Young Fathers: Status Quo Challenging Scottish Hip-Hop

Young Fathers defies labels in its songs. A tapestry of electronic music, rock, pop, and R&B, the alternative hip-hop group crafts songs as unique as its multi-ethnic background, which spans Scottish and West African lineages. Producer 'G' Hastings and vocalists Alloysious Massaquoi and Kayus Bankole all met in Edinburgh, Scotland as teenagers, and later formed the band in 2008, named after the fact that eac member has the namesake of their fathers, hence, Young Fathers.

But Young Fathers true breakout came six years later, in 2014, with its Mercury Prize-winning second record, Dead. Now, with its just-released follow-up, White Men Are Black Men Too, the group continues to push ahead with a status quo-challenging aesthetic and message. Young Fathers subverts conventional views on race with their unique, vocally layered sound of organized chaos. It's a winning sound and original point of view that has won over fans and critics alike.

Interview Highlights

Alloysious Massaquoi, on the meaning of the album title, White Men Are Black Men Too, a line in the song, "Old Rock n Roll":

There's good and bad people in this world. It's not one specific color. So it's acknowledging the differences with people, it's the talks about association with color. What's a white man? What's a black man? What's a Muslim man? It's all like a amalgamation of that. The album allows us to have this conversation.

'G' Hastings, on their strategy when they enter the studio:

When we go in the studio, we don't know what we're going to do. We don't know if we're going to make a pop song or we're going to make whatever, you just have to be quite honest. You can apply certain palettes of sound and you can apply an ethos which what we done with this album is to kind of simplify, and make things more concise."

Kayus Bankole, on what inspires their song creation process, words or sounds:

It can start with a scream, it can start with a shout. It can start with something that you record on your voice note and have with you for a long time and then you bring it in and it manifests itself into a song.

'G' Hastings, on how the group decides each member's artistic input:

There's a democracy. Each person can have a shot at the front. And the other two will support always. [...] If someone feels inspired to go up and take a leap then...we're the kind of people that admire that kind of confidence. So we support each other.

On the increased amount of singing on the album:

Kayus Bankole: It wasn't something that was intentional or something that we pre-determined, it just came about. You do what's needed for the song. And [for] the words to have weight, you want them to have air so it can breathe.

'G' Hastings: To add to that, everything came about because everything's been simplified. [...] It opens up the room to sing."

Kayus Bankole, on "Get Started" sounding like a "hip-hop Tom Waits":

You can get your inspiration from anywhere but with us, we try to destroy, the influences that we get. Yeah, kill your idols. Because you can never be as good as them and if you aim for that, you'll always be second-rate, and that's something that won't allow you to sleep at night."

Set List:

• "Rain Or Shine"
• "Old Rock n Roll"
• "Shame"