Latitude Festival: Are Young Fathers the UK's most thrilling live band?

You person ne'er seen a unrecorded set similar Young Fathers.

Headlining the BBC Sounds signifier astatine the Latitude festival, you don't adjacent request to cognize their songs to beryllium swept distant by the sheer unit of their philharmonic attack.

This is simply a amusement that is axenic propulsion.

The band's euphony is simply a blend of soul, gospel, hip-hop and tribal chants: I Saw has a loping glam stone bushed and a playground chorus; Geronimo is each coiled, sinister tension; and the anthemic hook of Get Up is truthful incendiary, it threatens to acceptable the moshpit connected fire.

On this tour, laminitis members Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole and Graham 'G' Hastings are joined connected signifier by 2 pistillate vocalists - and, astatine times, each of them seems to beryllium singing their ain mentation of the aforesaid song, mislaid successful the music, earlier they abruptly drawback backmost successful sync with a ferocious roar.

The amusement is thrilling to watch, to beryllium a portion of, and it has rightfully earned them a estimation arsenic Britain's astir breathtaking unrecorded act.

Before making their latest album, Heavy Heavy, the Edinburgh trio drew a illustration of the bands they wanted to emulate: Talking Heads, Massive Attack, Suicide, Sly and the Family Stone.

"What I was trying to bash was constitute a database of bands who person created their ain creator thing," says Hastings, speaking to the BBC backstage astatine Latitude.

"They don't dependable similar anyone else. They unrecorded successful their ain space. That's what we were trying to do."

It was astir arsenic if they needed thing to aspire to, says Massaquoi.

"If you bid yourself to tally a mile successful nether 5 minutes, you announcement implicit the months that you person much vigor and you tin tally further. Whereas, with euphony and creativity, it's hard to gauge erstwhile you've improved."

They decided to trust connected their instincts.

Their messy studio, a windowless squat adjacent to a graveyard successful Scotland, was acceptable up truthful that they could grounds arsenic soon "as soon arsenic we came done the door", says Massaquoi.

The extremity was to seizure the spontaneity and joyousness they've ever conveyed connected signifier - a determination prompted by the pandemic, erstwhile "everybody had clip to bespeak and summation a spot of appreciation for what we do".

In practice, it meant the medium was created successful the astir the aforesaid mode they started out, rapping into a karaoke instrumentality successful Hastings' teenage bedroom.

Vocals were sung communally astir the microphone. If 1 idiosyncratic made a mistake, the different 2 would rotation with it, folding the chaos into the originative process.

"We hardly adjacent talk," says Massaquoi. "A batch of it is instinctual."

In the end, they recorded implicit 4 album's worthy of worldly - a patchwork of radical vocals, free-flowing percussion, politically-charged hip-hop and African melodies.

But, betraying their origins arsenic a "weird benignant of boyband" (their words), they edited that euphony down to a ruthlessly businesslike 32 minutes.

"As radical that emotion a popular song, we're beauteous brutal with ourselves," says Hastings, recalling however nonstop the workplace conversations could be: "Just instrumentality that out. Get to the point. This is the champion it."

"We similar abbreviated songs and hooks and saccharine things," helium explains.

The reviews were effusive, adjacent for a set that's utilized to captious acclaim.

"Heavy Heavy pulls successful the listener with an empathetic lust for beingness that ne'er wavers," wrote AllMusic's Andy Kellman.

"From the opening woody resistance of the bassline connected Rice to the chug and claps of Holy Moly, Heavy Heavy bursts with overwhelming momentum, arsenic if to say, 'Keep up, if you can,'" added Will Pritchard successful Pitchfork.

"Succinct and underpinned by a catchy melodic structure, it further cements Young Fathers' arsenic 1 of the much unsocial acts to beryllium today," concluded the NME's Dhruva Balram.

The medium is already being tipped for a information astatine this year's Mercury Prize (they previously won with their debut, Dead, successful 2014) and it's occurrence has seen them emergence to the apical of this summer's festival bills.

But adjacent though they're a semi-mainstream imaginable successful 2023, they've ne'er felt afloat embraced by the industry.

The trio met astatine a precocious schoolhouse younker nine and were signed astatine the property of 15 to what they've antecedently called, "a nasty, horrible accumulation deal".

After a bid of mendacious starts, they landed connected their unsocial dependable implicit 2 mixtapes, Tape One and Tape Two, the 2nd of which won them the Scottish Music Prize.

"When we were young, we were outsiders successful Scotland," says Hastings. "We were outsiders astatine hip-hop nights, we were outsiders astatine immoderate night."

"None of our friends utilized to travel to the gigs," adds Massaquoi. "Some of them didn't similar the euphony - though I similar that. That's honest."

Despite, oregon possibly due to the fact that of, those challenges, they support an tremendous consciousness of self-belief.

"We're 1 of these bands that comes astir each 15 oregon 20 years," says Massaquoi, referencing that database of iconoclasts that Hastings drew up successful the studio.

"In the end, radical volition realise that, but you person to clasp onto the imaginativeness and say, 'people volition get it eventually'.

"It's frustrating portion it's happening but the satellite doesn't beryllium you immoderate favours. All you tin bash is enactment successful the clip and the effort and summation your chances of the luck happening."

The set deed the headlines with their Glastonbury show past month, aft they dedicated Shame to Home Secretary Suella Braverman, starring the assemblage successful a chant of: "Say it large and accidental it clear, refugees are invited here".

As with everything they do, Young Fathers' protestation came from experience. Massaquoi came to the UK erstwhile helium was 4 years old, arsenic his genitor fled the civilian warfare successful Liberia.

He doesn't retrieve overmuch of the modulation - but what sticks is proceeding Maxi Priest's mentation of Wild World successful a exile campy successful Ghana.

The song's connection of anticipation amidst the sadness of leaving location resonates with him to this day.

He wants Young Fathers' euphony to person the aforesaid interaction connected their fans - and being extracurricular pop's interior ellipse makes that easier, they argue.

"Historically, a batch of bands get worse implicit time," observes Hastings.

"But erstwhile you get a spot much comfy and things get a spot easier and there's a spot of fund from the grounds label, you commencement to realise wherefore the euphony tin instrumentality 2nd spot to the lifestyle... Not that I'm surviving a huffy lifestyle, but you tin spot the seeds of it happening.

"But due to the fact that we tin enactment connected our ain - the 3 of america successful a room, nary windows, beauteous spartan - I anticipation that makes america a spot foolproof."

"We're a moving people set astatine a clip erstwhile there's a deficiency of them, and that's a wholly antithetic mind-set to have," adds Massaquoi.

"We travel from a spot wherever if we're not doing this, we person to get a job."