FEATURED ARTIST
(Young Fathers)
Scotland's favourite hip-hop trio Young Fathers are far more well-mannered in their overtures to the honeys than a lot of other rappers. "If you would like to have one of our children, please contact us," they solicit demurely on their MySpace blog. These talented 20-year-olds first converged at an under-18s hip-hop night in the original Bongo Club. "I loved it, the grunginess, the sweaty walls, the atmosphere, the excitement. You'd struggle to find that nowadays," says Massaquoi, an alleged insomniac who was born in Liberia. Completing the Young Fathers line up is Graham Hastings, aka G, a lifelong Edinburgh native and Kayus Bankole, aka KS, who was born in Scotland but lived away for periods in Nigeria and then Washington DC, before returning to Scotland in his mid-teens. They honed their rapping skills in open mic slots and came together with a shared desire to write songs rather than just rap over beats, creating their first tracks using cheap music software and a microphone from Argos. "Hip-hop in Scotland is really dark," says Hastings. "I don't know if it reflects the weather. The scene we came through is really underground. I think there's this attitude of 'we'll keep it to ourselves, cos it's ours' and you play music to your mates. We've never had that attitude. I don't even see us as a hip-hop band. Really we're just pop boys. We grew up with pop music, so that always makes sense to us when we're writing tunes. I think pop's really going to come back like how it was in the Eighties." "In a recession, pop makes everybody happy," says Massaquoi. "You want to listen to good tunes." Why not let Young Fathers be your main providers? Get a copy of the Automatic EP over at itunes.