A deal with Big Dada records came after that and so, quickly, did Dead. The EPs Tape One and Tape Two followed, staking out a blueprint of what the band described as “white boy beats, black boy rhythm”. It was only when they changed manager (to a savvy veteran by the name of Tim Brinkhurst) that they pursued a new approach, upping the amount of music they recorded and releasing it for free online, mixtape-style. By the time they left their teens they were being marketed as Scotland’s premier hip-hop act (and sometimes were to be seen posing in tartan shirts) only to then get stuck in a record deal that failed to produce. They met at an under-18s hip-hop night in Edinburgh’s Bongo Club. Now 27 years old, G, Kayus and Ally first started recording together at the age of 14. Photograph: Kent Andreasen for the Guide/OtherĮven though few people had heard of Young Fathers before last year, they have been around for a long time. Young Fathers on top of Signal hill in Cape Town. They also stand out, both because they are a mixed-race group that’s keen to address the subject of identity, and because they increasingly sound quite different from almost any other proposition in music right now. They’re a band who do what they like, be it making music that’s confrontational and not quite of any one genre, or spending time playing to small crowds in South Africa when they could be building their profile in Europe. They’re a serious band, both in the attention they pay to every aspect of what they do and the fact that they don’t smile much. In a way, this Soweto show sums up Young Fathers. By the end of this unlikely PA, some of the crowd are cheering, others are bemused, but everyone’s eyes are on the band. They skulk around each other they explode into dancing that’s somewhere between demonic possession and household electrocution. They sing, they rap, they howl in unison at the sky. For the next 20 minutes G, Kayus and Ally perform songs from the Mercury-winning Dead and new album White Men Are Black Men Too. Finally, after a warm-up by local pantsula dancers who throw themselves around in the dirt, the band emerge stern-faced and with only the briefest of introductions. The band are without their usual equipment, although someone has managed to pull together a makeshift drumkit, and the crowd, now about 60 strong, is largely silent.
Young Fathers perform Shame live in session GuardianĪt this point, no one knows quite what to expect.
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