Loyle Carner On His Vulnerable Fourth Album ‘hopefully!’: 'Avoidance Is The Biggest Enemy'

Loyle Carner is genuine about who he is in everything he does, from the handwritten poetry that garnered him award nominations such as the coveted Mercury Prize, to his own stage name, an embraced totem of being the dyslexic kid with a double-barrelled last name.

Carner, real name Benjamin Coyle-Larner and affectionately known as Ben off-camera, has been in the music game for some time now. With a style reminiscent of hip-hop’s emergence in the boroughs of the US, Carner surfaced in the early 2010s as a refreshing contemporary blend of old and new amidst the rising grime and drill subgenres of the UK scene.

Over a decade later and at the young age of 30, Carner is well and truly established in his career. He has three albums under his belt, two of which sit framed on the shelf behind him in certified gold hues against homely bric-a-brac. It’s assumed that his newly minted honorary Doctorate Degree rests out of view; the one earned from the same university he dropped out of all those years ago.

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ADHD ! honorary doctorate from ual. #adhd
♬ original sound - Loyle Carner

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“I’m in London. Nice and grey if you can see,” he smiles, raising his laptop to the window view of a murky morning sky. You can very much feel that figurative pitter-patter of overcast sky in some of his songs.

Everything has sped up as hopefully! has dropped, Carner’s laidback attitude traipsing throughout the nooks and crannies of pop culture - be it an awkward Chicken Shop Date with revealed old uni chum Amelia Dimoldenberg, to narrating a CBeebies Bedtime Story in his velvety-smooth voice.

The rapper has most recently lit up headlines for playing a headline slot at the illustrious Glastonbury festival a mere week after the album release, breezy as ever for his fourth time on the line-up despite etching out his anticipatory nerves to Spotify.

The set received a five-star rating from NME, with other outlets reporting that Carner’s performance topped clashing headliner The 1975.

Before the tens of thousands of indie sleaze-revival punters at Glasto, Carner soundchecked the new album for the first time to around 3600 Londoners over two sold-out nights at Hackney Church.

As for the rest of the year? Forty-one shows across 31 cities await the Ottolenghi rapper’s return following 2022’s Hugo. London has already sold out four times. And this December, he’s heading to Australia.

The Music managed to nab a chat with the elusive singer before everything ramped up. As of our chat, Carner is fresh out of a short writing hibernation, having finished up his fourth album hopefully! as recently as early 2025.

“We were kind of finishing at the start of this year, which is quite a quick turnaround, you know? I kind of like it like that.”

Over a hundred songs were workshopped for Carner’s previous album, with some shelved lyrics from this time interweaving their way into the 20-30 new additions written, worked on, and refined for the 11-track fourth release.

“It was quite a small process, in a way that, like… I think all the hard work on the Hugo album - because that was more like, kind of almost learning how to make music again for the first time, like with a band… post-COVID and having to retrace our steps, but not relying on so much electronic equipment, but more like human beings.

“It's like a completely different thing to work (with others) - I know how to work with computers, but I don't know how to work with humans, which is sad. But now, I do, you know? So, this album was a little bit easier to generate ideas.”

The first release in 3 years, hopefully! follows the acclaimed album Hugo chronologically but not thematically.

Though Carner is quick to say he doesn’t want to “intellectualise” hopefully!, there’s no denying its deeper currents: fatherhood, legacy, healing, and hope.

“What it felt like on my last few albums was, like, it was like a lot of self-exploration, in a way. Before my kids were born, or, like, just on the lead up to them being born - like everyone in kind of that egotistical way - I was like the main character in my film, whereas, like, now I'm like an extra, or it's like an ensemble, you know? It's like… It's not really about me.

“It's kind of been nice to make music where I'm just, like, completely out of the way, because why not? Like anyone, your whole focus is like, how or what the world is, and how do I relate to it? Now, it's more like… It’s more about being present.”

This decentralised narrative can be heard on several songs on the new record. Opening track Feel At Home jingles with the reminiscent colourful metal sound of school-yard monkey bars and classroom xylophones, Carner’s velvety voice coming in to serenade his four-year-old son and infant daughter.

Another ode to parenthood is Horcrux, named aptly after a piece of Harry Potter trivia.

“I love Harry Potter. I don't like J.K. Rowling,” Carner prefaces, referring to some of the controversial political views the author has shared over recent years.

“But yeah, like a Horcrux, you hide your soul. Like Voldemort, he puts his soul in loads of different places, and it's like the way he escaped death. And I just thought it was so inspiring when I was making this.

“I realised mid-writing it, what my kids are to me in a way that, like… the way that I escape death is that I exist within them, you know?

“I think it’s just to be, like, all of the things I've learned that have helped me enjoy life, and all the things I've learned to kind of accept the bad bits of life, like to give them to them so they have, like, a fighting chance.”

But Carner admits he’s learned just as much, if not more, from his kids:

“When you have kids, your heaviness of being in adulthood is in stark contrast to what it is to be like a child and to be not anxious, or not depressed or whatever. Because kids - they feel a range of emotions, but they don't have all those things that are kind of learned over time, through whatever; Society, nurture, nature, the things you're around… When you're around the simplicity of childhood and the optimism of childhood, it kind of shines a brighter light on the flaws of your ways of thinking.

“And I think if you're, if you're lucky enough, or you can be brave enough to, kind of… to turn those stones over, then you can do a lot of growing… just from seeing yourself as a reflection in your kids. Which is quite cool.”

While life roles and priorities change, hopefully! wouldn’t be a Loyle Carner album without that signature blend of hauntingly deep contemplation.

Carner does not rap about money, fame, or excess, but instead wields verses so confrontationally honest about the experiences of grief, loss, heartbreak, and mental health that it feels like sitting with a ghost. Introspection, but with the comfort that you’re not alone.

“Avoidance is like… in terms of peace, to me, avoidance is the biggest enemy,” he sums up.

One of the most poignant moments on the album arrives in all i need, a track that swells with internal noise and moments of quiet resolve. The lyric, “Please don’t delete your history”, sits at its emotional centre.

“It’s so easy to dismiss your path,” Carner says of the verse. “Not mistakes you’ve made, but just like, if there's bits about you that you don't like, or things in your past that you don't want to remember. To dismiss them and not accept that they exist or that they're real, and try and go, ‘Yeah, but I'm here just in spite of that. I'm just- I’ve fucked that (but) I’m here.’ Like, the fact that you're still standing and alive and breathing is a miracle.”

Carner’s reflections are informed in part by his experiences with ADHD and dyslexia. Both considered forms of neurodivergence, the two conditions can foster complex and often damaging learned self-concepts below the surface. Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD), a common symptom experienced with ADHD, is a phenomenon he says nearly became the album’s title.

“[Of RSD] It takes over my whole life sometimes, but there's nothing you can do. It's one of the few things where you just have to know that it's not real,” he admits. “I think the biggest way I've been able to work through that a little bit, or compartmentalise it, is to get away from social media.”

He amusingly adds, “I don't want to know what Jeff Bezos is doing, and I don’t care.”

Screw the tech billionaires; Carner prefers to idolise wordsmiths, like the late, great poet and fellow dyslexic Benjamin Zephaniah, who is sampled on the album’s titular track.

Carner’s hopefully! tour lands in Australia this December, a country he credits with helping him find a sense of freedom during a pivotal point in his twenties.

“The first time I went was when I got to fall in love with it… We were just going to creeks and swimming, or, like, drinking beer out of shoes or whatever,” he says, recalling past nostalgia of days off on the road, and, surprisingly, a fond outlook on shoeys.

“I kind of underestimated when I was young, like, why I was having such a great time. I think it's just because I was away from my phone and just, like, outside, you know. And meeting people. People in Australia want to talk, you know? Unlike in London.”

If anything can be taken away from Loyle Carner’s latest work, it’s presence. Presence in community, in friends, family, and the children that may come along, reminding you that the ensemble is greater than the sum of its players; presence in nature, and in listening.

Carner advises fans to listen to hopefully! with that same outlook.

“I think, like, go on a walk. And do the thing on your AirPods where you can still hear the outside. Like, don't do the noise-cancelling where you can’t hear anything.

“I love the most to kind of put it on, and for the rest of the world to be like, the like, the sound effects to the music, you know?”

From the surround sound of birdsong in the rustling trees, childhood laughter over a game of tag, or even the pitter-patter of rain on umbrellas, Carner embraces it all.

“They’ve gotta make it better, to me, you know? I hate to listen where all the pressure’s on the music,” he tells.

“I’d say, like, put it on, and then go and live your life a bit, you know? And I'll just be in the background of your life. Don't let me get in the way of your life. Just like, let me be there.

“For an hour. Or thirty minutes, or whatever it is you like.”

Loyle Carner’s fourth studio album hopefully! is available now on all major streaming services. The album tour will land in Australia in early December, with tickets available via the Live Nation or Ticketmaster websites. Merch can be found on Carner’s website.