Loyle Carner's unhurried delivery makes him one of UK hip hop's brightest stars

Rap’s had its fair share of unusual hook-ups. Who can forget Eminem hanging out with Elton John? Or Jay Z and Kanye’s seemingly insatiable desire to collaborate with Coldplay’s chief bore Chris Martin? But kitchen boffin Heston Blumenthal teaming with one of the UK’s brightest hip hop talents is new on us.

“He was meant to come to my show but I forgot to text him back,” says South Londoner Ben Coyle-Larner (‘Loyle Carner’ is a stage name taken from the way he used to pronounce his surname).

Rather than proof that Blumenthal has a newfound infatuation with UK hip hop, this unlikely friendship probably tells us a lot more about the 22-year-old wordsmith. Since emerging in late 2014 with the heartfelt ‘A Little Late’ EP, Carner has carved a niche for himself as the softly spoken, sensitive and socially conscious voice of UK hip hop, and used his burgeoning fame to launch a scheme to teach kids with ADHD how to cook.

“Heston’s just been diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, so he was interested in what I’m doing,” he tells us. Right now though, Loyle’s attention is firmly focused on music.

We’re backstage at Berlin venue Lido on a drizzly Monday night, two months before the release of his debut album and a month into a five-week tour of the UK and Europe. Dressed in Dickies navy chinos and a Patagonia fleece, Loyle is fashioning a sandwich from the bread and cheese selection in the dressing room’s fridge, while his tour DJ, producer and general partner in crime Rebel Kleff plays a stack of old soul and funk vinyl that he’s just bought on a portable Numark turntable (“Fifty quid mate! Such a bargain.”)

Since that first EP dropped just over two years ago, Carner’s rise has been of the slow, steady, yet sizeable kind. In the space of a year, he’s gone from a sold out show at Corsica Studios to selling out bigger venues in the Capital like Village Underground, Koko and two upcoming nights at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. “It’s been amazing,” he says, with a wry smile.

Carner has won fans for his willingness to lay himself bare in his music. If grime is the rough-and-ready music of the streets, then Loyle’s brand of UK hip hop deals more in sentimentality and domesticity. Subjects include the death of his stepdad (you can hear his voice audibly quiver on track ‘BFG’ when he reaches the refrain ‘Of course I’m fucking sad, I miss my fucking dad’) and he pays homage to the sister he never had on ‘Florence’. As well as laying himself bare, Carner has put his family front and centre of his output, his artwork often featuring old family photos, his mum and brother both featuring in his music videos and his mum even appearing on stage with him from time to time.

“They enjoy it,” he tells us when we ask how his family has reacted to being put in the spotlight. “I do feel a bit protective of them, though, as I’m putting their lives out there a bit.”

And he’s got more to thank his family for than simply providing lyrical inspiration. His early musical education came via his parents playing soul by the likes of Roy Ayers (an influence that can clearly be heard in his output) and he sampled music from an album his stepdad made on his debut LP.

But it was listening to hip hop and grime while channel-hopping between MTV Base and Channel U in the mid-noughties that led to him honing his talent for music on the playground.

“I must have been about eight or nine in school and we’d have little rap battles,” he explains. “Before that I was writing poetry. I ended up battling a lot of older kids in school so I rose up the ranks pretty quickly.”

Then at around the age of 17, when becoming a chef seemed the most tangible option out of his three major ambitions of becoming a footballer, pursuing music or going into the kitchen, he met his musical partner Rebel Kleff and started to take the music side of things a little more seriously.

“We kind of got put together by a mate,” he tells us. “I was making rap without beats and Chris was making music, so my mate said we should hook up. Straight away Chris was like, ‘Do you have somewhere to record?’ And we’ve been best friends ever since.”

Together, the pair have cultivated a sound that draws heavily on old soul samples and recalls the likes of Common, A Tribe Called Quest and Mos Def at their peak, or the soul-heavy UK sounds being pushed by the likes of Skinnyman and Jehst (who make a guest appearance on the album) in the first years of the millennium. And while other notable producers including Tom Misch have worked on the forthcoming album, it’s Ben and Chris’s friendship that’s the rock at the centre of the Loyle Carner project.

“We used to spend a lot of time at Chris’s house making tunes for fun, playing FIFA and drinking beer, saying ‘Just imagine what it’d be like to go on tour,” says Ben. “And now we’re doing it together and it’s just jokes!”

Pre-gig, it’s clear to see the slog of spending the last few weeks touring a cold and wet Europe has started to take its toll on Carner and his small crew (tour manager, videographer and Rebel Kleff). But on stage Carner has all the energy of a first night. Performing in front of a giant replica Cantona shirt (Carner has long performed with his stepdad’s Cantona shirt draped over his shoulder, and for this tour, has taken the tribute supersize), he’s energetic, charming and effortlessly engaging, occupying the large stage through force of personality alone. Running through tracks new and old, including ‘Ain’t Nothing Changed’ and ‘Florence’, he fills the crowd in on the family history that inspired certain tracks and informs them of his love of Berlin (“This is the best city in the world!”). The nature of his lyrics means fans have an acute sense of familiarity with Carner, and he’s happy to oblige them after the show, signing T-shirts, posing for selfies and chatting with fans for a good hour or two.

“The people who have invested in your music and come to your show, it’s very important to speak to them and get feedback,” Carner tells us. “Numbers on YouTube and Spotify are one thing, but sometimes they’re hard to comprehend. To see people in front of you at a show, and then talk to them: that can put all of this into perspective.”

But with one of the most anticipated debut albums of 2017 dropping this month, is Carner prepared for the fan adoration and public recognition stepping up a couple of notches?

“I’m honestly trying not to think about it too much because that stuff petrifies me,” he says. “But yeah, there’s a lot going on in 2017. I’m optimistic!”

‘Ain’t Nothing Changed’? Not yet, maybe.

‘Yesterday’s Gone’ by Loyle Carner is out on AMF Records on January 20

Sean Griffiths is Mixmag's Deputy Editor, follow him on Twitter