In Edinburgh, Darren McGarvey, aka rapper Loki, sets his steely gaze on crime and aspiration. Why do one in five children live in poverty in Scotland's financial capital? And how does it impact their future?

Starting at the end of the story, Loki travels to HMP Edinburgh to meet long-term prisoners. Running a rap workshop, Darren stops in mid-flow as a prisoner confides that his dad is locked up in the same wing, and the best period of their father-son relationship has been inside. As for aspiration, well, life got in the way.

Full of fire, Darren goes to meet Gemma and her one-year-old son Klay as they are shuttled around the city’s temporary housing system. Not only is her house cold and damp, it is causing respiratory problems for her son. As Darren wonders how to break the cycle of poverty, he meets two extraordinary youth workers, James and Katie, tackling bike crime in Pilton; gives a sermon unlike any other in an independent school, George Watson’s College; and ends up in a Mandarin class in one of the city’s most deprived areas.