Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Being a local boy who’s made good can be overwhelming, but Loyle Carner seemed particularly stunned. Gazing out at 35,000 people during his Saturday night headline set in Victoria Park, east London, he puffed out his cheeks then slapped them hard, as if trying to awaken from a dream. “Fucking hell, this is my local park, man!” he marvelled. “I cycled here today!”Carner’s rise has indeed been astonishing. Having already headlined Wembley Arena this spring, the 29-year-old now rivals Stormzy as the poster boy of UK rap. Yet this precipitous ascent has been achieved via music which is humble, introspective, self-effacing and free of braggadocio.Spoken with heartfelt earnestness over sparse, languid beats, Carner’s words deal with his issues of identity and growing up with mixed-race roots. Dynamic and engaging on stage, he performed with a fluid cadence and moving intensity: “I doubt myself, don’t doubt me!” he murmured on the pensive track “Still”, as if thinking aloud.Carner’s emotional candour clearly resonated with the many teenagers who were in the crowd. When the 75-year-old Guyanese poet, John Agard, appeared to reprise his cameo role on another Carner track, “Georgetown”, it was amusing to see this grizzled figure greeted with a volume of shrill screams usually reserved for Taylor Swift or Beyoncé.Carner’s sensitive musings made him a fitting headliner for a festival, now in its seventh year, which showcases jazzy, low-key music. Early on a glorious sunny afternoon, on a side stage, the tyro Danish female singer-songwriter Giift sang lush, alluring neo-soul songs of love and heartbreak in a rich, molten throb of a voice.The young Londoner Lola Young came over like a punky Lily Allen as she huffed out miffed, punchy laments like “Messy” about ill-starred romances falling apart. Lianne La Havas’s mellow jazz-soul drifted across the park, but songs like “Paper Thin” and “Bittersweet” were so carefully tasteful that they had hardly any flavour.This was hardly a complaint you could level against Ezra Collective. Not content with offering a joyous pile-up of exuberant polyrhythms, the Mercury Music Prize-winning Afrobeat-jazz quintet dispensed pep talks on inclusivity, ordered fans to dance with strangers then parted the crowd à la Moses and the Red Sea and played in the middle of it. They were like a positivity boot camp.Back in 1994, Nas was hailed as the best rapper in the world after the release of his debut album, Illmatic. Thirty years on, the gangsta posturing has gone and he cuts a more avuncular figure. “I feel good! I’m 50 years old, God dammit!” he yelled during a crowd-pleasing, greatest hits set delivered with the slickness of a showbiz veteran.The most curious turn of the day came from André 3000. Formerly half of the multiple platinum-selling US psychedelic funk-rap duo Outkast, he has now turned to experimental flute music, and sat in a five-person free-jazz ensemble tootling on a Teotihuacan drone flute. “We’re making all this up on the spot,” he divulged, halfway through. The many fans streaming away from the stage had realised that already.To August 25, allpointseastfestival.com
