Loyle Carner has been away for some time. I last saw him at All Points East Festival in 2021 where he signed off his performance saying “You won’t hear from me for a while, I’m going to go off and be a dad for a bit”. He left the stage to rapturous applause and stayed true to his word, not releasing another song until earlier this month with new rage filled single “Hate“.
It immediately feels like a departure from the somewhat carefree easy listening the rapper from south London has become known for over the years, with more venom and anger than before. The title itself of course being indicative of this, the stakes and gravitas have been lifted with “Hate“, with race being discussed more viscerally than ever before. Speaking with The Guardian‘s Alex Mistlin recently, Loyle opened up about how difficult he felt it was to discuss the oppression he’s faced as a mixed-race man in Britain until now. “I hadn’t really been able to do it before – to be mixed race,” he says. “It’s a weird thing because you’re between these two absolutes … up until very recently, it wasn’t really accepted to openly discuss feeling oppressed”.
During his conversation with Alex Mistlin, he was noted to display a shy nervousness at odds with the confident brand of music he creates and the incensed performance he gives in the music video for “Hate“: “People feel scared to say how they really feel because in the times we’re living they get crucified. I’m trying to unlearn that bit by bit and be more myself“.
It seems like part of his agitation might also stem from his awareness of the change in direction that he’s taken and the response it might generate. For fans of the sweet and unchallenging tones of 2018’s “Ottolenghi“, “Hate” may be jarring and uncomfortable, but it’s a risk he’s willing to take and likens to the journey that Kendrick Lamar went on to conceive his lauded third album To Pimp A Butterfly. “When you’re young, there’s a charm to the fact that you’re a bit naive,” he says. “You don’t know what you’re striving for. It’s a balance because you don’t want to be too old to feel connected to the culture of youth that you’re trying to speak to. There’s a sweet spot in the middle, like Kendrick with To Pimp A Butterfly, where you’re naive enough to still be free-speaking, but considered enough to refine your shit.”
To compare “Hate” to the cultural heft of Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly would be lazy and remiss of me. Loyle is a British artist discussing experiences and traumas unique to him and should in turn be appreciated on it’s own level. However, I will say I’m excited to hear more from him as the new album and direction he’s taken becomes more apparent in the coming year. As judging by the brilliantly emotive video that Loyle himself co-directed for “Hate“, it’s going to be exciting.
