Young Fathers - In My View

So many thing have happened since the infamous moment when Young Fathers won the Mercury Prize in 2014 for their debut album, Dead, but what is most surprising is that the same event meant two opposite things for the band and for the award.

Making some history for those not very versed in the topic: for years, since its creation in 1992, the Mercury Prize was the most honorable prize that a British musician could get; in a world where Grammys and MTVs were awarded to the most popular music, and not really to the best one, the Mercury seemed like a torch of hope, and the closest that Popular Music had to an equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Even with some slips in the way (ehm... M People, we are looking at you), the Mercury awarded the very best British albums and artists, from Primal Scream and Pulp to The XX and James Blake.

Then it came 2014, quite a weak year in British music, but with a strong album from FKA Twigs, and even some decent efforts from Royal Blood and Jungle that could have been a surprising but plausible winners, but the winner that year was a new band called Young Fathers, that had a nice debut album that was nice to see nominated, but that was not even close to the canon of previous Mercury winners. That moment, for the Mercury, was the moment were its credibility started to fade, and that only went worse when the following year they awarded Benjamin Clemntine (yes, we are also asking "Who?") over Jamie XX's In Colour, and the following when they awarded Skepta over two real masterpieces David Bowie's Black Star, and Radiohead's A Moon Shaped Pool; from that last hit, the Mercury will never recover, so when last year they finally awarded a very deserving Sampha, the prize was already irrelevant. For the Mercury, awarding Young Fathers was the beginning of the end.

On the other hand, Young Fathers was a tiny independent band before its Mercury nomination, let alone that winning the award was so unexpected, that turn the eyes of the entire music world to them. They had a quirky, fun and outspoken album that, yes, didn't deserved the win, but was very worthy listening to. But with the new attention, there was also the silent desire of proving them unworthy of such an Award, just like with Speech Debelle 5 years before. Somehow, Young Fathers understood those implications, if their sophomore album was slightly bad, they were going to be thorn apart by the media. Then it came White Men are Black Men Too, an album that was even better that its predecesor and that brought their sound to a much more serious level (ironically, that album didn't even got a nomination for the Mercury). So, now, with a third album just released, that might be even better than anything that Young Fathers have released, the band has proved that they had an incentive to become a band that deserved the title "Mercury Prize winners". To Young Fathers, the Mercury was the beginning of a great trip to excellence.

In My View, the second single of Cocoa Sugar, is an statement on how the band has abandoned the fiery political chants of their previous album, in favor of a much more introspective vision. The lyrics are cryptic, but digging in the symbols they offer, we can pretty much assume that it is a song about the downside of things that seem to be the best. They start singing about having a Delilah, the enchanting Biblical woman that betrayed Samson, but the idea of wanting something so bad that you never think of the bad implications is clearer in the line "I want to be a king until I am". Could this be a wink at the fame gained? Could this be interpreted as "I want to win a Mercury Prize until I win it"? The band is making deep thoughts and coming to terms that "to advance you must pay".

Sonically, it's also new paths for the band, a downbeat R&B with trip-hop infusions, but a pop hook and heavy percussions, almost tribal. It contrast sharply with other single selections from previous albums, that used to be much more anthemic and even danceable. They restrain the explosion of energy that they got us used to, but the emotional impact is deeper. It is quite heavy experimentations, but not less accessible than anything else they've produced. The singing is delivered in such a detached way that it give us the sense of pride in the defeat, but they manage to create contrast in the vocal performance, at times flattened and disenchanted, at times anxious to a point of clashing and mixing.

By defying expectations and exploring every possibility that their style is capable of, Young Fathers keeps a constant evolution and, at this point, it's safe to say that they have trascended the Mercury incident with such elegance, to became one of the most versatile and intriguing bands in contemporary music.