An Overdue Review of Berhana's 'HAN'

by Noah Adaikkalam

This month, Berhana released his first studio album, HAN. The project is a beautiful, narrative-driven record, released with music videos, merchandise, artwork, and a retro Pan-Am aesthetic that validate the four-year gap between this and Berhana’s debut self-titled EP. He didn’t release just an album, he has created a wholly original artistic presentation.

During that hiatus, he released a couple of singles, a cover of  “Whole Wide World” in 2017, and “Wildin”, with a music video, in 2018. These two songs foreshadowed the next phase of his artistic evolution. Not to say that his initial EP was lacking. It took a lot of creative liberties many new artists are wouldn’t take: long instrumental tracks, Fresh Prince samples, music videos that play with color, inventive camera angles, and non-linear narratives, leaving the viewer with more questions than answers. In short, you could feel something bigger coming. His two singles promised growth.

However, I don’t think anybody expected HAN to be as musically diverse as it is.

The full project incorporates spoken interludes that keep the album moving. Berhana produced them, drawing inspiration and using sound clips from English musician and actor Dudley Moore. Every interlude is spoken in an old school flight attendant voice, commenting on the form or content of the songs and doubling as transitions. The distribution is a little uneven, as the album is taking off you hear a lot more of the flight attendant, but once it’s in the air the motif is dropped. 

Beyond that, Berhana has mastered a J-Pop/ neo-soul sound that can lightly bubble to your heart and or shake your ribs equally as well. He picks synth riffs that can fill an aircraft hangar. They play into his more atmospheric songs, and then switch suddenly to a bassline and kick that shake concrete. His music pays homage to funk and disco, recognizing the revitalization in rap (Tyler and Kali Uchis’s - “After the Storm,” Anderson .Paak ft. Kendrick Lamar’s - “Tints,” Mac Miller’s “What’s the Use?”).  Yet, he makes this sound his own is by coating it in a layer of heartbreak. Every song is about love in some way, showing all perspectives, sometimes multiple sides of the same tragic romance in the same song.

All of Berhana’s newfound textures culminate in “Health Food,” the first single of the project to drop. It was released with a very Truman Showesque music video that challenges the relationship between performer and audience, showing Berhana trapped on a film set. He opens the track with a squeaky synth and a hard kick that dissolve into a slapping baseline. Canadian producer Pomo, most known for Mac Miller’s hit “Dang!”, provides the bouncing backbeat. Together they present a refreshing take on the funk revival I mentioned earlier; it moves more, creating a fluidity between baselines and synths, yet still having his heartbreak-oriented lyrics that reminisce on his side and hers. 

His development can be attributed to both his growth as a producer and the new additions to his production team: Pomo and Danny McKinnon. These two worked together on a handful of Mac Miller tracks and a couple of tracks off of Anderson .Paak’s Ventura (2019). Additionally, he kept on Sapphire Adizes, his producer for Berhana-EP. Pomo and McKinnon take the funk and disco angle, hard and smooth baselines, and sharp snares and kicks that blend with the synthy, poppy, soulful sound of Adizes. It is all topped off with Berhana’s voice and lyrics, casting the entire project in a shadow of heartbreak. 

His sonic growth is matched in his visual aspects. The album was released with two full-length music videos, three vignettes, and a short clip that plays with each official audio-video. While the music videos for his first EP were well done, they lacked the thematic unity found in this project. The little clips on the audio tracks fit into the postmodern airline aesthetic, where the full-length videos feel like stops along the flight. It’s an impressive thing to do well, and a growth that can be tracked from Berhana-EP to “Wildin” and “Whole Wide World” and most recently, HAN. 

Berhana is intent on growing. He has identified his sound and molded it to fit many different shapes and forms, combining with bigger producers, increasing his production value, and continuing to create good content across all mediums. I am very happy with HAN and excited to see what comes next.