“Now that the artwork is done, I feel like the album is done. It didn't feel complete until we'd shot the front cover shot,” says Kieren Dickins, otherwise known as DELS, the London-via Ipswich MC.

He's referring to his debut album, GOB, which drops on 9 May through Big Dada, and it’s no surprise that the artwork is so important to him. When the 27-year-old isn't putting atypical rhymes to big, whirring beats from Joe 'Hot Chip' Goddard or celebrated Lewisham beatsmith Kwes, he's working on graphic design, a subject he studied at university and a passion he's intent on merging with his music. More often the not, he says, the songs on GOB start out as visual ideas he challenged himself to represent in song form.

“I like the word GOB because it's really British” he points out. “It's also got dual meanings; It can mean 'mouth', or 'mouthy', but also 'spit', which is relevant for a hip-hop record.” The LP's title, it turns out, was lifted from one of its songs. “It was a track that Kwes made. We were messing about with titles and chose 'Gob'. It’s a punchy, three letter word, so it looks good visually too.” Fittingly, the cover in question features a metallic gob stopper that has been split in two, and appears on first glance to be a hybrid of confectionary and cannon-ball bomb. It's a striking image, and he's very serious about this aspect of his work, as further conversation reveals. “There are rings inside the gobstopper, and each layer represents each track, so I was looking at the visual language of the gobstopper - like a visual timeline. The thickness of the rings correlate with the track lengths.”

As an icon, the gobstopper lends itself to childhood. It's the big, e-number bright, tuck shop favourite of mischievous school kids. It was also immortalised in Roald Dahl's Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, in the shape of the ‘ever-lasting gobstopper’, a fitting connection for Dickins, who's created elements of storybook adventure in GOB. “There's a big fantasy element to the album, for sure. I'm really interested in exploring the co-existence of fantasy and reality, and visualising or sonically representing that space inbetween.” This meant leading hip-hop's fixation with capturing the real into stranger territories. “Hip-hop is often based on reality and 'keeping it real' etc, but I wanted to inject my own personality into things.”

His rhymes are animated with references to witches, unicorns, crystal tears, and - as his 'Shapeshift' single revealed - morphing into inanimate objects, giving GOB a rich, imagination-fuelled energy. “I've always been inspired by storytelling. That's why I loved hip-hop so much; the stuff I was listening to when I first got into it was all story-based. Outkast, Slick Rick; my favourite Biggie songs were always the stories.” The story as a medium or cultural power is also connected with childhood - the tales our parents tell us, and the books we read before sleep. “Yeah, it was those things that got me buzzing as a kid” he recalls. He credits Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak as a particular favourite. “I like it because there's not too much writing, so you have to fill it out yourself and put yourself inside it to bring it to life”.

GOB is closer to the dark, frequently morbid Brothers Grimm fairytales than the fluffier Disney end of things though; there's a lot of pain and anger on GOB, and on certain tracks, a definite sense of vulnerability. “Yeah, I guess that's a reflection of how I was feeling at the time. Last year was pretty dark. There is a lot of the fantastical on GOB, and I like to distort situations through my rhymes, but people feel those emotions everyday, so they can still relate to it. I was really conscious of that. I had to rein my ideas in sometimes because I didn't want to be too out there,” he chuckles. “I want the audience to be able to relate. That's the most beautiful thing about music.”

With libraries closing and video games succeeding books, young folk of the noughties find themselves saturated with ready-made fairy tales and atrophying imaginations. “Kids don't have the patience nowadays. Technology means everything is on demand for them; they don't take the time to analyse an object anymore - it’s more about what they can get out of an object rather than what they can put in it,” The political rhetoric on his track 'Capsize' (“Kick down the doors of Parliament for the truth”) is also, albeit in a different context, concerned with youth culture. “I left the end of the lyrics in 'Capsize' open because politics is something I'm interested in but don't really understand. I think that's a problem for a lot of young people. The media don't make it easy for them to understand what's going on.”

Growing up in beautiful but quiet Ipswich gave the young MC something to strive towards. “Kids in London had pirate radio station, so when my cousins from Hackney would send me Pay As You Go cartel or Dizzee Rascall tapes, they were like gold dust for us. This was before the internet was such a big thing, so I guess we were trying to do more with less.” He's London-based now, but Dickins is keen to be seen as an individual MC rather then being part of any particular scene or movement. “I'm quite a reserved person, and I spend a lot of time on my own even though I have a large circle of friends. I just don't want to be boxed in, really. I wasn't worried about UK hip-hop accepting me because I've always wanted to do my own thing. I just want to be known as someone who is passionate about the music and the art.”

He is, however, happy to acknowledge the small orbit of artist friends who contributed to GOB. Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio fame remixed upcoming single 'Gob', and the album's production comes from a host of left-field UK creatives, including Goddard, Kwes, Sampha and Micachu, most of whom he initially met through MySpace. He bonded with Goddard over a mutual love of UK garage, and though the pair worked on 15-tracks together, only three of these - 'Trumpalump', 'Shapeshift' and 'Capsized' - made the album. Luckily, Goddard was amiable about relinquishing his role to Kwes, whose beats had an affinity with the vision that Dickins was trying to channel. “I was talking to Kwes on MySpace for two years so it was a bit weird when we met in real life, but we got on really well. He's so talented. He's got synesthesia and he's pitch perfect. He can play anything he picks up. I think he's a modern day genius.”

Like Kwes, Dickins has a creative aptitude for exploring new styles. “Once this album is done and all the tours are out the way, I want to make a mix tape. Not a typical one though,” he clarifies. Dickins is full of ideas for merging art and music in new, innovative formats. “Maybe it would be a series of videos or something - they don't necessarily have to feature me. Or maybe it would be an exhibition or an instillation or a projection in someone's living room...”


DELS live dates:

7 Apr GOB Album Launch, Hoxton Bar And Kitchen, London
30 Apr & 1 May, Camden Crawl, London
12 May, The Great Escape, Brighton, UK
19 May, Stag and Dagger, London, UK
20 May, Sound City Festival, Liverpool
21 May, Stag & Dagger, Glasgow