Edinburgh-based trio, Hastings, Massoquoi and Bankole forming Young Fathers, have released their latest album Heavy Heavy, an exceptional celebration of community and connection, inviting the listener to feel a sense of release and experience the feeling of unity that can come with music and dance.
The album’s pop, R&B and electronic sound is flavoured with a drumming beat, clapping and chorusing of voices building towards the end of the song, particularly noticeable in ‘Be Your Lady’ ending with a montage of different voices and accents singing together.
A strong emphasis of this album is on dance, and the harmony and togetherness dance can bring. During the recording of their album, pinned to their studio wall was a picture of a girl smiling whilst dancing surrounded by people. Hastings commented on the picture saying “It’s straight-faced joy. What I see is a rhythmic toil. You’re very serious about how you’re dancing because it’s a real release…It’s ancient. People dance from the gut rather than the head…I suppose this was an attempt to bring people together and look at what that does, be it through protest or dance”.
The connection Hastings draws between protest, dance and community and the power these three hold is central to the album. This is what Bankole describes as making their music “soulful”.
This is seen in ‘Rice’, with lyrics referring to gold miners destroying Africa’s natural resources (“Something shiny, how’s it come to this?”). Hearing their Scottish accent with the spoken lyrics of “Seven-hundred thousand bumpkins of the transit line / I am golden, you were mining ‘til you said this line” is beautifully intertwined with the African beats employed in the song. Lots of inspiration for the album came from Bankole’s trips to Ghana and Ethiopia during their time-off between albums. Bankole commented on the music he experienced on his trips saying “Music is not so pre-mediated there, it just happens. It’s like you’re watching a musical – people are sitting around, and then suddenly they’re singing. My mum will be singing in the kitchen, and then my auntie picks it up, and then they’re teaching me the words and suddenly we’re all singing along”. This is reflected by the ending of the song with more voices joining in, ending with a chorus of voices chanting “See the turning tide”. The honest, simplistic lyrics of “I need to catch more fish, baby / I need to eat more rice” also helps draw focus to the connection of familial unity and music with rice being a staple feature of family meals in many cultures.
‘Ululation’ is a perfect example of how their music focuses on universal feelings that are larger than language. Sung by their friend in the Zimbabwean language, Shona, arguably allows it to be even more open to interpretation, even with the band having different understandings of the song: Hastings “You don’t hear joy in Ululation?”, Massoquoi responding with “No. I hear someone who’s been through a whole bunch of shit. It’s marred with this sadness happening at the same time as this joy, and that thing is sort of cleansing you”.
Similarly, ‘I Saw’ reflects on unity but this time with a more critical approach with the song commenting on how, with herd mentality, individuals become groups that can all turn a blind eye (“I saw what I saw / I keep on walking the line”). The music video to ‘I Saw’ was made by Austrian-Nigerian filmmaker David Uzochukwu and has a cult-like feel to it with people dancing independently around a fire and then dancing in unison, arms-linked. Massoquoi commented on the video saying “When you hear that song, you don’t expect that kind of video, and I think that’s one of the strongest parts about it”. This feeling of surprise is central to Young Fathers’ ethos, Hastings saying “We kind of enjoy the element of surprise ourselves”.
Overall, Heavy Heavy is best summarised by Massoquoi: “Undeniably steeped in humanity. There’s so many ways it can go. There’s contradiction, there’s a spiritual element. It’s antagonists, anthemic…all these adjectives that describe certain things we all resonate with as humans”. This focus on the complexity of human emotions and the release we can feel with dance is completed with their choice of album cover: a snapshot of a grimacing figure dancing with spikes coming out their body. Bankole describes the cover as showing “a joyfulness with a bit of toil, a little bit of pain, embodied within it”, which summarises in itself why this is such an exciting and impressive album.
Image “Young Fathers. Kutxa Kultur 2016” by Igorza76 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.