It’s mid-January, and UK rapper Benjamin Coyle-Larner (also known by his stage name Loyle Carner), is ostensibly sitting down to talk about the impending release of his debut albumYesterday’s Gone. But there’s more than new music on his mind.
“Yes, my album comes out on Friday and I can’t wait, but what I’m really looking forward to is working my own food stall, the Chilli Con Carner,” he says. “I’m going to be serving out food to anyone who bought the album, for free. So they can come down and get food. I’m hoping it’ll be a nice relaxing vibe, and then we’re going to put on a little show. In the evening I’m going to be with my nearest and dearest, and probably have a little bit too much to drink, but I’ll be taking a rare evening off.”
It’s no secret that the 22-year-old has a lot on his plate. His 2014 EP A Little Late caught the attention of the BBC’s influential radio host Annie Mac and our very own Richard Kingsmill, and cemented his position on BBC Music’s Sound Of 2016 poll. Carner says that while he was blessed to receive the recognition, he is equally as determined to use his fortunate position to break the stigma around a commonly misunderstood condition.
“I teamed up with the Goma Collective [a group of creative Londoners] to set up a cooking school for young people with ADHD,” he explains. “I have ADHD and dyslexia, and I really struggled when I was younger. Adolescence is tough at the best of times, and it was kind of like an added layer of pressure I had to deal with – but when I was cooking I could block everything out and concentrate, and my confidence grew.”
The South Londoner says he cherishes the time he spent in the kitchen with his grandfather and his mother, learning to cook. “My mum instilled in me when I was young to always have self-belief and understanding,” he says. “Not like a cockiness but more of an understanding of yourself and a self-acceptance, and that’s allowed me to deal with whatever happens. If I wanna cry, I’ll cry, and if I wanna laugh, I’ll laugh. I try to remember that from day to day.”
Now that a couple of months have passed since its release, Yesterday’s Gone has proven itself an unwaveringly honest insight into the young artist’s mind and his perception of the world around him. He takes cues from friends and collaborators such as Tom Misch, Kate Tempest and Rebel Kleff to inform a unique point of view, backed by a soundtrack of soulful hip hop, pop, grime and boom bap breaks.
“I think collaboration is key,” Carner says. “I do enjoy writing on my own, but it’s liberating to be in the room with someone doing something completely different than you, and together you can come up with something incredible. I’d definitely work with Tom Misch again and again because he is a very good friend of mine, and there’s a few UK artists that I’m a big fan of that I’d like to shed a bit more light upon.”
Perhaps the most meaningful appearance on the album is the final track ‘Sun Of Jean (feat. Mum & Dad)’, on which we hear Carner’s mother Jean read a poem describing a younger Benjamin, and an acoustic song with both Jean and his beloved (and sadly deceased) stepfather Nik.
“My mum and my dad were both big music fans, and big storytellers as well,” Carner says. “Even if it wasn’t rap, if the music had a story I latched onto it from a young age.”
Not surprisingly, Carner remembers being drawn to poetry before falling in love with music. “Before I discovered rap, I had discovered poetry,” he says. “I’ve always been a big fan of words in general, putting them together and making them rhyme. I guess it was a natural progression that I began to write songs. I was writing a play quite recently, but I’ve put it on the back-burner because of time.”
The multi-talented Carner even had a small role in the 2008 film 10,000 BC, and received a drama scholarship to the Brit School in London where The Kooks, Amy Winehouse and Adele are alumni. Then he began a degree at the Drama Centre until he made the decision to drop out when his stepfather died.
“Acting is still something I’m very interested in, but it’s a time thing,” Carner says. “Releasing an album is brilliant and time-consuming. There’s no time for me to disappear and go be in Romeo And Juliet at the moment,” he laughs.
It seems that no matter what Carner puts his mind to, he is determined to be a success – but he knows he can’t do it alone. “For the Yesterday’s Gone album cover I gathered all the people who helped make the album happen, in my back garden – everybody there was a part of it. I wanted to have a family portrait, but my family is so small these days because a lot of them have passed away. So I kind of figured I wanted to have an extended family photo, because for me, these days, family isn’t just the people who’ve been there all my life, it’s the people who have shared my life.
“My little brother is in the front row,” Carner says happily, “and quite honestly I think I look up to him more than he looks up to me!”
[Loyle Carner photo by Laura Coulson]
Groovin The Moo 2017atMaitland Showground on Saturday April 29,featuresLoyle Carner, along with Dillon Francis, Thundamentals, L-Fresh The Lion and more.Yesterday’s Gone is out now through AMF/Caroline.
