Young Fathers have won the 2014 Barclaycard Mercury Prize, taking home £20,000 for their LP Dead. The Edinburgh trio beat bookies favourites FKA twigs and Big Dada labelmate Kate Tempest for the award. In a short acceptance speech, band member Massaquoi said simply: “Thank you, we love you, we love you all.” The band had been 14-1 outsiders to win the prize.
“We’ll take it in our stride,” said band member G Hastings afterwards. “We always wanted to make something bigger than the city we were living in.”
Dead is a very ambitious album, mixing futuristic production, heavyweight beats and interesting lyrical content. It’s experimental, it’s wonderful, it’s utterly unique, and you need to hear it.
Listen to a selection of tracks from the album below and buy Dead here.