Loyle Carner - Not Waving, But Drowning
UK-Rap made with a strong, sentimental and fragile narrative - this is the Rapper Loyle Carner (born as Benjamin Coyle-Larner) who created a wonderfully soothing and dreamful record in April 2019.
The album Not Waving, But Drowning, which is named after a poem by the British writer Stevie Smith, is nurtured like a letter, addressed to his mother Jean. In it he ensures his love for her, regardless of his decision to leave home, detaching himself and moving in together with his girlfriend. The importance of his relationship to his mother is laid out within the whole album, as she can be heard the recordings, reading out Loyle's self-written poems, that appear throughout the LP. Besides the confessions to his mother, he discusses the relationship to his girlfriend, the importance of a long-lasting friendship (shown in the song Krispy) and the loss of his father.
The LP includes a collaborated track Angels with his mate Tom Misch and features by the emerging British singer Jorja Smith and Sampha. A track, that stayed with me for a long time, was Still; it is lively and dreamy at the same time but also contains Loyle's light sentimentality, singing about the unchanged worries he still faces having to learn how to cope with them. Looking back is a great example of Loyle's easiness to rap, which seems to come to him without any additional effort.
The album concludes with the track Dear Ben, a letter written by his mother addressed to Loyle. In the letter she responds to his thoughts which he expressed throughout the past 14 tracks. With her thoughtful words it seems like she wants to take Loyle's worries. She also refers to his letter from the begging of the record and confesses her motherly love as well, which rounds up the album very well.
Born and raised in South London, Loyle Carner studied at the famous Brit School and afterwards started an acting degree at the Drama Centre in London. However, he soon dropped out of his studies due to his father's sudden death in epilepsy, which ultimately made him decide to focus on music. His musical development is not only marked by the loss of his father, but also by a diagnosis with ADHS. Carner views the medical disorder as his “super power”. Without it he could not have gone this path he embarked on. ADHS has helped him to transform his energy into something positive - into music to be exact.
Rapping about personal references and showing fragility publicly, he presents himself a lot different in comparison to most rappers. According to Loyle Carner, his music has some therapeutic effect on him, thereby coming to terms with certain events.
The value of family backing and love forms the foundation of his lyrics. Its intimacy and significance of familyhood does not only appear lyrically. What is more that Carner’s own musical influence is due to the unique musicality being cultivated in the family, having spent a lot of time together listening to music.
Other than the impact his family makes on his music, he claims to be most influenced by American Hip-Hop and Grime Music. Poetically he got most of his inspiration of the American poet Langston Hughes and the British writer Benjamin Zephaniah. Combing his “spoken-word”-singing with his wistful and sentimental way of rapping to discreet boom-bap beats, he creates an exceptional souly character.
Not Waving, But Drowning on Spotify:
