These are grown men, battle fit and in their prime.
‘Passionate pranksters, always entertaining’. The album found itself being recorded in a hotel room in Illinois, a rehearsal room in Melbourne, a freezing cellar in Berlin, a photographic studio in London and their normal hole in the ground basement in Edinburgh. Yep, awards etc and they played around 130 shows, from Paris to Sydney, via both Portlands and Paisley, too. Don’t be afraid.Ģ014 was an interesting year for the group. But YFs lob raps into songs that morph into sung verses then back into the tune, with no respect, none! for the law. Why, for fuck’s sake? Where is the hiphop? It slides in, like a reverse version, a negative, of the hiphop blueprint of eight verses and a sweet, female wail of a hook (while comedy rapper number 6 mutters ‘uh huh, uh huh’, you know, keeping it real). ‘Is that what they mean by pop’? you ask yourself. It sounds as if you are in the room during the recording, possibly experiencing a little existential trauma, but not enough that you don’t notice an earworm hook when you hear one. The sounds are closer on this album, closer to your ears. Microphone technique: orders from the sound engineer: “do NOT cup the mic!”. No, you don’t box in the R&B Hits 2003 generation that easily. So… Young Fathers are breaking out of the ghetto.įor the purposes of this mission, this album, this "White Men Are Black Men Too", is rock and pop.
If you are a blue and green eyed boy from Brixton with the sallowest of white skin you can become the epitome of crystalised soul, itself. In Rock and Pop you are allowed to pretty much be yourself. They have to go to the place where Beck makes a sandwich with The Beach Boys and Captain Beefheart, where Faust and The Fall tango. When the sci-fi 20’s ‘Urban’ might as well be the atomic 50’s ‘Race’, when R&B has no blues and hiphop is a boom bip with a shorty, a hoe, it’s off to the street corner we go… where does a group like Young Fathers, who ‘picknmix from the popular music sweety shop and fly no flags and swear allegiance to no country’ (© - 100 interviews with the group in 2014) - where do they go? You probably want to know what that’s doing there, right? Well… (breathes) when everything is post post post post something older and better where do the exceptions go? (Exhale). Please read the accompanying words, straight from Alloysious’ mouth.Īnd then the sticker on the vinyl and CD: ‘file under Rock and Pop’.
Let’s get that title out of the way first: " White Men Are Black Men Too". “Don’t run away… don’t hesitate for a second”.