Loyle Carner is a Mercury Prize nominee, a bestselling rapper and a Glastonbury sensation. Right now, however, he’s most excited about being made an honorary doctor at London’s University of the Arts.
It’s a particular moment – getting the “purple gown and the fancy Professor Quirrell hat” – Carner says, whose songs have been streamed millions of times. “I never graduated. I dropped out after my first year.”
Carner is beaming with pride as he video calls from a wooden-walled music studio, sat next to a grand piano (he tilts his phone obligingly to show me). Is he working on new music? Maybe. “I like to be here when I’ve got time to chill, you know,” he says.
It’s unlikely that he has a whole lot of time to chill, especially as, later this month, the artist will be headlining All Points East in London’s Victoria Park.
Born Benjamin Coyle-Larner, he grew up in south Croydon. He had a difficult upbringing: raised by his mother and stepfather and with an absentee father, Carner struggled at school thanks to a combination of ADHD and dyslexia. Acting was his passion, then music – which he embraced after leaving university, infusing his style of hip-hop and rap with elements of jazz and spoken word poetry.
After being named as one to watch on the BBC's Sound of 2016 list, he released his debut album, Yesterday’s Gone, in 2017 – which was promptly nominated for the Mercury Prize. More nominations swiftly followed, including two Brit Award nods for British Breakthrough Act and British Male Solo Artist.
All this, alongside a contacts book that includes Arlo Parks (who supported him on his 2019 tour), Kae Tempest, Jorja Smith and celebrity chef Yotam Ottolenghi, who inspired one of his most famous tracks, Ottolenghi (and yes, the chef did make an appearance in the music video).
Despite this, Carner is modest about his fame. “I don't know many superstars like that,” he says, but he does talk about getting to know one of his heroes, the late poet and writer Benjamin Zephaniah.
“He's like a superhero as well, man,” he adds. “It's crazy. I know that he had an honorary doctorate too, so I’m in good company. He turned down his MBE as well I think, which I probably would do too. So I’m just copying him, essentially.”
I ask about that and he mock addresses the honours committees: “If you’re thinking about giving me one, give me one, so I can turn it down,” he laughs. “Don’t not give me one, let me get it and publicly say no.”
He is now an established star and a huge draw around the world, but he hasn’t forgotten how tough times became. When he was a student, Carner partly dropped out for financial reasons after his stepfather passed away. “I had nothing. My mum had nothing. I was trying to support my family, you know. I had to do it,” he says.
“How are you going to be 22 years old and owing £80,000-worth of money [in student debt]?” he asks. “Just crazy.”
“We need the next generation to be incentivized to work, and think, and create, and innovate. And if they’re too busy going, ‘I need to pay off this debt,’ they don’t have time to do that.”
He takes a breath. “We should give the generation after us, the younger generation, space to just create. Space to just be free, to think. And not feel as much pressure. Because that's where all the best ideas come, when people are relaxed.”
Ten or so years on, Carner is in the driving seat for All Points East, and has helped to curate the lineup, (“I was kind of just trying to put something together that I would want to go to, because I’m selfish. And now I can go to my ideal festival”) which includes OutKast legend André 3000, East Coast hip-hop figurehead Nas, and south London jazz collective Ezra Collective, alongside up and coming artists like Enny.
It’s a homecoming of sorts. “London shows are cool. Because I grew up here and I've seen a lot of music here, there's a special thing that we share as a crowd,” he says.
Plus, as a boy, he was a Victoria Park regular, watching gigs there long before the festival even began in 2018. “I saw Nas there, a long time ago,” he says. “I met Madlib there when I was like 16.” The young Carner was hanging out backstage when he bumped into the star and the pair got talking about his desire to be a rapper.
“He gave me his number! But I didn't know how to save an American number [on my phone], so I was like, ‘Oh, he's basically trying to get me to go away,’” he laughs.
“I tried to contact him… and then two years later I met him again and he gave me the same number. I was like, ‘This guy is just taking the piss.’” Fortunately, the pair worked out that Carner’s failure to put an area code ahead of the number was at fault – and have since gone onto collaborate on Carner’s tracks Yesterday and Georgetown.
With all that under his belt, Carner spends most of his time with his young family – he now has two small children – and of course, in the studio.
“I'm making music and it sounds awesome to me,” he says. Gone are the introspective, angry bars of his latest album, Hugo, which saw him dissect his fractious relationship with his father: in its place is something more mellow.
“It was the time leading up to the birth of my son, so I was in a place of existential dread,” he says. “I had to grow up a lot. I was 25 when I had my son… [now] I'm in a place of chill. The world is so big through little eyes and I get to see so much more beauty now.”
