MEET ARCHY Marshall
in a recording stu-
dio called Shrunken
Heads, near where he
grew up, just south of
the River Thames. Inside is a junk-
yard of o≠-color pop ephemera: a
replica of Alex’s dick-nose mask in
A Clockwork Orange, three-headed
Barbie dolls, a bust of Darth Vader.
Outside, on our walk across Nunhead
Green to the pub, Marshall is just
another neighborhood fixture. A
shopkeeper who spots him as we
pass waves through the window.
“I like that about this area,” the artist
better known as King Krule says in a
knuckle-dragging bellow that belies
his slight frame. There’s a lot about
the musician that feels out of time,
as if he has jumped o≠ the back of a
Victorian apple cart into the present.
“Today I saw about five people I knew
just walking past,” he says.
Marshall is used to the role of local
celebrity. Since he started making
music from his bedroom 10 years
ago, his pastoral jazz-rock has won
him fans, from Frank Ocean (who
visited him at his home in south
London) to Rejjie Snow (with whom
he recorded a sulking stoner-rap free-
style in 2013). When Beyoncé plugged
Marshall’s breakthrough song, “Easy
Easy,” on her Beyhive Blog, Marshall
told MTV, “It doesn’t surprise me.”
Now Marshall, who’s 25, is in the
midst of a transition that has reori-
ented his work life and personal life in
profound ways—even more profound
than finding a fan in Beyoncé.
Last year he became a father.
“It gave me a lot of strength. I feel
clearer,” the singer says of parent-
hood with his girlfriend, the photog-
rapher Charlotte Patmore. “There
was loads of scaremongering about
fatherhood, people telling you all this
stu≠. But Marina has just made it so
easy,” he says, referring to his daugh-
ter. “There’s a spirit within me and her
that is always gonna be fine.”
The news that they’d be having
a child came just as he was making
his new album, Man Alive!, which
was released in February. The event
also coincided with another big
life change.
Marshall moved out of London for
the first time, relocating his family to
a sprawling green suburbia between
Manchester and Liverpool. On his
last record, The Ooz, he had depicted
howling urban foxes, fistfights,
despairing after-party walks, and
European love a≠airs. It was perhaps
his most London record, a 66-minute
ode to metropolitan desolation.
To leave London, I argue, is to leave
behind a large part of the King Krule
idea. “It was a hard decision, but I
think something deep inside of me
wanted it,” he says.
The move was likely jarring—
for Marshall as well as for south
London, where he’s been a big part
of the scene since the early 2010s,
one powered by Dickensian fashion,
ketamine, flyer art, smart literature,
and squat living. At parties, Marshall
would often perform in the same
baggy suit his uncle wore as a mem-
ber of the ska outfit the Top Cats. His
haircut back then resembled that
of Billy Bibbit, the youngest psych-
ward inmate in One Flew Over the
Cuckoo’s Nest.
Marshall appeared destined for
fame from the beginning, in both
style and demeanor. In one YouTube
clip, a scrawny teenage Marshall,
auditioning for a slot at Glastonbury
Festival, stretches his arms out wide
and declares his sound is a “big fusionI
Jacket,
T-shirt,
and pants,
vintage.
Sneakers
by Nike.All clothes
his own.
Jacket, shirt,
T-shirt,
and pants,
vintage.of music.” A few years later, in the
video for his viral reggae-inspired
punk single “Out Getting Ribs,” his
qui≠ is so emphatic it looks like it’s
being held together with sca≠old-
ing. His teddy boy cheekbones recall
Elvis, or a young Tilda Swinton.32 GQ.COM APRIL 2020
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