Young Fathers

Psychedelic soul, post-punk, and left-field strains of hip-hop and pop account for only some of the styles that swim through Young Fathers’ dense and fiery sound. The Edinburgh-based trio released several EPs and singles before breaking through with their 2014 debut album, Dead, which won the prestigious Mercury Prize. This was followed by the heavier White Men Are Black Men Too in 2015, and the group’s music was extensively featured in the 2017 film T2 Trainspotting before the more direct yet equally hard-to-categorize Cocoa Sugar cracked Scotland’s Top Ten in 2018. After a lengthy break, Young Fathers returned in 2022 with a batch of singles leading to the 2023 album Heavy Heavy.
Young Fathers formed in 2008, seven years after the members met at a youth club in their Edinburgh home base. Alloysious Massaquoi was born in Liberia and moved with his family to Edinburgh at a young age. Kayus Bankole, born in Edinburgh, lived in his parents’ native Nigeria, as well as the U.S., before returning to his birthplace. Graham Hastings is from the northwest of Edinburgh. The three started performing in nightclubs when they were in their teens. A full-length, Inconceivable Child…Conceived, was recorded for Black Sugar Records, but it was shelved. A few singles and EPs surfaced, and the self-issued 2011 cassette Tape One was picked up by the Anticon label the following year. Tape Two appeared in 2013, and the group’s first commercially available full-length, Dead, was released in February 2014 by both Big Dada and Anticon. Built on their knack for fusing inventive but gritty rhythms and sounds with incisive lyrics, the album gained a lot of critical attention and won the 2014 Mercury Prize, beating out considerably more famous competition.
A U.K. tour turned into a world tour with some dates in South Africa and the U.S., and Young Fathers also traveled to Europe, which included a long stop in Berlin to lay down tracks for their sophomore LP. After recordings were finished back home in Edinburgh, their album White Men Are Black Men Too appeared in April 2015. They guested on Massive Attack’s 2016 EP Ritual Spirit, and “Only God Knows,” a collaboration with the Leith Congregational Choir, appeared on the soundtrack to T2 Trainspotting, which included several other Young Fathers songs. Early 2018 saw the release of the Ninja Tune-issued singles “In My View” and “Toy” ahead of the tense, pared-down Cocoa Sugar, which reached number nine in Scotland upon release that March.
After a four-year absence, Young Fathers resurfaced in 2022 with three previews of their fourth LP — their second for Ninja Tune — recorded in the group’s basement studio. “Geronimo,” “I Saw,” and “Tell Somebody” all appeared on the emotionally complex if uninhibited Heavy Heavy, released the following February. ~ Andy Kellman & Paul Simpson