"We’re Not A Hip Hop Group"

Young Fathers’ members – Hastings, Alloysious Massaquoi and Kayus Bankole – came together in Edinburgh at an underage hip hop night, Hastings noting that “music isn’t a big thing” in the city. From disparate backgrounds, quirkily, they share their fathers’ names. Massaquoi emigrated from Liberia in childhood. Bankole was born to Nigerian parents in Edinburgh but has spent time in the US. Hastings grew up on a council estate. Their first album, Dead, signalled their breakthrough. They weren’t favourites for the Mercury – and Britain’s mainstream media gave them a hard time for looking grumpy.

Young Fathers wasted no time following Dead. They travelled to Berlin – but, before that, reportedly worked in Melbourne. White Men Are Black Men Too, led by Rain Or Shine, has a harder electronic, almost industrial, edge. But “the album that we’ve done is our idea of what a pop record should be – it’s just it’s a different kind of pop record of the time, ‘cause that’s where we wanna fit. We didn’t wanna be a leftfield electronic group. We wanna be in among everybody else and heard by as many people as possible.” Indeed, Young Fathers are reclaiming “pop” – and their place in it. As such, when writing, they’d “simplify” their ideas. Still, the title isn’t exactly innocuous. Ahead of its release, the trio circulated part of an impassioned email from Massaquoi to their management, written in capitals, defending it (“It’s got issues of race and so what?”). Hastings maintains they didn’t go with the title to confuse or offend. “We actually believe that the world is a complex place that’s not black and white, that’s not equal, so this is to kind of combat that – to make people think about it.”

White Men Are Black Men Too is timely since, with a recharged Civil Rights movement Stateside, hip hop has become more stridently political, Run The Jewels and Kendrick Lamar at the forefront. Yet Young Fathers remain outliers. “We’re definitely just doing our own thing. We didn’t see ourselves as hip hop – we’re not a hip hop group. But I think that some of the things that are being said by Kendrick Lamar are great. It’s even just refreshing for people to be talking about things like that, ‘cause it feels like for a while a lot of stuff has been eradicated in music – especially on important subjects that actually affect people’s lives.”