Hak Baker – A ‘Later’ Discovery

I’ve watched Jools Holland’s ‘Later’ for decades, some weeks are really good, some don’t really reach the heights. Some of the new artists are brilliant, some not so. Last week though had a really impressive line-up including one Hak Baker, a musician who’d I’d never heard of before but I’ll certainly be following in the future.

Now first thing I’d say is that his sort of music isn’t on paper “my thing”. I’m not really into the whole grime scene at all, but Hak is something slightly different and it’s hard not to get drawn in. I’m not entirely sure how to define him, but I would say that he’s extremely talented and seriously impressive.

In case like me you haven’t heard of him, Hak Baker was born and raised in East London. As a teenager he was part of the B.O.M.B. Squad grime crew. What followed then was a phase of heavy drinking, partying and the sort of late-night behaviour that landed him a couple of years in jail. Of his time locked up, Hak’s quoted as saying “At a certain time, when I was in jail, I realised, this was bollocks: ‘this is shit.’ My mates started going jail, some people died, some people got nicked. And in jail I thought, ‘I don’t even care.’ Jail was like a break that I needed; ‘it’s bollocks out there anyway.’” 

 

After coming out of prison Hak has spent the last couple of years coming up with a collection of songs that fall under a genre that he calls ‘G-Folk’. Essentially what we’d maybe call socio-political alt-folk. The tracks often have laugh-out-loud lyrics but with a serious point behind each of them.

Alt-Folk

This ‘alternative’ folk I found engrossing. Of course over the years I’ve heard various versions of folk both traditional and modern, the only one I really like is the sort of Punk-Folk expounded by the likes of The Pogues, New Model Army and The Levellers. Hak’s ‘G-Folk’ is almost an extension of this.

Watching Hak on ‘Later’ he sounded like he was right in the room with me, which I suppose is the least a folk singer can hope to convey. His tracks are a fusion of English folk, reggae and Albion indie. They’re honest and nostalgic. His lyrics tell tales about growing up in the east end. Hak’s vocals are pretty raw, they seem to switch from singing to almost-rapping over an acoustic guitar.

More Digging

As a consequence of watching Hak on ‘Later’ I dug back into what he’s released over the last few years and was surprised to find that he’s not been snapped up by a major label. Some of the tracks I discovered included:

‘Misfits’ – The lyrics of which are a modern update on the ska, reggae and two-tone themes of the late 70s and early 80s dealing again with police brutality and what actually goes on on the real streets in a similar way that the like of The Specials did.

‘Skint’ – Is a very quick way into Hak. As all good punk songs do, it weighs in at a rapid two minutes 46 seconds and paints a picture of the struggles and grinds of inner city life.

‘Tom’ is a touching song about one of Hak’s mates who died and the impact of his death on their group of friends. He largely speaks the first verse in a very sombre manner, with lyrics like “we’d give anything to bring back our boy, the lads miss you, we all do”. It ends with Hak lamenting “That’s life I guess…” as an ominous synth raps the track up.

The New.... with some tradition

Hak brings up to date decades of both folk and inner city tradition into something that to me feels not only of 2018, but very believable. He brings us a sound that tips a nod to the past but brings in the foundation of today's modern music.

I’m sure as a white middle aged guy I’m not Hak’s target audience but I find there’s something compelling about him. His semi-spoken politically charged lyrics are full of real life stories of dodging the police and revelling in the traditions of London’s inner city. In many ways his work updates tracks like The Clash’s ‘Guns of Brixton’ and ‘Police and Thieves’, or The Equals’ ‘Police on My Back’ from all those years ago. Hak’s music is like nothing else that’s around at the moment and it’s incredibly captivating.

The Misfits(EP) is available for download on the likes of Amazon, there’s some decent stuff on You-Tube too – Go look it up, you won’t regret it. !!