Caught Up In a Moment: Young Fathers on Heavy Heavy
On a drizzly Edinburgh afternoon, we meet Young Fathers in their rehearsal space to find out about their latest album Heavy Heavy and what makes them tick as a band
There can be real magic in the mundane. We see it every day – in the small, unremarkable actions of regular people which turn into extraordinary feats. Or in the familiar, run-of-the-mill spaces that act as breeding grounds for the best kinds of creativity. Behind some graffitied shutters in an inconspicuous rehearsal space just minutes from Easter Road, you may find Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole and Graham 'G' Hastings concocting such magic on any given day. As Young Fathers, they’ve had well over a decade of records, international tours and industry plaudits. But even after all the success and time together, this trio still chooses to harness their collective power from the simple things, be that their surroundings, their regard for each other’s differences or their penchant for the unconstrained.
“All our albums have always been that – the idea is you have no idea what you're going to make,” Hastings explains, arranging a makeshift circle of chairs for us to sit and have our chat. We’re in said rehearsal space, surrounded by what is likely years of Young Fathers’ fixtures – instruments, electronics, miscellaneous bits and pieces all scattered around this compact room. Everywhere you look, there’s something interesting that’ll catch your eye: to the left, an imposing curved reflective backdrop and to the right, stacked boxes of the group’s new record, ready and waiting to go out.
“A lot of times, we do one or two takes,” Massaquoi continues. “We're lucky enough to have started when we were really young so we've done essentially every sort of process going. We've sat with a song for two, three months before, trying to chisel it. We’ve done it all.”
“Remember when albums used to feel impossible?” Hastings interjects. And he’s right – albums did once upon a time feel like this mammoth mission that only the elite few could pull off. But when Young Fathers worked on their debut mixtape Tape One in 2011, they recorded it within a week. And Tape Two was recorded almost immediately afterwards, in January 2012. Heavy Heavy, their fourth studio album and their first since 2018’s Cocoa Sugar, is the main topic of conversation today and the overwhelming ease and comfort that emanates from each band member suggests that they’ve nailed their approach of going back to basics.
“What fits us the best was when we used to record in Graham's bedroom, with a karaoke machine and one take,” Massaquoi says. “So it’s funny that we’ve gone back to that. I think we are in a sort of minority where we believe that music can change the world and influence and with that, there’s a level of feeling like it's a special thing. And there's something magical about that; you don't want to fuck with that. So when we approach it in that way, it's somewhat sacred, and you just want to capture it and then leave.”
Young Fathers. Photo: Nico Utuk
Though Heavy Heavy is the result of a significant break that the band always intended to take, its inception was naturally affected by the forced separation triggered by the arrival of COVID-19. But when the unit returned as one, that sense of capturing something sacred in the moment, of honing in on the spontaneity of it all, felt all the more valid and essential. As Massaquoi explains, “When you capture the moment very fast, you have the opportunity to hear it how a listener is going to hear it. And then when you hear it a second time, after a few days or a week or however long, then you can hear that something's missing. There's a sense of freedom, because everyone's differences are being put to the forefront and supported and encouraged. Everybody has their idiosyncrasies and all that is pushed and that's what makes it what it is. It just feels better every time.”
The overarching belief in that freedom extends beyond recording to the roll-out of the album’s singles too. Geronimo, the first track to be unveiled from Heavy Heavy, wasn’t even considered a single to begin with. The group had I Saw, the album’s second single and a track arguably more akin to their recognisably frenetic sound, in their arsenal. But in keeping with the theme of spontaneity, they chose to go with the unexpected instead.
“We kind of enjoy the element of surprise ourselves,” Hastings notes. “Even when we’re recording, you're trying to surprise yourself all the time and come up with something different. And you can have that with releases as well – you can have some fun with it, for example, knowing that we have I Saw, but putting Geronimo out first.”
“I think at the time, it seemed like a departure from the sort of stuff we’d done before,” Massaquoi continues. “With this process, it’s like we’re building things back up again. So it didn't seem right to come in with a bang, right from the get-go.”
It might not have reintroduced Young Fathers with the kind of “bang” that they’re used to, but Geronimo kicked the album cycle off with a profound feeling that something radical was afoot; that the unrestrained energy we’re used to would arrive with the addition of new ideas and influences, as well as a refreshed feeling of defiance. You can hear the latter clearly in the aforementioned I Saw, a track that is searing in its politically-charged storytelling, reflecting on communality and how people can turn a blind eye en masse. What amplifies the track, however, is its accompanying music video, created by Austrian-Nigerian artist and filmmaker David Uzochukwu.
“When you hear the song, you don't expect that kind of video,” Massaquoi says. “And I think that's one of the strongest parts about it.” The striking video, which depicts a fictional community performing rituals beneath the moon on a beach, was similarly born out of the band’s desire to embrace the undetermined.
“I think what comes out of it is that it wasn't set in stone,” Bankole begins. “The conversations that we had with David were just a creative exchange of ideas. It wasn’t until later on, further down the line, that we said, this is the video we want to shoot. These are all a bunch of ideas that we have, how can we translate it and make it feel like something?” There was a steady back and forth between the trio and Uzochukwu on the subject of the video, but what is perhaps most interesting about the process is the fact that they were thinking not just about that one song, but the album on the whole.
As Bankole explains, “We were thinking conceptually how we can create these vignettes that can translate the overall feel of the sense of community that existed within the album. So there was that element where you felt like the possibilities were endless, that you could mix and match ideas and contrast it and put it together and see what happens. And [David] was willing enough to take that plunge with us and just see where it goes. Sometimes when you think about something, and your mind is completely set, it blocks possibilities.”
“It's like staring at the sun, and you can't see anything else,” Hastings adds. It’s something that has admittedly come with experience but the trio also acknowledge how much more content they are in their musical choices and this idea of rolling with the punches.
“Maybe the break that we had was necessary for us to appreciate how important being surprised is in the midst of creating stuff,” Bankole says. “Now I know that's my kick, that's my Achilles heel. That's the thing that gives me that hit. I didn't know it when we were getting back into the studio and starting to record. I forgot without any hesitation how great my brothers are. I'm constantly impressed. I'm constantly feeling like something new is brewing that I would never have been able to imagine or do by myself.”
In person, there's a warmth in the group’s dynamic that comes from their obvious mutual respect for one another. But aside from the regular cracking of jokes and their overall welcoming demeanour, you can’t ignore the urgency and weight they clearly place on their craft. “It's never been just a bunch of mates wanting to make music and having a laugh,” Hastings says, “it's never been that. For us, it's always been very, very serious.”
This undeniably translates on stage too, where the group become an altogether otherworldly entity. They are formidable in their presence, with unbounded physical energy, holding and releasing tension at the perfect moments. Watching them live is an intense experience and at the same time, wholly cathartic and joyful.
“We embody something extremely more visceral and more humane and connect them to the root,” Bankole states when asked why people connect so strongly with them in that live setting. “So when it comes to being on stage, when you leave all that shit outside of the door, it just opens up a world where people feel like they're part of it, there's a sense of connection that no one is excluded from.”
“For us, it's always been anti-nonchalant and anti-cool and collected,” Hastings adds. “It's about fucking passion and using your frustrations and letting it all hang out because that is what we like when we see it in other performers.”
Young Fathers. Photo: Nico Utuk
As the conversation turns to notable performances like Glastonbury and Jools Holland, they admit that their passion and seriousness hasn’t always been received in the most positive light. When they beat the likes of Damon Albarn and FKA twigs to win the Mercury Prize for Dead in 2014, for example, they were slated for not smiling on stage. “There was so much fuss made about us not smiling,” Massaquoi asserts. “And when they interviewed us after, they were like, 'you seem like you're not even bothered'.”
It’s a common trope, especially in the arts and especially for people of colour, that gratitude should just flow out of you. Make no mistake, Young Fathers understand how awards like the Mercury and The SAY Award, which they’ve won twice, have made a huge difference in their trajectory. But then and even now, they can say with confidence that they deserved to be there. And those that mistake their seriousness for indifference are ultimately wrong to do so.
“It’s when people say things like, ‘can you believe they’re Scottish?’ – that’s the thing that annoys me,” Hastings says. “There's racist connotations in it, there's a lot of connotations of snobbery, of ‘this is credible music and this is not’ and we've had to double down on being serious in order for people to take us seriously in that world.”
Being straight-faced on stage, in photographs and at events has become a kind of shield for the band but it’s also another way to place all focus on the music; to remove ego from the equation and lay everything bare in its most simplistic sense. You can hear this throughout Heavy Heavy – from the gospel-flavoured exuberance of opener Rice to Drum’s Yoruba lyrics and restless rhythms; from the jangling backdrop of Sink or Swim to the gentle build and cacophony of piano-led finale Be Your Lady. It’s a collage of experiences, genres and influences that manages to tap into something exceptional and communal, attempting to counteract the separation we readily see in the world.
“I think this record in particular, it's undeniably steeped in humanity,” Massaquoi says. “There's so many different conversations happening. And it's about how we can all be talking about something different, but we've all honed in on the feeling of the song. You've got three Beyoncés and that's probably what that is – we can all hold the fort individually and we can all support each other in that same process. What we do is like a glorious mess but it works and we made it work.”
Bankole nods in agreement with his fellow bandmates. “For me personally, it’s taking all the shit that you get buried in and just cutting through all that to connect to the complexities of the world,” he says. “Not in like a mystical way; that sounds fucking cliché and airy fairy. I mean it in a more simplistic way, just cutting through all the rubbish and just connecting with the human feeling. That's the bit for me that I want people to get from the record.”
Graham 'G' Hastings and Kayus Bankole. Photo: Nico Utuk
As the sun sets outside and the rain hammers down hard on the studio’s roof, Massaquoi is trying desperately to remember the name of a song. It’s something he heard on the way home from a night out which temporarily transported him from the mundanity of his surroundings to somewhere cinematic and miraculous. “The ordinary became the extraordinary and it just caught me in a moment,” he muses. “And that's the thing you want music to do – you want to be caught up in a moment to sort of drift off.”
After some Googling, we discover it’s P.M. Dawn’s Set Adrift on Memory Bliss – a certifiable banger. But as the conversation returns to Heavy Heavy and the band’s upcoming tour around the UK and Europe, it’s apparent that this moment of connection and transportation from the most banal of situations is what each of them covet with their own music.
“We've created something that for a lot of people is going to be extraordinary,” Massaquoi affirms, “and we're just normal dudes that have an idea, trying to make something bigger and better than ourselves, and beyond ourselves.”
With Heavy Heavy, Young Fathers succeed in stripping everything away to its rudimentary, raw and human level so you’re left with pure tenderness, unabashed fury and truth. But there can be real magic in the mundane. And in this inconspicuous rehearsal space just minutes from Easter Road, it’s evident that they have found and amassed that magic tenfold.
Heavy Heavy is released on 3 Feb via Ninja Tune
Young Fathers play La Belle Angele for Assai Records, Edinburgh, 10 Feb; O2 Academy, Glasgow, 3 Mar & 4 Mar
Our February issue is a Young Fathers takeover – Alloysious, Kayus and G share some of their inspirations; Young Fathers collaborator Callum Easter fills out this month’s Q+A; the band’s former manager Tim London reflects on their career so far; plus YF-approved features on theatre maker and director Adura Onashile and the Tanzanian underground sound of Singeli.
Scroll on for more from the Young Fathers takeover, or pick up a print copy from locations across Scotland