After years of being the nicest man in UK Hip-Hop, Loyle Carner returns with a boldly mature, daring and introspective effort. Will Griffin reflects on the album.
Hugo comes as a moment of self reflection for Ben Coyle-Larner. Undeniably, his inimitable delivery and production remain, (courtesy hear of Kwes), but what emerges is a sense of clarity. On hugo, Carner confronts a struggle for identity, leaving behind the boyish themes of young love present on the brilliant Yesterday’s Gone and Not Waving, But Drowning, but retaining an overwhelming belief of family first.
From the album’s start with Hate, Carner grapples with a sense of social consciousness not seen on his earlier work. Loyle is unapologetically proud of his accomplishments in the face of societal barriers. Despite lines like, 'I love the money in my bank, it’s disgraceful, so many zeroes', Carner’s delivery never feels arrogant. In the face of it all, he’s proud he’s come out on top - as he should be.
Loyle’s identity struggle continues on the almost euphoric Nobody Knows (Ladas Road). The subject matter may be piercing, (‘I told the Black man, he didn’t understand, I reached the white man, he wouldn’t take my hand’), but it never fails to raise goosebumps. The end of the second verse in particular, lingers: ‘She would say he ain't comin, but I can tell him that you love him, and I would shout, "Nah, love means nothing", say I want a hug, I wanna talk, I want something’. The driving beat of the repeated choral sample, ‘Glory’, taken from Pastor T.L Barret & the Youth for Christ Choir, Nobody Knows creates a fierce juxtaposition of Loyle Carner's past and present. The lonely and isolated boy he talks about is far removed from the man he is today - confident, assured and undeniably at his best.
Georgetown, featuring the peerless John Agard, is a natural progression from the alienation exhibited in Nobody Knows (Ladas Road). Loyle’s identity as a mixed-race man is further interrogated, leading to questions of its significance. As Agard pertinently sums up in the final lines of the song, ‘when Tchaikovsky sit down at the piano, and mix a black key with a white key, it's a half-caste symphony’. Georgetown flips the concept of ‘half-caste’ being to Carner’s detriment, instead creating something that is complete, (and Hugo is undeniably a ‘symphony’.)
Speed of Plight and Homerton (feat JNR WILLIAMS & Olivia Dean) shift focus to the dizzying impacts of fame. The former draws on the repeated motif of, ‘is the world moving fast for you as well, I can’t tell if it be only me?’, whilst the latter includes lines like, ‘I miss my people, I know they miss hearing from me’. There’s a sense of the disconnection of fame. Loyle desperately wanted success, but at what human cost, to relationships or to life altogether?
"Georgetown flips the concept of ‘half-caste’ being to Carner’s detriment, instead creating something that is complete, (and Hugo is undeniably a ‘symphony’.)"
Fame and loss are explored further on the 9th track Polyfilla - ‘When I was younger I wanted to be famous, Now I’m older I wish that I was nameless’. Loss is central to the album, yet it never becomes enveloped by it. Blood On My Nikes (feat. Wesley Joseph & Athian Akec) grapples with the knife crime epidemic - ‘Like his Mother I cried, when they took the boy’s life, ‘cause he was from the wrong side’. On hugo, Carner’s never afraid to tackle the socio-political discourse that defines the area he grew up in. Loyle may be Mercury and Brit nominated, but he still feels that pain as viscerally as anyone, giving time at the song’s close to poet Athian Akec, who drives home the sense of a generation failed by politics - ‘We must petition the government to put reason over rhetoric, compassion over indifference, equality over austerity… never has so much been lost by so many because of the indecision of so few’.
A Lasting Place, Polyfilla and HGU confront fatherhood, and Carner’s attempt to rid himself of the stereotyped shackles of Black fathers. Loyle’s own personal struggles for a father figure, and his desire to not repeat his own youth, also emanate, with the poignant A Lasting Place closing with a female voice, presumably his partner, reading to their child. Loyle may battle with a deep willingness not to repeat mistakes made in his own childhood, but it is clear from just how conscious Hugo is, that Carner is more mature than ever.
HGU itself is a powerful closer. Beginning simply with, ‘I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you’, it is clear that cathartic redemption is complete. An album that began with Loyle penning, in Nobody Knows, ‘you can't hate the roots of the tree, And not hate the tree, so how can I hate my father, without hating me?’, closes with forgiveness, a reclamation of what was lost when Loyle lacked a father figure. It is clear he has grown through Hugo, not just as an artist but as a man, with the realisation of the importance of forgiveness, particularly in his relationship with his Father undeniably clear - ‘still I’m lucky that we talk’.
Hugo may be an unrecognisable departure from Loyle’s previous work, but it feels truly honest. If Yesterday’s Gone and Not Waving, But Drowning were youthful vignettes of romance, hugo is unapologetic and searingly truthful. It is an album of not just Loyle’s present condition, but of a country’s. It may be an album that centres on loss, but it is not defined by it. At its root, hugo is a joyful message of redemption for our broken times, a message of the inexplicable ability of forgiveness to heal even the deepest of wounds - a message, ultimately of hope.
Will Griffin
Edited by: Ewan Samms
Cover image and in-article image courtesy of Loyle Carner via instagram. In article video courtesy of Loyle Carner via YouTube
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