What do you do after a hard week of working in a community pharmacy? Do you grab an early night sleep, go out to see friends, watch some television? 

For one (soon-to-be) pharmacist, his preference is being on the receiving end of a powerbomb or getting into headlocks and dropkicks.  

“I love a spinebuster,” Ahmed Karim Tamu, 25, tells C+D. “You pick them up, spin with them and then just drop them on their back. Triple H does a mean spin buster. It’s great because you can get so much height on it.” 

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This is the life of a pharmacy student who spends his time wrestling outside of his part-time job at a Dublin community pharmacy. But he’s also been a prolific rapper and producer since his first releases during Covid. 

Last month, under his music moniker Ahmed, With Love., he release his second EP of the year after his first mixtape ‘Comma, Fullstop.’ came out in October 2024. He’s also performed at Irish festivals Body&Soul, AVA, and All Together Now. 

But he’s been blending the music and wrestling worlds together, after producing his second ‘Clash at the Quays’ event earlier this month as part of the multidisciplinary arts showcase Dublin Fringe Festival. 

“I’m a little sore because I went through the table. I got my ass beat – it was really fun.” 

Chaos 

The fringe event had four wrestling matches featuring tag teams, triple threats, and a women’s match split up by four music performances, with all taking stage in the wrestling ring itself. 

Sometimes the music performances had rap battles that “decayed into chaos” with scraps ensuing. Tamu did a 30-minute music performance before he got “run up on by a wrestler I’ve been talking shit about for the past two months”. 

“I was the big, bad guy and I got my comeuppance and beat up for 10 minutes straight.” 

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Tamu started wrestling a couple of years ago just as he produced his first ‘Clash at the Quays’ event. Inspired by wrestlers Booker T, Eddie Guerrero, Steve Austin, John Cena and Rob Van Dam, he credits his latest one as one of his best achievements so far. 

“In August, I was working full-time because a lot of people are on holiday, but it was also the month before the fringe festival show. I worked from eight thirty in the morning to seven at night every day, then I’d get loads of calls and texts from people arranging meetings for the show. 

“I put out a silly idea, people got on board with it, and that means a lot to me.  My mum loved it, she said it reminded her of when she brought me to wrestling as a kid. That’s beautiful.” 

Pharmacy 

Silliness is a big part of Tamu’s ethos, but it’s balanced by the hard work he puts into all his endeavours. 

He’s coming towards the end of his five-year pharmacy degree in Dublin, having chosen to go into the industry after feeling the medicine route would take up too much of his time. 

“So, in my 18-year-old brain, I tried to think what else in healthcare maybe wouldn’t be as intense but still satisfy doing chemistry and biology and music as well. Pharmacy ticks those boxes, so I ended up going for it.” 

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Tamu is interested in going into industry once he graduates. But he’s been working part-time at a community pharmacy in Sandyford’s Balally Pharmacy during his studies over the past three years.  

He says through this he has developed a “bigger love” for working in community and finds serving his local community particularly rewarding.  

“Everyone there were people I would see walking around the streets, so it felt more real that I’m helping people and my immediate community. 

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“I love it to bits. The owner and pharmacist Tom McKenna is like a father figure to me and he’s a funny character as well. Even dealing with sponsors, I’ll ask him for advice and tips. I see how he runs a business, and I take that as how to run my business. 

“He was at the show, most of the people at work were. There are pictures of me with a big wrestling belt and my boss, a 50-year old man who loves hip-hop.” 

Music 

Tamu’s own love for hip-hop comes through artists like Earl Sweatshirt, MIKE and MF DOOM that has inspired his lyricism, his flow, and stage presence that can be as explosive as it is a little goofy. 

“Tyler, the Creator was a big influence because he was the first person that made me realise anyone can rap and I don’t have to be cool because I was a nerd growing up. Tyler’s weird as hell, so you can do it.” 

He comes from a large family with three brothers and two sisters, and has moved back and forth between Sierra Leone and Ireland throughout his childhood.

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Tamu started out on the trumpet and learnt the piano too, and by the time he turned 18 he decided to join the community theatre organisation Dublin Youth Theatre that pushed him into performance art. 

He’s settled on a music identity as “silly wave”, but he says it took time to figure out who he was as a person. 

“When I was living in Sierra Leone, I was very shy, so I spent a lot of time with myself and learnt a lot. I asked myself what I value the most and from growing up in two different cultures, I always had an issue with what my identity was. 

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“Over time, I came to accept to just be myself as well as I can and that’s doing things by not taking myself too seriously. Even though my art can be serious and I have sad songs, I like having fun and the act of making something is very fun and true to me.” 

Tamu says part of that process has even been finding what his voice will sound like when he sings and raps, eventually getting to the place to sound “how I normally talk” that bridges his Irish and Sierra Leone heritage. 

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But he explains his artistic goal is finding the “beauty of the absurd” and not “taking yourself seriously”. 

“I feel a lot of people hinder themselves because they’re afraid of looking weird, dumb, silly or foolish and their art is suffering because they’re like ‘that’s not cool enough, not swag enough’. People forget looking weird is part of doing something new.” 

Priorities 

For Tamu, the juxtaposition of his two pharmacy and creative careers is not lost on him. He even references his pharmacy career in his track ‘WHATCHIMACALLIT’ with lyrics “they didn't know I'm a pharmacist too” and a more tongue-in-cheek reflection of “went to college for pharmacy too, so I could make songs and be cool?”. 

But he enjoys the separation and doing his art in his free time.  

“Having jobs like this keeps me so grounded and makes me appreciate all my creative endeavours outside of pharmacy. It means more to me, like I’ve earned it. 

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“When I was younger I didn’t want to work in the arts. If I made that a job, I may not have enjoyed it, and I didn’t like the pressure of putting art as my job.” 

Regardless, Tamu has learnt through his pharmacy studies and job about the importance of working to as high a standard as possible. 

“Any kind of project I want to get into, I need to do it to the highest quality. That’s definitely related to my work in pharmacy, just the ability to organise yourself and doing paperwork.” 

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He adds being able to prioritise has helped him manage it all. “I normally set my year plan about what is my big thing for the year. Last year was my debut mixtape so wrestling took a back seat. I’ll never be able to stop doing everything but I’m very good at picking which one gets the spotlight at any given time.” 

As for the future, he won’t choose one thing over another. “In the dream world, I’d be working a pharmacy job three or four times a week and doing my fun, silly antics in between. That’s the aim.  

“I need the duality of the worlds. I feel much more satisfied doing my arts stuff knowing I’m serving a community and people feel healthy in a community pharmacy.”