The writer and rapper has a new BBC series where he explores the complex British class system and his own place with in it
“I don’t want to be pigeonholed as a poverty pornographer, or even as a class warrior. But there are arguments that still need to be made – I have unfinished business on the topic.”
Darren McGarvey, 37, the Scottish writer, rapper and activist also known as Loki, has made his name through his emotive work humanising the thorny issues of poverty, austerity and deprivation. His 2018 memoir Poverty Safari won the Orwell Prize for its depiction of his childhood in Glasgow’s tough Pollok neighbourhood with an alcoholic mother. In a 2020 BBC television series, Darren McGarvey’s Scotland, he and the documentary filmmaker Stephen Bennett investigated the causes of increasing inequality, stopping in at prison rap workshops, homeless shelters and community centres along the way.
