Actually, Loyle Carner wasn’t gone that long. Only three years have passed since his most recent album NOT WAVING, BUT DROWNING (2019). However, if you look at world events in this short time, his absence feels like an eternity: issues such as the corona pandemic, Black Lives Matter, the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, the war in Ukraine, climate change and the feminist revolution in Iran busy around the clock. And a lot has happened personally for the rapper from South London: not only has he reconnected with his father, he has also become a father himself. It is precisely this conglomeration of political and personal circumstances that underlies HUGO, his third album, which will be released on October 21, 2022. We caught up with Loyle Carner for the big video interview to talk about fatherhood, hate and the beauty of poetry.
Watch the video interview here:
In the music video for Loyle Carner’s new single “Hate,” he is seen driving a car while being attacked from the back seat by a different version of himself. When asked why he chose to portray his anger at society as an internal struggle, he says, “I think because that’s where the anger is. Yes, I’m angry at all the things that are out there, but the way I deal with them – that’s the problem.” Anger and hatred are recurring themes on HUGO. “As the lockdown progressed, I started to get more involved with black culture, which I wasn’t connected to before because I had never been shown it,” says the musician, whose real name is Benjamin Gerard Coyle-Larner. “And that association with that made me more and more angry.”
Coyle-Larner grew up in south-east London as the son of British mothers. His father is from Guyana, he left the family early. Only now, with the birth of his own son, has the 28-year-old decided to get in touch with his father again and even went to Guyana with him. “I’ve always wanted him to introduce me to Guyana and my Black heritage, heritage and culture. But actually it was me who taught him, which was a very beautiful thing.” They shot the music video for his new single “Georgetown” together there. The song features a feature with poet John Agard, the line “I’m black like the key on the piano / White like the keys on the piano” is based on his poem “Half-Caste”.
It’s not the first time Loyle Carner has taken inspiration from a poem – his previous album NOT WAVING, BUT DROWNING was titled after Stevie Smith’s poem of the same name. “I don’t really differentiate between rap and poetry,” he explains of his connection to the art form. “But poetry in its raw form has less structure and parameters, so it’s really easy to flow freely and be challenging and a little bit more inclusive. She crosses borders and there is nothing to distract from the words.” He laughs. “And that’s like my only thing.”