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Young Fathers On World Cafe

One of the highlights of <em>World Cafe</em>'s recent Sense of Place: Edinburgh trip was being welcomed into the tiny basement studio of Young Fathers where the trio made the incredibly inspired record <em>Cocoa Sugar.</em>
Kim Junod
/
WXPN
One of the highlights of World Cafe's recent Sense of Place: Edinburgh trip was being welcomed into the tiny basement studio of Young Fathers where the trio made the incredibly inspired record Cocoa Sugar.

The ceilings are low. Other than a handwritten sign taped above the mixing board that says "Try," the walls are blank. There's a violin that only has one string lying under the desk, and a bunch of pieces of a drum kit in a corner next to some keys. We're in the basement studio in Edinburgh, Scotland where Young Fathers made its Scottish Album of the Year Award-winning record Cocoa Sugar. At first glance, it's surprising that such a massive and expansive album came out of such a tiny space. But after spending some time with band members Kayus Bankole, Graham Hastings and Alloysious Massaquoi down in the basement, it's clear that creating a cyclone of expression in a compressed space is a vital part of their creative process. And so is the rare and stunning chemistry between the three of them.

Kayus, Graham and Alloysious met at a hip-hop night in Edinburgh when they were teenagers and bonded deeply, despite (or maybe because of) their very different backgrounds. Kayus was born in Edinburgh to Nigerian parents. Alloyious was born in Liberia and fled the Civil War as a child refugee, arriving in Scotland by way of Ghana. Graham was born in Scotland and raised by a white father who made sure he didn't adopt the racist attitudes that Graham saw around him. The members of Young Fathers discuss their unique bond, addressing systemic racism and the refugee crisis in their songs and how living in Scotland shapes their relationship to the idea of being "special." Listen in the player.

Young Fathers is currently in the U.S. on tour.

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Talia Schlanger hosts World Cafe, which is distributed by NPR and produced by WXPN, the public radio service of the University of Pennsylvania. She got her start in broadcasting at the CBC, Canada's national public broadcaster. She hosted CBC Radio 2 Weekend Mornings on radio and was the on-camera host for two seasons of the television series CBC Music: Backstage, as well as several prime-time music TV specials for CBC, including the Quietest Concert Ever: On Fundy's Ocean Floor. Schlanger also guest hosted various flagship shows on CBC Radio One, including As It Happens, Day 6 and Because News. Schlanger also won a Canadian Screen Award as a producer for CBC Music Presents: The Beetle Roadtrip Sessions, a cross-country rock 'n' roll road trip.
World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).