Loki (rapper)

In December 2022, McGarvey gave a speech on "Freedom from Want" as one of four Reith Lectures for the BBC based on US President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" 1941 State of the Union address.

Loki's Poverty Safari won the 2018 Orwell Prize for books, with the judges saying it "was 'exactly the book' that Orwell would have wanted to win".

In October 2017 he claimed a lack of support for working class or deprived communities from Creative Scotland, the main body that funds Scotland's arts companies and artists. He also admitted he had not tried to apply for Creative Scotland funds.

In April 2016 McGarvey appeared in a documentary The Divide discussing his alcoholism and its impact on his life.

Darren McGarvey, who goes by the stage name Loki, is a Scottish rapper, hip hop recording artist, and social commentator. He was an activist during the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. He is from a political and performance family: his aunt is the former MSP Rosie McGarvey Kane.

McGarvey studied journalism at Glasgow Clyde College. In 2009, he was part of the Poverty Truth Commission hosted in Glasgow. In 2015 he had six months as rapper-in-residence with the Violence Reduction Unit.

McGarvey was brought up in Pollok on the south side of Glasgow. Between 2004 and 2006, he wrote and presented eight programmes about the causes of anti-social behaviour and social deprivation for BBC Radio Scotland. McGarvey worked with youth organisation Volition, teaching young people to rap. In 2012 he led a workshop as part of a PowerRap competition for schools, encouraging young people to explore important issues through music and language.