“I We’ve broken a vicious circle,” declares south London rapper Loyle Kerner savagely but gleefully. He’s HGU as he speaks. This is one of his most resonating hits on his third album, HugoAs a band of nuanced live players gracefully slide into slow, jazzy breakbeats, Kerner dedicated the song to “my father, and his father, and his father’s father,” which sold out. The audience asks for their approval. We dive into the first of Kerner’s two-night residencies in London towards the end of his UK tour. There will be another sellout live-streamed the following night at the 12,500-capacity Wembley Arena.
Without knowing Kerner’s own story, it would be hard not to throw pebbles and hit people with daddy issues. There is a sense of being there. The music fades away, leaving him in a simple white T-shirt and rapping a cappella. His final verse is looking for circuit breakpoints against the conditions that created the lineage of his absent father, who, in the words of Philip Larkin, “messed up in their own turn.” . Kerner wants to “rewrite the ending and the prequel” because “the repeating cycle” is the “default”.
In his own life, Kerner seems to have found that inflection point: existence and forgiveness. Hugo Both are named after his biological father’s car with a license plate ending in HGU. It’s not something car wrappers usually wrap, but a more mundane, deeper, wish-fulfilling vehicle.
Kerner was raised by his mother (a white, special needs teacher) and stepfather (a white, Liverpool fan), who died suddenly in 2014. Kerner’s two previous albums orbit around those missing wounds- Yesterday’s Gone (2017), and its 2019 follow-up, drown instead of waving.
Kerner and his biological father reunited years ago, and Kerner’s father gave him driving lessons in a battered Volkswagen Polo. The birth of the rapper’s own son in 2020 was a significant catalyst. Young people are now sleeping behind the scenes, says Kerner proudly.
Tonight’s finished gig taps into this reconnection by capturing a vast range of adjacent emotional territories: racism, men expressing their emotions, the trauma of violent crime, and spoken word tracks like Polyfilla. angry, thoughtful, and meandering through the tune. On the wall.
Especially strong is Blood on My Nikes, which depicts 16-year-old Kerner literally wiping the blood off his sneakers after witnessing a shooting. Kerner brings out the song’s guest voice, former youth parliamentarian Asian Akek. His words about the government’s ignorance of the root causes of violence get one of the most heartfelt cheers of the night.Kerner also dedicated a song to Gary Lineker. Sadly, plastic is one of them. HugoRather than the subtle lyrics of the song, it riffs on the repetition of the title and makes a series of obvious points.
If Kerner’s own story arc is heading towards resolution, this gig offers a parallel career ending. increase. Kerner, conceptually operating in the tough-guy genre, has never skimped on emotional candor. When Ben Coyle-Larner started his career a decade ago, his pitch as a rapper was simply to talk about vulnerabilities that hip-hop has avoided. (His stage name is a nod to his dyslexia and his ADHD-induced verbal confusion.) He encourages attendees to voice their pain. “I lost a friend because I couldn’t cry,” Kerner says. He repeatedly stops the set to accommodate fans who are not feeling well.
and Hugo, and Kerner caught the zeitgeist that had long been coming. From the beginning he talked about his ADHD. He famously launched a culinary training program, Chili Con His Carner, for those struggling with mainstream schooling.
I feel that UK rap is gradually approaching.You can point out Dave’s earthquake PsychoDramaor Headie One’s Edna, two moments when the mainstream officially allowed black men to bring not only their traumatic stories, but their patchy mental health, and the lasting impact on their relationships to the fore. The genre’s great proponents have been working hard for years. Multifaceted Stormzy built on the emotional and sociological literacy platform established by MCs such as Kano.
Kerner’s small stepping stones are also well chosen.A good number of his works are on his FIFA soundtracks, and unexpectedly Inheritance: In a pivotal episode of Season 1, Kendall Roy and a helpless waiter crash their car into a lake. His collaboration has been a hit. Tonight’s show is generous with its guests, with Carner presenting London rapper Knucks’ standout Standout and US rapper Erick the Architect’s incredible Let It Go. Veteran his Jordan Rakei is here for his Ottolenghi. The track, named after the chef’s Yotam Ottolenghi book, inspires lyrical action.
But everyone is here for a decked-out MC whose superpowers are his vulnerability. And these are messages that can only be obtained from repetition.
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