Discography Exploration: Young Fathers

I am going to dive into Young Fathers' discography and look at all of their studio albums and mixtapes, and talk about each briefly and provide a conclusive report! 

Genre: Experimental Hip-Hop, RnB, Noise Rock, Lo-Fi

Formation: Edinburgh, Scotland in 2008

Members: Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole and Graham 'G' Hastings

Tape One (2011)

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The debut EP/mixtape by Young Fathers definitely shows what is so interesting about the group, immediately the one two punch of Deadline and Sister gets the listener excited about noisy fusion of RnB, hip-hop, reggae and rap with some really cool chants and African rhythms thrown in the mix. The production is very lo-fi and this is mostly in positive way but towards the end it gets little one note. The songwriting is standard for a debut project, and is a collection of ideas thrown at us rather which have not reached their final product. In terms of lyrics they are few but are placed very well with respect to instrumentation which lets the hypnotic beats takes hold of the listener. This is a great well constructed experimental project by Young Fathers, with very innovative production and sonic aesthetic.

Tape Two (2013)

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"Science if eerie when you're still around" is the lyric that opens this album up, and man this album is weird, on first glance it looks like the addendum to Tape One and is aptly titled Tape Two, but on more listens Young Fathers improve in every aspect, most notably on songwriting and more experimental and innovative production. There is still that unique Young Fathers sound of reggae, soul, RnB, hip-hop and rap all mixed in a very clever way with a murky layer of lo-fi production present throughout. Speaking of production this time around they seem to be more deliberate about the lo-fi aesthetic and it feels well thought out. This is a great EP, almost all songs are very good, highlights like I Heard, Mr Martyr and the amazing AMAZING closer Ebony Sky are something you can listen to over and over again. 

Dead (2014)

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This I think is Young Fathers best album, the album which got them the Mercury price. They build on top of the sound they perfected in their first two tapes but more reeled in and that gives an excellent sense of cohesion to the album. Not only that Young Fathers once again improve their songwriting a lot as well as the lyricism. The whole album is tied together with a loose concepts about war and its atrocities, and some of the imagery is really vivid. I would also say Dead is also Young Fathers catchiest album with just 34 mins of runtime, it is definitely packed with very catchy bangers like Get Up, Just Another Bullet and Paying. This is where Young Fathers have reached at the pinnacle of their lo-fi experimental hip-hop and RnB. This is one of the rare perfect  10/10 albums for me every song is perfect and the album listening experience enhances the songs.

White Men Are Black Men Too (2015)

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Where could young fathers go after achieving perfection in Dead with the sounds of hip-hop, RnB, Soul with a relatively polished and appealing (still creative) production. The answer is to their roots, they go back to their tape One days of low-fi, the production on this album is really noisy and muddled together, they also move away from rap and incorporate more singing and Soul oriented songs in this record. The biggest change is the instrumentation, hidden behind the grimy production they seem to be experimenting with more diverse instrumentation with quirky synth samples thrown in many tracks. It seems they are still toying with this style on this album and all the ideas have not been perfected. By no means it is a bad album, it's great, but it also hints to something better to come. Oh, and, "Old Rock n Roll" is one of the best songs they have ever written.

Cacao Sugar (2018)

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Well, the thing that Young Fathers were building towards almost yields fruition in Cacao Sugar, which is also the group's most polished and in turn accessible album. The added instrumentation and more Soul heavy songs which they experimented within their previous record is present here in a more well-arranged manner and wrapper together with better songs. Even though the recording quality is much more polished but there are also still elements of lo-fi present in the music, plus the lyrical content of this album is more coherent and entails some religious themes throughout. Also let us not forget this is a great album cover, super iconic, and will draw the listener in. This is a great jumping-in point album, if you don't like this album then you will have a hard time liking Young Fathers other works.

Final Thoughts 

Young Fathers never really put out a dud album in their discography so far, and it seems they are still going strong. I would still argue that Dead remains their best work and will be hard to top given it is a perfect record. To a new listener I would suggest them to check out Cocao Sugar and then Dead to get an idea what this group is about, i.e., one of the best abstract/experimental hip-hop and RnB groups operating currently.