Haich Ber Na
Haich and I connected over cups of tea streamed online for the first time as we explored each other’s musical archives and swapped notes on architects. Our conversation ambled from humble beginnings in Peterborough into weird beats and Britpop beef. Haich explained his patchwork approach to lyrical production through inflatable sofas and coffee-drenched laptops while hyping his tight knit creative team and looking back at some of his biggest inspirations.
Haich ! Good to hear you. I am super interested to learn about your journey into music since I know you started and studied graphic design.
Yeah so I have always done both graphic design and music. But music is the thing that I really enjoy...so I was worried that becoming too educated or trained would somehow damage it. You know, interrupt my relationship with it. I didn’t feel the same about graphic design to be honest ! I wasn’t concerned with the idea of getting put off... I still use and create with graphics and programs as it helps me to demonstrate ideas but I prefer to work with friends who are really good at it. But music, it’s for me, I have to keep it sacred.
Exactly, it kind of means that you’re able to know the scope of your idea without a limitation at the early stage. How did you get to the place you’re in now with music ? Can you remember the first song you wrote or felt really connected to ?
When I started making music, I was about 13 and my friends and I used to rap...but we were always struggling to find beats we wanted to use. I like making things, so I learnt how to make beats for us to rap on. I did that for a few years, and really got into enjoying the production...it got me thinking that I wanted to become a producer. So, it’s hard for me to think when I wrote my first song, since so much of this early process was producing, making beats, freestyles and everything like that, but probably around 14 or so. After that, my world began to widen and I allowed myself to delve into more genres and mix with different groups with other influences, which has enabled my music to develop into the form it takes now.
I know that you work with your friends a lot on your projects now, so they’re obviously a great source of creative energy. There’s some really good shit going on in South East London; a real collective feel to the music scene there.
Has this environment contributed to the collaborative nature of your work ?
Maybe...I didn’t grow up in South London, though I have been here for a really long time. But, I grew up in a place called Peterborough, where there was nothing going on at all. I enjoyed it but the creative community was so small as I was growing up. We all ended up influencing each other but it was only a few of us who really believed we could do these things that we enjoyed [like making beats and music] for life and for a career. I ended up using the whole graphics thing to get into London.
Ah, so this was your ticket in to the city and into this creative network.
Yeah, for sure. I always knew I was going to do the music thing. I just didn’t know how to manifest it straight away. I knew when I was applying to universities that I had to have something else to keep me afloat. My friends all knew that my heart was in the music and that was my reason for being in the city, but I still learnt so much from my experience at the uni.
That’s the beauty of art school, I think. A lot of people are there to feel surrounded by a creative acceptance, while also knowing they’ll be challenged and inspired into creating an outcome that’s often separate from their degree or chosen art form.
I met some good people there and, to be honest, I didn’t know that anything was really happening in SE London. I had friends in the city who I would come and visit but I didn’t know much about the place or even about the uni. I just knew I had to be there to make shit happen for myself...and now I’ve been there for 5 or 6 years.
Sick, I used to live in Queen’s Road and it’s changed so much even in the last two years. It’s a little crazy how so many of the old spots [like Canavan’s] are having to close and are so overlooked due to lack of funding and incoming big developments etc. How do you feel sitting within that space as a creative, do you feel that your practice is neglected as the area makes way for more bankable ‘content’ ?
I used to live there, too ! I’m now living in a much quieter place. It’s really sad. I don’t focus on it too much, as I’m trying to keep the good energy going. However I think about it, it’s disheartening.
Do you think this is something you could or would like to change with your voice as an artist ?
I think I could...at some point. I’d need to get my thoughts together before I started taking up space. To be honest, I like listening to people more than I like talking.
How does this impact on your creative partnerships and relationships when you’re working on projects ?
You know what...I am definitely the driver for the music aspect. I have a long-time friend Diesel who helps me to write and produce on a lot of the songs. I will usually start on something and, when it’s about fifty percent there, he’ll come through and keep the vibe up. He has this secret, soulful sauce that he just brings at the right moment. My vibe is a bit more weird...but he just makes it something a bit extra before I wrap it up. So far, that’s how we have worked on it with the music. I’ll always get a few friends’ opinions as well. If I’m working with someone outside, it depends. I usually like to let people bring whatever they feel they want to to the role of creation. I am learning to let go...which is hard because I care so much. With the video projects, it’s different. I’ll have a pretty loose idea, like with the most recent video [0594 Help], I went to my friend Richard [Wilkins] who knows how to make the idea realistic, to actualise it. He’s incredible; every time we give him source material he just turns it up and adds serious heat to everything. I also work with my brother, Joseph, who also makes music. He assistant directs loads of stuff and the relationship is super easy because we’re almost like twins in how we communicate. We never fight and I trust him so much with everything we make. I also have my guy Jesse, who’s a photographer and this young guy Ivor Alice who’s a DoP. There’s a lot of respect here for each other’s brains and energies within this team. But we are also definitely open to bring in new minds and new artists, we aren’t too protective of it because we want it to grow. It’s different with the music, it’s more personally mine.
So, talk me through your process with the music because it definitely seems like there’s been a real shift over the last two years.
Yeah, the process changes for me project to project. With the process in 2018, I was mostly making beats...trying to make things that had never existed or been heard before. I had vocalists singing on them [the first EP, Unbalanced] but I poured a coffee on my laptop and lost the entire thing. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get everyone back in to re-record everything because it had already taken a year, so I decided to sing the whole thing myself.
That’s crazy...you essentially dissolved an entire project by mistake which created this new sound for yourself.
Yes, it was super freestyle. I think for the 2019 project I was more confident in my vocals and my ability to work with the music. Everything was still unwritten and I was really free with the construction of the songs. I felt it was a bit too experimental though, so people weren’t connecting with it as well. I love music like that but I don’t think it was the kind of thing I was wanting to put out. I want to make music that people just really enjoy, not that they have to work at.
Okay, so your music is mostly about connection with and enjoyment for the listener ? Although there is always something quite satisfying about making something that’s entirely esoteric and then someone hears it or sees it and thinks ‘what the fuck’ but also really vibes with it because they don’t understand it.
I think I’m somewhere in the middle. I don’t want to create something that is so digestible that just sounds like anything else, but I also am not into creating music so difficult to connect with that it ultimately becomes exclusive. My music tastes are so expansive and I want this to be reflected in my work. Sometimes I can hear Madonna tunes and think “wow, okay, I like Madonna”, in the same way that I can love Amnesia Scanner next to some random little band. You know, I can have DJ Khaled next to Radiohead. I have also been listening to a lot of Blur lately...I had no idea about this Britpop ‘war’ that was going on. When I was a kid, I knew about Biggie and ‘Pac...I didn’t hear about the Britpop beef. I’m just learning about it now.
Oh, it was hardcore. People would not even speak to each other in the streets if they listened to the ‘wrong’ bands. The subcultures used to be taken much more seriously, particularly with style and community. We live in a more transient time, musically.
Yeah for sure. I like that. It’s so interesting, but so serious ! These days, the white emo kid with huge black boots could speak to the black boy with braids and they might both connect over Lil Uzi Vert. That’s sick. It makes music really exciting now
What are you listening to right now ?
I’m listening to the new Eddington Again, he’s really cool, that just came out. I’ve started listening to Micachu & the Shapes which comes from Mica Levi, she’s this sick composer from South London. Some funky house, Giggs, Oklou for my morning meditation vibe. I think what I listen to depends on my mood and the setting. Also, if there’s a memory attached to it or a feeling you know.
For sure, I even get this with full body sensations. I have songs that I can even smell the room I was in when I first heard it or feel how my body felt at that time. There are songs that really make me stop wherever I am and whatever I’m doing...it can be really arresting. Do you ever thing about your part to play in peoples’ moments like this ?
The song I just put out was the first time I had a really serious message about something like this. A friend hit me up and said he’d been going through something and it really hit the spot for him. I was like “damn”, I don’t think anyone’s ever let me
know about their connection with my music in that way. It’s incredible, but I don’t feel pressured or responsible about my role in peoples’ lives. At least not yet, and hopefully never ! I don’t know how this is all going to go, but I hope that I can keep telling my story and my friends’ stories and even make-believe stories without feeling responsible for whatever has preceded me or our community. I want to feel like I’m making music I enjoy in the hope that others will continue to enjoy it and the authenticity of it. There are people I still listen to who I’ve been listening to for 10 years or more...I’d like to be like that for someone.
I want to learn about your influences...in life and art, everything in between that can lead you to your work.
Influences is a weird word...they switch for me, project to project. For example, with the 2019 EP Everywhere’s Home, I became obsessed with [Vietnamese engineer and designer] Quasar Khanh. He made inflatable spaces and sofas, as well as clothes. He began to infiltrate my thoughts while I was working on that project and I researched him quite intensely, trawling through interviews and connections. I even found his son on Facebook while I was looking to borrow one of these inflatable sofas.... I also love a lot of Jamaican musicians, I’m Jamaican and so it’s just a natural connection to people like Lee Scratch Perry and how they’d build equipment themselves to make music.
You have got to listen to the track he made with The Orb.
I’m lining it up now, everything he touches is so good.
It’s classic. Finally, I want to know what is coming next for you.
Another single and another video. The single’s called Think About It, it’s different from the other video but with the same team. The concept is completely new. It’s coming out on 18th November.
Perfect. Thanks so much for giving the time, I feel excited to watch your next projects grow.
"Haich Ber Na's '0594 Help' is out now on White City's cultural hub HQI's new label. HQI provides free access to arts, recording and exhibition space, broadening its support to include a multitude of visual arts disciplines"
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