World's End FM

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With Worlds End FM , Hak Baker shows once and for all that, as enticing as nostalgia might be, things never sound quite as good the second time around. 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. Telephones 4 Eyes’ is an angsty three-minute punk romp decrying surveillance culture and our addiction to our phone screens, while ‘Bricks In The Wall’ is a cathartic, uplifting fightback against the state’s decimation of working-class institutions and opportunities. 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.

I wanna slow down a bit, enjoy the sun and go to my country that has been left in tatters from foreign politics,” he says. After playing recent single ‘Windrush Baby’, he necks his bottle of beer and is quickly handed a new one.The debut album from London's finest, Hak Baker - 'Worlds End FM' represents the war in Hak's mind, the culture war on the streets of London and the individual battles of his community - from his mother to his brother to his best friends. 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. Download the Qobuz apps for smartphones, tablets and computers, and listen to your purchases wherever you go.

I, on the other hand, living through the generational consequences of these mishaps, have managed to manifest joy from these times. NME meets Baker and his bandmates in The Eagle pub three hours before his Friday headline show at The Great Escape. 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.The Show is the apotheosis of Horan’s classic rock sound, which he has been carefully honing ever since his solo debut, 2017’s Flicker. As Hak Baker sways and strums his way through the final notes of fan favourite track ‘Venezuela Riddim’, he’s met with a sea of colour. However, what they do when people are suffering is intensify the suffering: they make things more expensive, more uninhabitable. A true statement of his capabilities, ‘World’s End FM’ is styled as a kind of alternative universe pirate radio broadcast.

Certainly, it sets him apart from his peers whose paramours appear to exist solely as a collection of body parts: green eyes, red lips, curved hips. 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.The genre-hopping influences are distilled into something unified and unique, rough-hewn tales of life on the fringes. 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. The fact Horan can then pull off “Save My Life”, a pacey Eighties thriller complete with jubilant sax noodling, is even more impressive. 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’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.

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. Closing with ‘The End Of The World’, this is an album that dares to push aside the bullshit, and give you the truth. It gives you a sense of ownership, because you’re segregated — this is where I’m from, so I must look after this place at all costs.

Songwriting at its most illicit, the punchy vocal on ‘Telephones 4 Eyez’ is offset by the anthemics of ‘Brotherhood’ for example, or the beautiful introspection of ‘Almost Lost London’. Early singles such as “On the Loose” showed an affinity for Fleetwood Mac bass grooves and California dreaming.