Loyle Carner, the Modern Poet

Benjamin Coyle-Larner was born in South London, 1994. The 24 year-old musician is now known by his artist name, Loyle Carner, and is growing in popularity for his contributions within the alternative hip-hop genre. He released his debut EP, A Little Late, in 2014 and has since released singles such as “Guts,” featuring a collab with poet/rapper Kate Tempest, “Tierney Terrace/Florence,” “Loose Ends,” “Ottolenghi,” “You Don’t Know,” and his first album, released in 2017, “Yesterday’s Gone.”

It would be an understatement to say that Loyle is simply a musician. His art appeals to much more than just the purely musical side of things; in fact, I would go as far as to state that Loyle is not only a musician but a poet, and a beautiful one at that. His lyrics reveal a true viel of genuine emotion, that of pain, suffering, happiness, confusion, loneliness, abandonment. He approaches these firefly experiences of his life like a scientist, capturing them in jars only to examine them, only to better understand them and decode their lights like puzzles. Then they’re released into the blood, sweat and tears of his science, or, in real terms, his music. Loyle's art is bittersweet; it is his demonstration of pain that gives his music life. They say an artist’s work suffers when they are happy, a statement which alludes to the intensity, complexity, and beauty which often embodies art that comes from suffering. Notable art seems to come more from the artist who has felt pain than the artist who has not. And though it is hopefully obvious that wonderful art is still accomplishable in the presence of happiness, Loyle is certainly an example of this kind of impressive artistic product.

Much of his inspiration appears to be due to the death of his father, a struggle which becomes obvious to the listener as they continue down the emotional, musical stream of his album “Yesterday’s Gone.” His dad is repeatedly mentioned throughout the album, often accompanied by a sense of sadness, loss, and resentment. Perhaps one of the songs that makes this most apparent is “Isle of Arran,” the first on the album, includes the lyrics:

Uh, but know that I've been grieving

Know that I've been holding out

Hoping to receive him

I've been holding out for G when he was nowhere to be seen when I was bleeding

The song has a wonderful way of communicating his pain alongside this sort of musical dissonance, consistently bringing in themes of God, suffering, and how the two relate. The first sounds of the song are recordings of a church choir, singing in harmony to the lyrics “the Lord will make a way,” which is interrupted as the beat drops and Loyle’s thick, British, deep and soothing voice flows in and begins to rap the same verse which includes the lyrics above. This is particularly effective because it is almost like you are getting a glimpse into his past, making his shameless display of feeling seem even more personal to you, because you feel as if you know him better somehow. Even though I have no idea if Loyle was raised in the church, his incorporations of the choir and repeated mentioning of God seem to allude to a deep connection to a higher power and the feeling of disappointment from the emotional safety net that God has failed to provide. This kind of potential connection, this feeling of closeness, of knowing someone that the listener experiences is a direct result of what Loyle is perhaps known best for, his ability to create genuinely honest and raw poetry. “Isle of Arran” later includes the lyrics:

My mother said there's no love until you show some

So I showed love and got nothing, now there's no-one

You wonder why I couldn't keep in tow, son

I wonder why my dad didn't want me

Ex didn't need me

Half of them left, and the rest finna breeze me

Gets blessed 'til I second guess rest 'til it freeze me

There's nothing to believe in, believe me

Another aspect to Loyle that makes his album “Yesterday’s Gone” stand out are the interludes he includes, entitled “+44,” “Swear,” and “Rebel 101.” There is no music in these short interludes, but rather entire recordings of real conversations, making the feeling of genuinity and truth to seem even more apparent in his work. More specifically, the song “Swear” is a conversation with his mother, who is not only repeatedly mentioned within the songs (so much so that I know her name is Jean) but whose voice is featured at least twice. In “Swear,” she and Loyle have a playful conversation about cuss words. Loyle explains the reason he uses them is because she did when he was little. You can hear them laughing together, and you wonder if this is what it is like to be in the same room with them, next to them, laughing along with them. It brings you back to this feeling of closeness to the artist, something that Loyle is clearly on his way to mastering. His mother is also featured in the very end of the song “Sun of Jean,” using this kind of beautiful language to describe her awe at Loyle’s coming of age. He locks you in, perhaps through the beautiful illustrations of his songs, and suddenly you care enough to begin to untangle his complicated family dynamic.You’ve never even seen him, let alone met him, but you care anyway, and isn’t that mere fact indicative of the truly remarkable things that can be accomplished through art? Even more so than looking at a painting in a museum, the ability to listen into one’s life seems to add a unique layer of connection.

But that’s not the only talking in the album. In fact, the interlude “+44” is simply Loyle reciting his 45 second spoken word poem. There is no music, only the soft sounds of passing traffic and Loyle’s heavy voice filling in the empty spaces. This kind of incorporation of raw poetry is especially impressive. The effort he must put into his lyrics, the attention paid to the meaning of the words, the way the songs sail along perfectly together into the ears of the listener are signifiers of his confidence and talent as a poet. It is rare to see something like this in most alternative hip-hop albums today.

While it clear that Loyal’s lyrics are a defining factor to his music which attracts his growing pool of listeners, his poetry is not the only thing that makes his art stand out. The writing is accompanied by his unique blend of jazzy, old school hip-hop and church chorus tunes. “Yesterday’s Gone” ranges from bouncy bops under a hip-hop influence such as “No CD” to more jazzy songs like “Mrs. C,” which incorporates an entire sax solo at one point. This is exemplary of the different range of emotions you can find within his album. No matter what mood you’re in, you can find something that speaks to you. His last song, the album’s title track, does not fit into the hip-hop, jazz, or spoken-word genre. Rather, it is a song done entirely with an acoustic guitar. He is not rapping, but singing, advising you in his lyrics to find hope for the future by leaving the past behind:

Look up and you'll see the sunshine

So high above

Goodbye to darkness and welcome back to love

Every yesterday it was a nightmare for someone

The days they count are coming and the best ones have begun

Yesterday's gone

So, this is how the album ends, with perfect symmetry and symbolism in contrast to how it begins with “Isle of Arran,” which admittedly is not the most uplifting song around. But that’s exactly what Loyle is trying to communicate. You can go through it, you can have terrible days and good days and days in between, you can dwell on your past and let it consume you, but at the end of the day, all you’re left with is tomorrow. You have walked with Loyle down the fluctuating path of his album, through his suffering and pain, only to come out on the other end with a beautiful kind of hope for the next day. And on that note, I hope you are looking forward as much as I am to Loyle’s next album, “Not Waving, but Drowning” expected to drop April 19, 2019.

By Emmaline Elsbree