feel the exhilaration of noise hip-hop trio young fathers’ new album ‘cocoa sugar’

Since dropping the genre-defying Tape One in 2011, each new release from Young Fathers has pushed their sound into new uncharted territories. The Edinburgh trio can’t stand to sound like anyone else (especially not themselves) and their latest, Cocoa Sugar, is definitely unlike anything else you’ll hear today. Hip-hop beats collide with detuned synths and bursts of noise. Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole, and G Hastings jump between sung lines, chanted hooks, shout-alongs, and rapped verses sometimes on a single line. Cocoa Sugar is an exhilerating kind of chaos, where anything can happen, and usually does.

Cocoa Sugar by Young Fathers

Though the album takes meandering turns through every sonic experiment Young Fathers can think to take, that doesn’t mean it’s devoid of hooks.  Lead single “In My View” shines on an album the band has defined as their most “linear.” Take one listen and you’ll spend a week trying to get it out of your head. Elsewhere their talent for kaledoscopic lyrics that reveal unexpected depths with repeated listens. Lines like “I didn’t work this damn hard to stay where I belong” and “Don’t you turn my bright eyes blue / I’m not like you” from “Turn” make for the kind of defiant anthem that Young Father hands in like it’s nothing. There’s a liberation in their sound and lyrics that’s undeniable. Their willingness to push ideas and sounds past their limits is what makes them one of the most exciting bands out there.

Cocoa Sugar is out now on Ninja Tune.