East End troubadour Hak Baker announces his highly-anticipated debut album, Worlds End FM, an extraordinary creative leap tailor-made for an era of social inequity, internet addiction and post-pandemic disillusionment, to be released on 9 June 2023 on Hak Attack Records, AWAL.
Worlds End FM is a debut album that introduces Hak Baker’s singular, mercurial folk-poetry in the manner of a molotov cocktail being ‘introduced’ to a window. Building on the street-level stories and bruised geezer confessionals of his output since 2017’s career-launching Misfits EP, World’s End FM takes the form of a pirate radio broadcast from the edge of armageddon. Executive produced by Hak and Karma Kid and compiled from two years of prolific sessions with in-demand producers including Speedy Wunderground’s Dan Carey, Shrink and Misfits producer Ali Bla Bla, the record crackles as the genre dial is twiddled from rip-snorting post-punk to lilting roots reggae.
“Windrush Baby”, released today and lifted from Worlds End FM, is an opportunity for this fiercely proud son of the Docklands to fully mark out his lineage and proclaim his Jamaican heritage. Telling the story of his Jamaican mother moving to the UK at the young age of 17, and how the children of Windrush have carved out their identity in a country that didn’t feel like their parents’ own, Hak is able to communicate complex subject matter through an uplifting, hook after hook earworm. Featuring a voice note from his mother about the “loss of values” within British Black youth whilst addressing Hak, the song is a powerful ode to lost souls and the real motherland; Jamaica. Recorded with longtime collaborator Karma Kid over two days at Abbey Road Studios, fans can now also watch the creation of “Windrush Baby” as part of the legendary Abbey Road ‘Lock-In’ series.
Last month, Hak released his first single of 2023, the blistering “Telephones 4 Eyes”, an Orwellian anti-technology protest, with pace and anger that pleads for human connection and condemns the surveillance state. Produced by Dan Carey (Fontaines DC, Foals, Wet Leg, Bat For Lashes, Bloc Party) with a stirring and disturbing video directed by Hugh Mulhern using AI technology, “Telephones 4 Eyes” caught the attention of Steve Lamacq at BBC 6 Music, who rated the song 10/10 on his roundtable, with Jon McClure of Reverend And The Makers describing Hak as “Baxter Dury really pissed off”.
Now on the BBC 6 Music B List, “Telephones 4 Eyes” has become Hak’s fastest streaming single to date and a political protest for his “MisFit” fans. With audiences pleading to see him live, Hak today also announces his biggest UK and Europe tour, with a headline show at KOKO on 29 September and a run of dates in Germany, not before supporting friends Pete Doherty at The Royal Albert Hall on 5 May and Jamie T at Finsbury Park on 29 June. Hak will also be playing a special show at Metropolis, live with Clash Magazine on 5 April, and returns to The Great Escape in Brighton on 12 May.
Hak Baker’s story begins on the Isle of Dogs where his working class community became his muse and inspired an unconventional, rebellious career that has seen the East End troubadour become one of the most respected and reverent British artists of his generation. Hak’s tales of inner city London life climb a spectrum between youthful nihilism and male vulnerability, to understanding that within the personal lives the political, as Hak paints a picture of a country in turmoil through his poetic lyricism.
“I’m from east London and I love it but, before that, I’m double Caribbean. My mum made sure I knew a lot about myself. I never had any inferiority about what I could do and I was always in tune with how powerful I am and what I come from.”
Hak Baker
With fans spanning culture and genre, from Celeste to Mike Skinner, Fontaines DC to Skepta, Slowthai to Pete Doherty to Joy Crookes and Reuben Dangoor, Hak’s fanbase identify as “MisFits”, like-minded individuals who question the status quo and celebrate Hak’s anti-genre, “G-Folk” sound. With Vice stating “Baker subverts what a British folk singer can be”, culturally he sits as comfortably beside the likes of Madness, The Specials and Benjamin Zephaniah, as he does The Streets, Kano, Akala and Greentea Peng. Hak’s repertoire truly transcends genre, with his raw, unfiltered and authentic voice at the core of everything he does. “I think people get confused and they don’t really know where to put me,” says Hak, who remembers being nicknamed ‘Cockney’ by fellow black inmates in prison because of the supposedly confusing way he spoke.
It’s the straight-spine afforded by Hak Baker’s upbringing as a Caribbean-heritage, working class east Londoner – the muslim dad who always reminded him to look a man in the eye; the older sister who bailed him out of jail when his mum refused to; the hard-won, cross-cultural unity that he helped foster between the factions of white kids and black kids on the Isle of Dogs – that makes him the man that he is and suffuses World’s End FM with its humanity and warmth.
Calling himself the “three island man”, from an early age Hak wanted to express his angst at the inequality he witnessed through poetry. Remembering intimate moments singing Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” to his mother and excelling in the only thing he knew how to at school – English Language and Literature – Hak started out MC-ing Grime at his local community centre, but felt incredibly moved by alternative music, citing artists such as Terry Callier as profound influences. Hak debuted “Conundrum” in 2017 on Later…With Jools Holland as an “unsigned” new artist, going against the grain and proof that Hak is a storyteller as much as he is a poet and singer. With his love of language stemming from a childhood of asking his mother what certain words meant, and being told to “go and look up in the dictionary”, Hak’s style and execution blends a combination of cockney dialect picked up from growing up in the Isle of Dogs, Jamaican Patois from his mother and grandmother and a flow developed from his younger years as a Grime MC. These elements have given Hak the ability to articulate a stream of consciousness with visceral energy, grief, humour and rebellion, with remarkable tracks including “7AM”, “Thirsty Thursdays” and the 5 Million streaming “Venezuelan Riddim”, which have all become live favourites.
Opening The Other Stage at Glastonbury last year, and performing at Boomtown, 6 Music Festival, Field Day, Live at Leeds and previously supporting the likes of Celeste, Slowthai, Chronixx, Pete Doherty, Wolf Alice and Plan B, Hak Baker also became the face of the Dr Martens mural in East London, playing a raucous show for the punk shoe brand, as well as being chosen as the face of Fender’s American II Collection, collaborating with British Jamaican designer Nicholas Daley. With cult British brands drawn to Hak’s warm character and also his grit and political stance, Hak has also collaborated with legendary photographer Rankin on his first HUNGER cover, Fred Perry and Levis. Hak has also filmed sessions by Fender, COLORs, Soccer AM, IDLES (TCTV) and the British Arts Council, and last year brought his live show back to his community, on his sell-out Bricks & Mor-Tor, playing at pubs across the UK to fans who have supported his vision from day one.
Stating “I’m black and I play Guitar, so what? What’s new? I’m an MC and poet all the same,” it is Hak’s rebel music and artistic integrity that sets him apart and puts him at the vanguard of British culture in 2023.
