Young Fathers - Geronimo

Deaf to the sound of the dollar and pound.

Album: Heavy Heavy [4th album]
Genre: Indietronica, Art Pop
Single Release: July 12th 2022 [lead single]
Album Release: February 3rd 2023
Length: 3:33
Producer: Graham Hastings
Vocalist: Young Fathers
Label: Ninja Tune

Live on KEXP in 2023


Live at Rough Trade in 2023

Charts, Streams & Sales

Spotify: 3,900,000 +
YouTube Music: 230,000 +
Mojo Magazine Best Albums of 2023: #5
NME Best Albums of 2023: #3
The Independent's Best Albums of 2023: #9

Credits

Details

• 'White Men Are Black Men Too' is the second album from Young Fathers and features a move away from the alternative hip hop of their Mercury prize winning debut into a fusion of indietronica and pop. The group are made up of three vocalists, who interchange over well-crafted instrumentals to make an unpredicatable boundary pushing noise.
  
  Young Fathers music is comprised of grizzly, punk-infused rapping that's then blended with soulful harmonies in a way that's jarring but makes it stand out. They're a multi-ethnic trio that mix traditional black music with punk and electronica to create an interesting blend of styles that coalesce into a unique sound.
  
  The members of the band don't fall into stereotypical roles, it's the white man who raps, and the black guys are unafraid to wear their emotions on their sleeves. The three guys grew up together in the tough surroundings of working class Edinburgh where the typical roles, dictated by race and sex, were strictly enforced by an insecure culture. The trio found common ground in a want to rebel because they knew the expectations were largely performative.
  
  "We weren’t into the other side of hip hop, everyone being angry and calling each other faggots the whole time. We hated the aggression. Because we knew the guys who were doing it and it was all fake, it was all emulated. Most of them were middle-class boys."  [Graham Hastings talking to the New Statesman]
  
  Young Fathers have a closeness that comes from a friendship beyond music. In their promotional materials and live performances they seem quite cuddly, sharing microphones with lips separated by millimetres. It's intimate, even when the music is abrasive.
  
  

  

  Cuddly Young Fathers
  

  
  Ultimately, Young Fathers are a working class group who make music they love because they love making it. They don't have a appeal to the mainstream but have received acclaim from critics. They're also unafraid to tackle big subjects like race, class divisions, masculinity and sexuality in a way that isn't reductive.
  
  They don't lay the evils of society on the wicked white man because they know reality isn't so simple. Poor white people struggle. Black people are capable of evil. With their album 'White Men Are Black Men Too' Young Fathers acknowledge this fact when they could've parroted the popular "white men = bad" narrative. Being independent allows the band to express a nuanced truth in the face of a growing hysteria surrounding social justice.
  
  
• 'Geronimo' utilises the clashing punk and soul present in Young Fathers work and matches it with lyrical themes about harsh reality, the abrasive elements, and the nobility in working for a better life, the melodic elements.
  
  "Dressed up just to go in the dirt" is a lyric about how we bury someone in a suit, we work so hard but the only place it takes us is the grave. While at the same time the song represent what comes from the effort "being a son, brother, uncle, father figure, I gotta survive and provide", meaning that without the hard work of men others would suffer and find life more difficult.
  
  The more optimistic side of the music is less selfish and focuses on how what we do benefits others. These two opposite outlooks exist in each of us and rub against one another causing the friction that makes life difficult, but also interesting. Life is futile because we die but we persist because what we are capable of eases the burden of others. This point of view exhibits a mature masculinity missing in other forms of hip hop and the groups earlier efforts, indicating the process of the group growing from boys into men.
  
  
• Young fathers as a phrase is almost a contradiction in terms. To be a father is to have experience, it's a role a man has in relation to a child, but many young men become fathers before they've lived themselves. They have to learn on the fly.
  
  Young Fathers music is about the realities of being a man in a world they are unprepared for. To become a father is to become a man. Young guys think manhood is about bravado, but really it's about accepting the weight of responsibility that comes from bringing life into the world.
  
  

Artwork