Cocoa Sugar

Cocoa Sugar is the third studio album by Scottish indie group Young Fathers. It was released on Ninja Tune on 9 March 2018. It won the Scottish Album of the Year Award for 2018.^[2] It peaked at number 28 on the UK Albums Chart.^[3]

Cocoa Sugar
Studio album by Young Fathers
Released	9 March 2018 (2018-03-09)
Genre	Garage rap[1] indietronica neo-soul
Length	36:45
Label	Ninja Tune
Young Fathers chronology
White Men Are Black Men Too (2015) Cocoa Sugar (2018) Heavy Heavy (2023)
Singles from Cocoa Sugar
"Lord" Released: 31 October 2017 "In My View" Released: 17 January 2018 "Toy" Released: 28 February 2018

Artwork

The album art, designed by Tom Hingston and photographed by Julia Noni, features band member Alloysious Massaquoi and is a direct homage to the Waldemar Świerzy's Polish poster for the 1969 drama film Midnight Cowboy.^[4][5]

Critical reception

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
AnyDecentMusic?	8.2/10[6]
Metacritic	87/100[7]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[8]
The A.V. Club	B+[9]
The Guardian	[10]
The Independent	[11]
Mojo	[12]
NME	[13]
The Observer	[1]
Pitchfork	7.3/10[14]
Q	[15]
Uncut	8/10[16]

At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 87, based on 21 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".^[7]

Clayton Purdom of The A.V. Club described the album as "a worthy progression, a tight stretch of otherworldly melodies, ramshackle percussion, and buzzing clouds of woozy ambient sound."^[9]

Accolades

Publication	Accolade	Rank	Ref.
NME	Albums of the Year 2018	24	[17]
PopMatters	70 Best Albums of 2018	1	[18]
The Skinny	50 Best Albums of 2018	1	[19]
Stereogum	50 Best Albums of 2018	40	[20]

Track listing

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"See How"		2:01
2.	"Fee Fi"		2:41
3.	"In My View"		3:15
4.	"Turn"	Kayus Bankole Graham "G" Hastings Alloysious Massaquoi Dave Sitek	3:36
5.	"Lord"		3:34
6.	"Tremolo"		3:08
7.	"Wow"		4:00
8.	"Border Girl"		4:01
9.	"Holy Ghost"		2:32
10.	"Wire"		1:40
11.	"Toy"		3:13
12.	"Picking You"	Kayus Bankole Graham "G" Hastings Alloysious Massaquoi Dave Sitek	3:04
Total length:			36:45

All tracks are written by Kayus Bankole, Timothy London, Graham "G" Hastings and Alloysious Massaquoi, except where noted.

Japanese edition bonus tracks^[21]

No.	Title	Length
13.	"Just a Kid"	3:01
14.	"Out of My Mind Sometimes"	2:04
Total length:		41:50

Personnel

• David Cousin – additional vocals (track 12)
• Timothy London – co-producer
• Graham "G" Hastings – mixing (tracks 1–4, 6–12)
• Laurie Ross – mixing (tracks 1–4, 6–12)
• Ben Baptie – mixing (track 5)
• Vlado Meller – mastering
• Hingston Studio – design and art direction
• Julia Noni – photography

Charts

Chart (2018)	Peak position
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)[22]	37
UK Albums (OCC)[3]	28
UK Independent Albums (OCC)[23]	4
UK R&B Albums (OCC)[24]	1
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)[25]	173