Culture

No One Wants to Hear Mumford & Sons Rap

Mumford & Sons strummed and harmonized their way to a Grammy for Album of the Year, but now they're ready to ditch the folksy acoustics for rap. Everyone on the Internet is already stopping their ears.

By David Wagner
This article is from the archive of our partner .

Mumford & Sons strummed and harmonized their way to a Grammy for Album of the Year, but now they're ready to ditch the folksy acoustics for rap. Everyone on the Internet is already stopping their ears. Rolling Stone's Patrick Doyle recently caught up with Marcus Mumford and those three other scruffy dudes as they start to rehearse material for their third album. Judging from their chat, the band's big win at this year's Grammys coupled with their five-week run at the top of the Billboard albums charts has emboldened them to get a bit experimental. When Doyle asks what direction they're moving in for the follow-up to 2012's runaway success Babel, Mumford says:

Like, hip-hop. We really want to rap. We've just got so much to say — saying it through a melody doesn't really work for me. We've been talking with Jay-Z about it, you know. It's gonna be a fresh experience for our band. 

They're currently hatching this new sound during downtime on their tour, and Mumford describes their backstage sessions as pretty edgy. "We're like, 'Motherfucker!'" he says. That's right. The Mumford men — they of the frantically plucked banjo, the elite London private school background, the artfully distressed chambray button-up — are trying to curse like Jay-Z on their next album. You're not the only one who thinks that sounds like the worst music anyone could ever make:

It's quite possible that Wiz Khalifa is the only person down with MC Marcus Mumford.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.