From winning both the Mercury Prize and the Scottish
Album of the Year Awards in 2014 (for Dead and Tape Two respectively) through
to earning the kind of gushing praise that’s normally reserved for visiting
deities Edinburgh’s Young Fathers seemingly came from nowhere. They’ve actually
been a going concern since hooking up at an under 16s hip hop night in 2008
though, fusing three distinctly different backgrounds (Liberia via Ghana,
Maryland and Drylaw, apparently a suburb on the outskirts of Edinburgh...who
says the internet ain’t educational eh?) to create something that’s undeniably
different. And at this stage in musical evolution development that’s a pretty
rare thing indeed.
First up though Kojey Radical, artist, poet,
musician...he probably knocks up a mean lemon drizzle cake too. Joined this
evening by Jude (who had one of those weird Talk Box devices that makes it
sound like his guitar is talking, all without the aid of mind altering drugs
too...cool) Kojey’s an accomplished wordsmith with the kind of natural easy
going charm that soon had the audience doing the old call and response thing
with unusual enthusiasm. Citing Shakespeare, Sigmund Freud and quite possibly
Karl Marx (in one track he posits the thought that it’s actually love that’s
the opium of the people as opposed to religion if only eh?) as influences and
inspiration fine lines spilled out relentlessly with pick of the set being an
emotional Preacher Preacher, railing against religion’s habit of taking money
from its flock in exchange for spiritual salvation (something which seemed to
have hit his own family and mother in particular) and the Hamlet inspired Ophelia.
So, to see or not to see: that is the question. That’s a simple one to answer, this particular Radical's well worth catching.
With the room packed and gently steaming the trio of
Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole and “G” Hastings suddenly appeared as
drummer Steven Morrison began beating the bejesus out of his kit (something
that, impressively, he continued doing for much of the set in fact). From the
outset the music’s a mix of all sorts, reflecting both the diverse backgrounds
of the band and quite possibly the unfettered access to music that we all
pretty much take for granted these days. Reviewers have done their brains in
trying to sum up what Young Fathers are. They’ve been called rap but not rap,
leftfield hip hop and dark gospel...all true in their own way and yet still wide
of the mark. Take the Queen Is Dead for instance. Huddled round a single mic,
arms round each other, it’s like someone’s lit the blue touch paper on a bomb
as the menacing beats and stream of consciousness lyrics explode into apache
whoops, discordant synths and furious drumming.
Adam Ant meets Aphex Twin meets
Public Enemy via Gil Scott Heron? Who the hell knows, but who cares when it
sounds this great though. It’s a mix that reaches its peak on the band's
breakthrough single Get Up, quite possibly the most twisted party anthem in
history.
At times it's almost like three different bands playing all at
once, a dizzying Molotov cocktail of words, music and sounds that really shouldn’t work
but somehow just does.
If the mix of influences is impressive then the
sheer energy of a Young Fathers show will blow your socks off...even if you ain’t
wearing any. Having three frontmen gives each one the chance to step up and go
three shades of bonkers, then catch their breath before plunging back into
things. Alloysious and Kayus are particularly boisterous to put it mildly,
whilst “G” has a bit of an Ian Curtis thousand yard stare thing going on. Fiddling
about with various knobs he also produces the kind of other worldly sounds last
heard on 60s sci fi, Dr Who meets Dr Dre with just a dash of TV On The Radio
for good measure. Shame, introduced by “G” (one of the few times any of the
band spoke) with a slightly menacing “Can ye dance?” in particular tested the
sonic boundaries and if the dog population of Kings Heath suddenly started
throwing shapes around 10pm on Wednesday night then you’ll know why.
The set ended with Massaquoi doing some kind of beautiful,
weird contemporary dance that, aping the music, seemed to blend everything from
body popping to ballet and then they were gone. No fake encore bullshit, no shout
outs pushing the merch and no endless posing for selfies with the fans.
Whether all of this energy, creativity and
dedication to the road (they played an impressive 140 gigs last year) will last
or where they take things from here remains to be seen. For now though, well, quite
frankly they’re the daddies.
No comments:
Post a Comment