cardiff, what's it like being a young Welsh-Somali, as well as being part of Unify, one of the most exciting creative groups in Wales.

Interview Transcript:

Hannah Ringane
What's your name and where do you live?

Yusuf Ishmael
My name is Yusuf Ishmael and I'm from Grangetown.

HR
Thank you. So, you're telling us that you grew up in Grangetown. What was your home like? Do you have any vivid memories from your childhood?

YI
My childhood was like two worlds combined into one. Within the home, which is probably the most dominant, it was a very Somali upbringing. Two parents, that were quite mindful of the fact that we're Somali and didn't want us to lose our identity; their big fear was we would get too comfortable within Wales, within this European environment, Western environment and kind of forget we're Somali. It was like two different realities.

So, in this house, it would be intensely Somali have to speak in Somali, eat Somali food, um really learn about the cultural practices. And in the minute, I was outside of our front door, I was like anybody else basically.

HR
That's so interesting. How do you feel like that affected your identity?

YI
Obviously when you're a child, you're kind of subconscious to it. But as an adult, you understand that as a black person in certain spaces here in Wales, I felt like I had to be kind of mindful of who I am and kind of, like, take a step back. I wasn't as well, quite comfortable in my heritage, so to speak, you know, growing up, because you're a little bit different from everywhere else. And as a kid, the main thing is that you just want to fit in. But, yeah, what was the question? I got off on tangents.

HR
No, that's okay. Like, how do you feel like that impacted your identity, if it did?

YI
Oh. As an adult, I think the minute you start thinking about certain situations or why you responded to certain situations then I understood it had a really huge impact, but quite subconsciously. I wasn't aware of, for example, you're in school, the teacher reads your name off a register, they butcher your name. I wouldn't have the confidence to correct them for many years. And then it got to a point where it's like, no, no, they have to say my name correctly purely because a name's an important thing.

HR
You talked about teachers, an amazing segue. Where did you go to school and what did your school and your way to school look like?

YI
Originally, I went to Fitzalan [High School] for a year. Then I moved to Cantonian [High School], then I moved to Willows [High School], so I kind of moved around, right? My way to school? So, I had to catch a bus initially. You have to catch a bus with everybody else, right? But then, with the other high schools, it was kind of like you had to kind of make your own route there.
I'd be wearing a backpack. I was like, I think year seven. I was amazed by the world and everything was just like. You know, colorful and everything was an experience because again, like the household that I came from, my parents were quite, I want to say militant. Militant is probably the wrong word, but quite restrictive in a certain sense. So just to be free in a world as a, you know, as a young kid, initially it was amazing. And then it got pretty mundane after that. And it's just like you're going to school, you know.

And I didn't have the best schooling experience. I wasn't super excited to go there. But again, I'd see my friends.

HR
You said your parents are restrictive. What was an average day like in your childhood? I remember you said Somali language only, Somali food only. Let's do like a routine, morning to bedtime.

YI
Okay, morning to bedtime. I'd wake up. And my parents were very disciplined, even within themselves. They were early risers, right? Because you come from an African household, you come from a Muslim household. So, in a Muslim household, you've got five prayers. One of them is extremely early.

So, my parents, I always remember they were up early. All times, especially my mother. Sometimes I used to wonder, does this woman even sleep? Because she'd just be up at the crack of dawn in the morning.

I'd wake up really, really early. My parents were great in assigning tasks. You weren't just allowed to chill in front of the TV or have a PlayStation and stuff, which my other cousins did. I used to envy them like crazy, or my other friends as well. So, you do tasks, my parents were heavy into education, so they'd expect you to be doing something proactive. Um, and so are we talking about a Saturday? Let's just let's talk about it. I used to go to Islamic classes which I used to hate because I'm terrible at languages, right?

So Somali is a struggle for me, [and] you have to learn Arabic on top of that. Our teachers were extremely militant. As a result it was like, imagine you're struggling with a language and then you learn it in this really hostile environment, where some people might get - some of the teachers if you could call them that, would put their hands on some of the kids, so you would just be full of fear in this environment. But then I met a teacher who was incredible. He's from Jordan. And his name was like Sheikh Hisham Ali. He was like one of the sweetest human beings I've ever come across. And he just put a 360 spin on it. I was motivated.

So let's just say I'm going to his classes. I would go to his class and I'd stay there from like 11 till 3. And then as soon as the Islamic classes were done, I would just roam the streets of Butetown. Until it got dark. Until the streetlights came on. Until it got to like sunset, sunset-ish, all right? Because my dad was quite around the area to drive. I'd see his car three or four times, all right? He was always around the area, so I couldn't really break my curfew in a crazy way.

And then I'd go home, and I’d come back to the smell of my mum’s cooking. And my mum used to put on some, I know the Arabic for it, but kind of like frankincense. And the aroma would just, as soon as you turn the key into the door, it would just hit you. My mum used to have the most amazing scent as a person, but that aroma inside the house. I miss it.

HR
For you, when you think of home, what does that look like?

YI
Laughter, warmth, but also structure. There’s a lot of structure to it. Neither one of my parents were like the type of people who'd sit in front of a TV for hours and then have a TV dinner and all this kind of stuff. No, they weren't like that. They were very mindful of time and very structured. You'd wake up super early, you'd go to bed. And I always have to do the dishes at the end of the day. That's one of the things. And I used to hate it initially, but also. It made me a bit of a clean freak to this day.
My cooking skills are a bit sketchy, but my cleaning skills, especially when it comes to dishes. Top tier.

HR
Who were your important figures in your life when you were a child? Like heroes, role models?

YI
Because I had a lot of older brothers. And again, upon reflection, even as you grow older, they shaped a lot of my decisions, consciously and subconsciously. For example, I love football. I tell everybody I love football. But my brothers chose my football team. I didn't even have a say in it. They're like, we're going to support Arsenal. We're in Wales, by the way. And we'll support Arsenal. But then I understood why they did it. Because Arsenal was the first team to field a starting XI of all black players. My brothers used to see these guys on the pitch as role models because they grew up in the 90s and there's a lot more racism. So, you needed that kind of like positive reinforcement, whatever way you can, right?

There was this French player, black French player called Thierry Henry. And he was like an idol for my brothers and the entire family. Even my sisters were like, ‘oh, right’. And my brothers used to look at him as like this guy was the standard. He brought a lot of pride to the black community. Even the community in Butetown, a lot of the people support Arsenal because of that. So, my brothers were a huge role model.

But then, outside of the home, there were people like that Sheikh that I mentioned, my teacher Sheikh Hisham. He was a very sweet human being. He was just very, very kind. So, imagine I had some teachers who were monsters, literally putting their hands on kids, and then you had this guy who was just the complete opposite of that. And I was like, 'I want to be like him, I don’t want to be like them’.

And then in school, one or two of my teachers were amazing. I used to have a history teacher called Mr. Starr, and this guy was unbelievable. Because he was just so passionate about history and how previous events just shaped the reality that we're living in today. His classes were like a movie. So, it was like a few little figures here and there.

HR
Are there any specific traditions or holidays that you remember celebrating while growing up? And what did that look like for you?

YI
Eid was like literally the two occasions in a year that my parents, who were like these super controlled and borderline militant parents, would just be chilled for two days. For two days. Like my dad, you know, he used to sing songs like, ‘early to bed, early to rise, makes you healthy, wealthy, wise.’ He'd be screaming at like 6 a.m. in the morning. That would be the day he would be chilled and relaxed. My mom was always a very relaxed character, but again, she would take it easier.
So Eid was a whole thing where there's a whole tradition to it: you have to buy brand new clothes, you have to have gifts, you get to see a lot of your relatives and friends and extended family. It's the best time to see the community in general, so, if somebody was like an alien, was to come to my world and it was to ask me to show them around my community, Eid would be the day I chose because everybody's outside. Just magical memories.

HR
You say, ‘my community’, could you specify what that is to you?

YI
Oh, a very good question. My community is, let's start at a base level, it's a working-class community. We'll start there. So originally, we used to live in Butetown, then we moved to Grangetown. But they're like literally next door to each other. But I still see Butetown as my community. And it's not an ethnicity thing, it's more of … an environment. But it's a very heavily working-class environment. Everybody has this kind of bond.

And irrespective of skin color, religion, all of these things, everybody felt very together. You knew a lot of [people] around you in that space. And I felt very comfortable in that space. It was one of the only places that I felt like. I didn't have to wear a mask in any form or have to modify my personality in any way. So yeah, that's my community.

HR
Are there any stories or memories of interest that comes up when you think of your community?

YI
Yeah. Funny thing, I was at the shoot yesterday. The guy who owns the place, his name's Morgan, he's the same height as me, right? Because I was going up and down a ladder, we were talking about heights. And I said, 'I've got a huge fear of heights.' And he goes, 'me too.' And I said, 'it really hasn't bothered me until one time in my life.' I was 10 years old, or maybe 11. I was sent by my father, this was when we moved to Grangetown, to go to Butetown, which has these high-rise flats where my auntie lived on floor 16. And usually I'd catch the elevator, right? I hit floor 16. The elevator wasn't moving anywhere.

Somebody goes, ‘yeah, the elevator's broke.' You're going to have to use the stairs. To floor 16. And I was carrying this little bag of food and stuff, [that] my mum made her. Every floor that I was going up, I just saw people just getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And then when it got to floor 14 or 13, for whatever reason, I just peered down the stairs and the railings were so… it's just health and safety hazard. Thank God they've kind of sorted it out a little bit. I just saw all the way down and I just froze. I couldn't move. And I must have stayed there for like 20, 30 minutes. And I was just like, I got to get up there because this food's getting cold. And if my dad finds out, I got stuck. It would have caused all sorts of problems for me, right?

It was a lot of hostile people in that building as well, who were just scowling at me. And I was just like, this little kid carrying his bag. And then I finally got to floor 16, and then I told my auntie, and she was horrified that I went all the way up. But, yeah, that's what I remember. But it was beautiful in a sense because, you got up so high you could just see all of Butetown, all of Grangetown, all of that area of Cardiff, right? But yeah, I'd rather have done that in an elevator as opposed to going up there. I have a real phobia of heights.

HR
We talked more on a wider scale of places you feel connected to. Is it possible that we narrow that down? Is there a specific building, a specific attraction, a specific thing that you feel attached to?

YI
I'm a very nostalgia-driven person, even though I'm making it a real thing not to ever really think about the past, because the past is kind of like, it's a warped way of looking at reality. But there's several buildings I have a strong affinity to. The Butetown Flats, massive part, because originally, like I was telling Rob, my mum came here, I can't always remember the date. But she came, not because we were fleeing war, like a lot of Somali people were later on, but because my brother needed surgery. So, my brother's got polio, my oldest brother's got polio on his leg. And he was sent to Great Ormond Street in London to have surgery, in hope of having surgery. And then the doctor looked at her and said, 'It's basically, it's, a foregone conclusion; it's nothing they can really do for him. The muscles wasted away’. So he's got like this really strong leg and he's got one that's kind of wasted away. And then my uncle [who] was living in London, and remember, my mother didn't speak English; she has never been in the UK.

And to add another layer to that, I remember she always reminds me of a story that when she first flew into Heathrow. She saw how grey and miserable the UK was and she started bawling and just wouldn't stop bawling until she got out of the airport because she was like, 'What's this horrible place I'm at?' But my uncle said to her, 'Listen, London's no life for you; right here or like your kids. You should go to Cardiff, right? Because we had quite a bit of family there.' So she moved from there and somehow got some housing in the Butetown flats. I wasn't born there, I wasn't around, but when we left that building, other family members who were moving from Somalia or migrating from Somalia to the UK, moved into [the building], like my auntie. So I used to spend a lot of time with my auntie there. I have a strong relationship with that place.

I would [also] say the South Wales Islamic Centre because there's two mosques in Butetown. The one that I love the most is the South Wales Islamic Centre. That's the one that my family always used to go to.

One of them is a Somali mosque, right? So, you logically would have thought [that] as a Somali, you would have went to [the] Somali mosque. But we went to the South Wales Islamic Centre, which it's ran by Yemenis. But it's more of a diverse mosque and I like it because, and as a kid I used to see all these different kinds of people, as opposed to Somali mosques, I just see one kind of people. Diversity and different cultures meeting together, I think is one of the most beautiful things.

HR
So, you talked about you being Somali and also growing up in a very diverse area of a lot of different African ethnicities. So, what does your own personal connection to African heritage look like and how did you explore that connection being based in Wales?

YI
That's a great question because I always felt like being African, being Somali, it cast a shadow [on] whatever situation I was in. It made me look at things in a certain way. You know there's certain people, like, I've got friends [and for] some of them their heritage doesn't really play too much of a pioneer day-to-day decision for making, but for me it always did.

I have a strong affinity for it because I see a beauty in it, of being African and being Somali that makes me want to hold on to it. And the funny thing is as well, rarely, that magic of being African, that magic of being Somali, rarely do I see it translate in day-to-day life. People might look at the Somali community or African community, there's not much, maybe there might not be much appeal from a surface level. But it's just like that character, the funniest people on the planet are Somalis. There's no two ways about it. But Africans in general, Africans are wildly funny people that, you know. And sometimes it's not even with intent. It's just [their] approach, how they look at things, what they say.

Some of the nicknames in the Somali community, and I won't say it on camera, but it's just wild. It's just insane. For example, there was a guy in my neighborhood called Abdi Skinny. Now, you would have thought Abdi Skinny would have been a skinny guy, but this guy was severely obese. An example. So, yeah. Just a very bizarrely funny community, man. A very funny community. Jokes upon jokes. But when things go wrong as well, I don't know, life and death. I know somebody passes away. Somebody's in some sort of financial hardship, they rally around in a way that I don't see in Western society.

The respect for elders as well, is a huge thing. We live in a very ageist society: minute a person reaches 30, you're done; 40, you better start picking out your plot in the cemetery; 50, you're a foregone conclusion-you're invisible in society. And what I noticed about like, Somali communities, African communities, the majority, predominantly ethnic communities: they really protect and look after their senior citizens in their community. It’s lot of beautiful things I see.

HR
What did you do after school?

YI
University, then a series of odd jobs. I Always wanted to work in the field of creativity, and it took me a while to get to that because I come from a background where Somalis, we don't look at creativity as even an option. You work a nine to five and you think to yourself, like, ‘how can I take advantage of my creativity? What projects can I get involved in?’ And it was always like a little side project or a side hustle. And then 2021, it became my nine to five, basically.
And that's when Unify, funny thing that you asked me about Unify. Unify started really in 2019. But it became a thing straight after the pandemic, which was what I needed, to give me the confidence, so to speak, to do it.

HR
So, what inspired you to do the work with Unify then?

YI
Great question. I felt very frustrated because I wasn't doing creative endeavors, one. Number two, the way the world was, right? The great thing about COVID was it told everybody to take a minute to observe the world, around you. And that's when it dawned upon me, the areas that I'm from, that we were speaking about, there's very little visual representation of it.

So, I felt like I need to do something about that and that's where Unify came from.

HR
So, you talked about representation being limited. Do you feel like there are any other challenges that faced Black communities in Wales?

YI
Oh, massive. I think we don't really have the resources. I don't think we're really welcomed into the arts right the creative industries here in Wales. We're seen as almost as invisible or an afterthought. Wales in general doesn't know how to deal with people from minorities or the global majority as they say.

There's like a whole host of challenges and I felt, for us to get our ideas out we just had to be really driven. I didn't look to Wales for any support. I look at social media as inspiration for example I'd see what people who are considered peers or people who I admire, what they're doing, I'm thinking If they can do it, why can't I do it? And it gave me the encouragement to do it.

HR
In terms of change, what would you like to see in Wales in terms of race, identity and belonging? What changes would you like to see?

YI
Such a tricky question.

HR
Let’s break it down. Let's say, what changes would you like to see in five years? What changes would you like to see in 10 years? And what changes would you like to see in 50 years?

YI
I think it would actually be easier to start with 50. But like I say, you look at the big picture, right?
I think people from minorities should have clear, easy access to working within a creative industry. That's one, right? The resources should be made. The economy it makes it a little bit tricky, but some of these resources should be readily available. I believe that Wales systemically doesn't see black and brown artists or minorities as Welsh. There's this whole identity issue, which is really conflicting, right? That kind of needs to go away. Yeah, that's probably the biggest things I'd say.

HR
What role then does activism and community organising play in your life?

YI
I'm not the biggest activist, right? Because there's people on the ground who really go about organising for example, demonstrations, marches, rallies, and I try to do it through my work to speak out on things close to me, like identity acceptance, but I try to do for my work. So, it is a form of activism in a sense. But I wouldn't necessarily call myself an activist.

HR
I think that leads to the next question. How do you see the role of cultural practices, that's art, that's music, that's sport, that's fashion? How does that play into activism?

YI
Massive. I think sport or culture just provides a platform for us to speak about issues that we shy away from. Issues that are uncomfortable. And it's usually under those lenses or those kinds of settings that it becomes easier to talk about these issues. So, their roles can't be understated, it's massive.

HR
What does your future of unified look like?

YI
It’s a great question, I think we want to amplify what we're doing times 10 times 100. I think maybe in the next five years, I'd like to do things abroad more because I just felt like we mentioned the Ivory Coast, a time that I spent there; it just broadened my mind, and it made me think a lot more global. So, I think our work needs to be a lot more global. It needs to be working in other parts of the world. That's one.

Number two is, you know, we've just begun working with Welsh Government and government bodies and stuff. And I think we need to kind of expand that. And I feel right now the work that we do with them is quite restrictive. And I'd like to do things where, they're less restrictive because I feel we have a better idea of what they're trying to do. So, we're talking about soft power. You mentioned soft power, right? I think like one of the arguments I bring to the Welsh Government is like soft power is really undervalued here in Wales and they need to do a lot more, you know.
And they don't even really see it as a value or significance. And I really think there's so many missed opportunities in the way they approach things. I just feel there's a lot of room to take advantage of.

HR
Do you connect with the identity of being Welsh?

YI
Yeah, 100%. I think the ‘aha’ moment for me was growing up, I didn't really know if I was Welsh or Somali, and I'll expand on that. So, when I'm here in Wales, I feel very Somali. When I go to Somalia, or Somaliland, that's where I'm from, I feel very Welsh. And it's weird because you don't feel like you belong in either place. But then it dawned upon me it can coexist in the same thing. You could be Welsh and you could be Somali. You don't need to have one label. One label rarely defines a human being. It's multiple labels or multiple associations is probably a better word for it. So yeah, I think 100% you could be both.

HR
In terms of that how do you connect to Wales and its history and other Welsh people?

YI
I connect to it massively because Somalis were one of the first minorities who came to Cardiff and come to Wales. There’s a lot of history and heritage. For us to understand Welsh history, I’m talking about myself, is something that's pretty important because a lot of our history inside Wales is connected to our communities anyway. I feel like to understand Wales and to learn about Welsh history will, in effect, help me understand previous generations who came here and what they experienced and what they underwent. I think it's like massively important.

HR
Are there any particular challenges you felt while growing up?

YI
Oh, massively. I felt like my heritage, my identity, what I looked like. I could go into a classroom, I could feel prejudged. I can go into a work environment. I could be prejudged. Somalis were seen; it was like a stigma to be Somali in a sense. It's like you're seen as a disruptive person. Sometimes an aggressive person. I had to deal with a lot of that baggage, especially early. It made my life a lot tricky in a sense because I felt like you weren't really given a fair crack or a fair shot at certain things purely because of your heritage. Because, in these communities around here, if you ask a regular white person, a Welsh white person, what's a Somali person, a lot of the associations would be quite negative: Somalis are troublemakers, this and that. So, yeah, I dealt with a lot of that growing up.

HR
So, you were based in Butetown and Georgetown. What are some changes, good or bad, that you witnessed?

YI
I think there's so much good that's positive, that's happened, especially in the last five years. When I meet the younger generations, I'm talking about kids that are 16, 15, I think some of those stereotypes or challenges that I was facing, they don't face as much because the world has rapidly changed. Especially in the last five years, forget anything else, right? And there's a lot more acceptance. Yes, there's extremism, but there's a lot more acceptance locally or within Wales. And you see these things like the Future Generations Act, for example and Wales trying to be an anti-racist nation. What it's done is, for those younger children, I feel it's making it a more tolerant society.

HR
Keeping on the theme of young people, if you could talk to your younger self, what would you tell them?

YI
I would say, just to dream, to be proud of your heritage. Don't look at it as something that's holding you back. Even though I never, ever thought that I know some of my friends felt like that could be working against them. And just be grateful. Because this is a beautiful place. Despite some of the hang-ups I've mentioned and some of the challenges, it's a beautiful place.

HR
If you could speak to an ancestor, who would you talk to and what would you ask them?

YI
I don't know, it would be cool if you could meet one of the first Somalis who came to Wales. And just to tell them what life is like in 2025. For example, a lot of the pictures I see [of] the Somali community from the early days, the earliest memories of them being in Wales, they were kind of like really suited and booted. It felt like they were trying their very hardest to be one with society. And I would assume they would have might throw their own cultural practices to the side just to embrace this new society that I live in. And it'd be cool just to tell them, ‘You can be you in 2025’, which is amazing, right? That'd be a very Black Panther moment, man.

HR
And finally, could you please look into the camera? What would you like to say to future generations?

YI
What I'd like to say to future generations? I'm an optimist and there's a lot of good in the world, but I think [that] everybody has a responsibility to protect that good and spread that good and make things better for future generations, and not to think just purely by yourself, but about what's to come.