Talking Stigma, Samples & More With Loyal Carner: The 'New Hope In Hip Hop'

Warning: This column deals with topics surrounding depression and suicide. If you are suffering from depression or need assistance, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636.

I’ve been waiting for this once since the beginning of 2017. I remember the day the press release hit my inbox and I clicked on Yesterday’s Gone, because it very quickly, became one of my favourite albums. Honestly, a kid I’d never heard of before was instantly archived into my personal hall of fame.

A yawning Benjamin Gerard Coyle-Larner (AKA Loyle Carner) answered my call, “Yo bruv, what’s happening?” I hate feeling like a nuisance, like I’ve pulled the covers off him and let the sunshine flood his South London apartment (or wherever he was). “Oh nah man, I’m still very much in bed, don’t you worry about that!” he laughs.

In the last year Loyle Carner toured the world playing major festivals (like Glastonbury), he threw his own birthday party with 5000 people at the O2 Academy Brixton, met his favourite Premier League footballer, got nominated for a Mercury Prize and hung out with a guy called Prince William. This week, pRhymetime was lucky enough to talk some real ish’ before his performance at Laneway Festival and headline sideshows.

“Recently I’ve just been having some time off with family, my girl, taking it easy you know? Last time we came over for Groovin’ The Moo it was so much fun. Honestly I think that’s the most fun we’ve ever had on a tour, Australia is the best place in the world man, we caught the buzz. Coming from London, it’s like a better version of us. The food is better, the people are happier — it’s just better! I was hanging out with Thundamentals a lot, they kind of took us under their wing… more just collaborating on beers,” he laughs.

While trying to prevent fanboying earlier today, I read a few pieces that labelled Carner the 'new hope in hip hop', it made me wonder what it is about hip hop that needs a little hope?

“Well, it’s always been prominent to me [hip hop], but when you get something that makes its way internationally, I mean that’s an achievement of what we once hoped. I just make the music that makes sense to me you know?”

I wasn’t content. Carner’s album is raw, it’s refreshingly honest and bleeds authenticity on every lyric. There’s no plastic, no fake-ass, bubblegum shit. Just dope bars, jazz samples and a London attitude that makes me miss the cobbled streets of beige and grey. 

“Look, I’m a bit of a grumpy old man sometimes, but honestly, I hate that fake stuff. Anyone can do that shit and it’s difficult now to find someone honest or vulnerable. Now, I wouldn’t say I’m brave, but you have to be brave to be vulnerable. And when you understand that is when you’re actually being your bravest… I always looked for honesty and, to me, that’s what I gravitated towards. We just wanted to make music that we don’t hear anymore, 'coz honestly, we miss it!"

“The jazz influence just kind of excited me,” he continues. “When you listen to hip hop, you accidentally fall in love with jazz because of the samples and beats. Then you’re picking up records to sample, so what’s really happened there is you’re now buying jazz records to listen to!”

There are so many beautiful samples on this record. Some old, some new, but it somehow manages to breathe fresh life into lyrically driven boom-bap. I don’t imagine it was an easy feat, however, to achieve this, I wondered how he went about clearing these audible gems.

“What’s heart breaking about sampling is that it’s been around for so long, and rappers are scared to use it or don’t like it or whatever. Back in the day, it was all about sampling! People didn’t give a fuck about laws, that’s only come about the more music has progressed, or declined depending how you look at it, and I think it’s really just about one: being savvy, and two: reaching out yourself and being personal. If the artist has made millions, of course they’ll be up for creation. Any artist that doesn’t want to be sampled, to me, is a dick!” he chuckles. “We thought ahead and every time we found something we liked, we asked straight away 'Can we use this? We’ll give you whatever percent…' and people were cool.”

There’s a real art to sampling; to understand its sound, how it fits in a beat and how it can be exploited to be reborn in a completely new soundscape. You know those times when you think, “Oh shit, was is this? I know this!” but you can’t quite put your finger on it? It’s so brilliantly creative… “That’s what it’s all about!” Carner intervenes. “That’s the magic of it, you can bring people in who don’t know you or anything about you, and make them feel familiar you know?” 

Since we had been talking about vulnerability in music, I wondered if I could ask about his ADHD condition he’s discussed previously in the media. While I don’t want to exploit a serious condition, I told Carner about how pRhymetime’s ambition is to open conversation and better yet, normalise stigmatised topics. I think the real stigma around something like ADHD is that it’s misunderstood, there’s nothing “wrong with you” and Carner is living proof. What the MC has actually managed to do is understand his condition to an advantage.

“Look, it’s who I am! It’s just one of my many traits. I’m highly emotional, I carry more empathy than 'average' but what it is, is that I’m neuro-diverse. I think about emotions in a different way, which is great in writing tunes, that’s better for me 'coz I can tap into how I’m feeling a lot quicker or be more open without having to force it… But also just being impulsive! Sometimes I don’t think before I do and that can simply be about taking a risk. They’re important too, sometimes. More than anything for me, it’s about being energetic, excited and busy. 'Busy' is working; working is writing songs, more songs make more shows and the more money I make the quicker I pay off my mum's mortgage and now my own mortgage, you know?”

Oh yeah, did I mention that he’s basically the nicest guy in life? If you’ve heard the album, you’d probably already know that, as he effortlessly portrays this optimistic perspective that you can’t resist feeling all over.

“Man, I’m trying to sort my own life. I want to retire in Australia, I told my missus the other day and said that was my plan!”

At this point he told me a story about almost stepping on a blue bottle while in Aus, which he said “could have annoyed him” about our country… Yeah bro, “annoyed…”. I decided not to tell him how it would have ruined his perception of our country and potentially postponed his retirement.

Carner quickly and so fluently strings sentences together I almost feel like his narrative is just a long, free-flowing freestyle (and I suppose in a sense, they are). It’s fascinating how his thick South London accent and British vocab transports me to a pub next to the Camden markets. But Carner isn’t just a storyteller, I asked about an interview he had after playing Glastonbury where he articulated his firm belief in men expressing their emotions in everyday life. I told the rapper that in Australia one in eight men experience depression every year, and the suicide rates are three times higher in men than women in the age demographic of 16 to 20 years old. It was the first time in 32 minutes and 41 seconds neither of us spoke. I wanted to know why he personally felt it important to address the issue that, no doubt, is felt all over the world.

“Because I’ve been there man… I lost my Dad when I was younger, I had to look after my younger brother, I’ve been through shit man and talking needs to become addictive. You need to talk, you have to be open, because things just get better. It might get worse the first couple of weeks, it might not happen quickly, but things do just get better,” he tells me with conviction. “And there’s always a stigma, there’s always something that’s too hard to talk about or you feel like you can’t and so you bottle it up, and when you bottle it up, it just gets bigger.”

“So, music is my place to be creative and busy. Absolutely, music is where I make my escape to but it’s also where I meet my emotions head on. It’s my escape because I can’t escape from it and so it becomes a release.”

Carner also evicted a fan from one of his shows last year after witnessing a case of sexual assault and I felt it more than appropriate to ask him about it. Australia is STILL seeing a fucking huge number of sexual assault cases at shows and festivals. It’s absolutely appalling and I don’t understand how ignorance can still be so prominent.

“Because people in mass-culture, talk about women like they’re not equal. Rappers or whoever — I won’t say who 'coz if I name them they arc-up on Twitter. But there’s a couple of things, one; some men are cowards… and two; the way in which people are speaking about women is horrible! And not just men, I know girls who singalong to misogynistic lyrics. We all need to stop digesting this culture and boycott this shit. Of course, young kids are brainwashed by this stuff. I can’t understand why it happens either because it’s so archaic… I think the person who’s show it is — the person, band, whoever — is in control, if they are on stage performing, they are in control. So why not make it a safe environment for everyone? Make it zero tolerance and stand up for it! Time's up man, I won’t have this shit in hip hop, rappers have mums. If you know any woman — need I point out we all came from one — then you can’t speak of women this way!”

I have so much fucking respect for this dude. I hope you all enjoyed that paragraph as much as I did 'cause it’s time, 2018! And just in case you didn’t, I’ll play the devil’s advocate. I listened to Dr Dre’s Chronic 2001 the other day, which is undeniably, a classic; a hip hop masterpiece that stands the test of time which I, myself, love. But there is barely a verse, barely a topic, not a single track on the 22-track album that is mildly inoffensive… so can we still listen to that?

“Well, this is where it gets so fucking difficult,” Carner says. “It came from a truth, they were growing up on something, and conditioned to think that way. We knew less than what we know now… no, even that’s not right…” he trails off. “I think that if you can listen to it and understand where it came from, understand oppression in all forms… Hip hop is still a very American thing, but it still comes from a hurt and pain of oppression all over the world. What I don’t understand is how people can stand up for black rights, for example, but won’t stand up for women’s rights! Dr. Dre wouldn’t make that record now and that demonstrates growth, maturity. It doesn’t make you a bad person for listening to it, the beats are fucking ridiculous!” he chuckles.

“But it’s about being conscious of it, thinking about it. Every rap video, there’s a dude that pops up rapping, and then there’s a woman. But the woman doesn’t hold any worth other than what she looks like. There’s absolutely no respect and it’s crippling, because that’s not real life, that’s not how we get down.”

I know we’ve covered off on a lot here, and honestly, I’m not sorry. Take it all in, think about it. What’s your opinion? How does this affect your daily life? I asked Carner for a final take home point…

“Man, just be open… and be happy about it! People come to my shows and expect me to be miserable because my music is introspective and melancholic, but the beauty of that music is that I’ve put it out, it’s out of my mind and I’m a lot happier…”

Loyle Carner is currently touring around the country with Laneway Festival and his own sideshows. Head to theGuide for more info.

If you are suffering from depression or need assistance, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636.