Live Review: Loyle Carner at The Grand Social, Dublin

Loyle Carner has a lot going on. His second album, Not Waving, But Drowning has just debuted at number five in the UK. And as he kicked off his new tour in Dublin, he seemed genuinely taken aback by the crowd’s ardour. Also, there was an underpants situation.

“I’ve got a wedgie!” he declared early in a winning performance that, occasional undergarment malfunction notwithstanding, confirmed his status as a rising star of hip-hop.

It was an impassioned and soul-baring set from the Croydon rapper (23). Carner’s beats were crisp with a playful jazz influence. But the real punch was in his lyrics, where he wore his heart on his sleeve with an endearing directness.

The big question for Carner – and the one that informs many of his best songs – is where he fits in modern Britain. His mother and step father are white and his world growing up was their world.

Indeed, as he explained, for many years he believed his roots were Ghanian owing to a misunderstanding with his rarely seen biological father (actually his dad is of Guyanese heritage). All of this he unpacked in three-minute heat-seekers such as 'Damselfly' and 'Angel', the latter a collaboration with rising nu-jazz producer Tom Misch.

Backed by an auxiliary rhymer and languid bass player Carner, wearing a Paris Saint-Germain jersey, brimmed with the best worth of contradictions. Carner - and he will surely take this as a compliment - came across intense, a little inscrutable. Yet his flow was free and easy. The yin/yang dynamic worked for Dublin, where the sell out crowd chanted every lyric, every chorus, every rhyme as if they were living Carner’s struggles right there with him.