Longform Profiles Interview #50: Thomas Hobbs
In this interview, Thomas warns young writers against waiting for permission, urging them to build their own leverage rather than seeking validation from gatekeepers.
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Thomas Hobbs is a UK-based journalist with over a decade of experience covering culture, business, technology, and music. His work has appeared in the Financial Times, The New York Times, The Guardian, Vice, and Pitchfork. A vocal advocate for working-class writers, he combines rigorous, research-heavy reporting with a focus on the intersections of class, commerce, and creativity. In this interview, Thomas discusses the rampant classism of the British media, his “historian” approach to interviewing stars, and why he treats rap lyrics with the same critical reverence as the works of Cormac McCarthy.
Thomas, your career has been deeply rooted in music and culture journalism, but you’ve also been a vocal advocate for working-class writers. How do you balance these two aspects of your work, and how have they influenced each other over the years?
I was raised by a single working class mother after my dad passed away suddenly and tragically when I was only four-years-old. Watching her work multiple jobs and hustle in order to put food on the table for me was a great inspiration; she instilled in me the idea that you must always work hard and think outside the box.
I believe that growing up without a lot of resources, or with low expectations at school, either breaks you or inspires you to prove everyone wrong. I was fortunately in the latter group. I always try to represent for the writers who come from similar circumstances, because classism is such a deep rooted problem in journalism, especially in the UK, where I think it’s something like only 10-15% of professional journalists who currently come from a working class background. This means the middle to upper classes dominate with their perspective. It is important to try to reverse that cycle!
I always felt like people from single parent working class backgrounds were put into boxes. You didn’t see a kid whose only ever family holiday was to Butlins in Bognor Regis writing about the same cross-section or range of subjects as an Oxford graduate might. There was a gap in how “intellectual” you were perceived by the industry. I made it a big thing to keep going deeper into new subjects, areas, genres, angles etc that challenge myself and also the reader.
This has involved dissecting everything from serial killer fandoms to suburban satanists, mind control obsessives, people with extreme dog phobias, the decline of the prank call, bedroom obsessives making Deep Fake Eminem songs in their bedrooms, horror cinema’s masked killers feeling underrated, tattoos as an artform, and how Rollercoaster Tycoon inspired real life rollercoaster designers.
You’ve interviewed so many big names in music and culture. What do you think it takes to get not just good quotes but fresh, revealing insights from artists who’ve been interviewed countless times before?
It’s just about treating them like human beings and trying to see the world from their perspective and not putting too much of yourself into the questioning. Only do it a little, if at all. I see myself as a historian capturing an artist in a specific moment. If I insert myself too much into the narrative, I am blocking the view for others to see history unfold in the purest possible way.
It’s also all about the research. Study lyrics, beat switches, family trees, home town statistics, musical genealogy. Show someone you have tried to understand their art and its place in the world, not that you’re just trying to get a quip out of them for a social media headline. That’s what ultimately builds respect. I want my interviewees to go away from our chat and be excited by the things I uncovered...to say how did he think of that? Otherwise, what’s the point?
As a working-class writer in a media landscape you’ve described as classist, what challenges have you faced breaking into and navigating this space? And what advice would you offer to someone starting out with similar barriers?
I want to show other writers, particularly the ones I mentor, how hard this thing is. To make it without investment is going to be a struggle. It is important to be honest.
My advice would be that freelance can provide a lot of freedom and a chance to build a body of work. If you sit waiting for someone to reward you, you might drive yourself insane. Rather than waiting around, go out and make it happen: get pitching and build an audience who anticipate your writing. Try to do the unexpected.
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When it comes to covering enigmatic figures like Mach-Hommy, how do you approach telling their story without unraveling the mystique that makes them so compelling?
With someone like Mach-Hommy, there’s not a lot of fresh information about what makes him tick, so I rooted a lot of my research into the places where he grew up back in Port-au-Prince and New Jersey. What do these places look like? What do they smell like, or even feel like? And, if the media has given them a slanted or stereotypical portrayal - such as Haiti, which only last year saw Trump demonising Haitian immigrants, and 99% of the time is framed by Western journalists as “tragic” - my goal was to use our chat to reverse that cycle and show the lost beauty.
That’s what Mach-Hommy does so well as a rapper; he flips ideas on their head and effortlessly shifts from darkness to light. Therefore, I structured my questioning to mirror that approach. I wanted to show him his words deserved to be dissected just like, say, a Cormac McCarthy, but also respect his need to keep the mystery. The approach for the Mach-Hommy piece was to let the music and the art naturally tell the story of who the man is.
The Mach-Hommy article touches on themes like cultural preservation, identity, and systemic issues. Do you consciously seek out stories with these deeper layers, or do they naturally emerge as you write?
I always try to speak most to artists who elevate the desperate or the poor or heal those in pain. Mach-Hommy, therefore, was perfect given the way he’s driven by elevating everyday Haitians - who are some of the most disrespected people on the planet - into superheroes
You’ve done over 200 mentorship calls for aspiring writers. What’s the most common piece of advice you find yourself sharing, and what’s one thing you wish more young journalists understood about the industry?
To peel back the layers of pop culture and analyse what trends you see. That is how you will get your best ideas for pitches! To not be intimidated by other writers on social media. The second you stop caring for their approval is when you do your best work and find your true writing voice.
Lastly, with all the changes happening in journalism and how we consume culture, what excites you most about the future of your field, and what worries you the most?
I am worried that this whole industry is becoming a rich person’s game and that the people in charge at a corporate level will also lay off brilliant minds in place of AI bots that pump out Wikipedia page-level nonsense. The thing that excites me the most is the title I am planning on launching, which has a central idea that feels different. I am hoping people will support it.
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