Young Fathers: 10 things you need to know about the Mercury Music Prize 2014 winners

The hip-hop trio beat off the likes of Royal Blood and Bombay Bicycle Club to win the Mercury Music Prize 2014

young-fathers

by Laurence Mozafari |
Published on

Who the heck are Young Fathers? Good question - we’re assuming you asked it, because we just typed it. The Edinburgh-based trio just snagged the Mercury Music Prize 2014, beating off the likes of Royal Blood, Bombay Bicycle Club and the bookies' favourite, FKA Twigs.

The award hopes to highlight albums that might have been overlooked in the past year, Young Fathers' effort was cheerily named Dead and featured tracks such as Low and Get Up. Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole and “G” Hastings picked up the highly coveted award at the ceremony at Camden’s Roundhouse in North London, hosted by Nick Grimshaw.

In a snappy acceptance speech, Massaquoi said simply: "Thank you, we love you, we love you all."

Now here’s 10 things you need to know about Young Fathers:

  • Massaquoi is originally from Liberia, Bankole has Nigerian parents, and Hastings is from Edinburgh. They first formed back in 2008, and recorded their debut album with the odd name Inconceivable Child... Conceived

  • Liberia-born Alloysious describes his upbringing as, “The beach, coconuts falling on my head, getting hit by a car, the plane journey to Scotland, first encounter with snow, being picked on, being myself, in the playground and a girl asking if I tasted like chocolate.”

  • Not sure what to start listening to? Try Now Way, War and Low.

  • Alloysious can do the Moonwalk, as well as an amazing Jason De Rulo impression

  • They appeared on Big Brother’s Big Mouth back in 2009

  • In 2011 they left their record label and released a mixtape as a free download and limited edition cassette, which sounds so achingly hip

  • They had more of a boyband vibe waaaaaay back in the day, before pulling inspiration from other artists and becoming very cool

  • They won the Scottish Album Of The Year Award in 2014

  • Ellie Goulding mocked them on Instagram for, erm, looking grumpy while accepting their Mercury award...

@elliegoulding
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