Director: DEADHORSES
You’ve either heard of Hak Baker, or you haven’t. Once a member of the East End’s Grime collective Bomb Squad and after a stint in prison, Baker has ploughed his own furrow, creating his idiosyncratic style. It’s a mixture of cheeky Cockney Rap, Ska and spoken word. A little like The Streets, if you will, but with a bit more pep.
And pep is definitely the right word for this 70-minute documentary about Baker. We see him rapping on the streets as a teenager in the early noughties to singing in the present day, where he now plays in such venues as the Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury. The journey wasn’t always smooth, however, as one candid piece of footage reveals him playing to only a handful of people.
The film remains shy about Baker’s conviction – for robbery – but it is while he was in prison that he learned to play guitar. After his two-year sentence, Baker started working with music producer Ali Bla Bla, and the hits slowly came. In 2023, Baker released his album Worlds End FM.
Directed by DEADHORSES (James Topley and Ivo Beckett), this documentary makes use of home videos and concert footage, a good deal of it graded in sepia tones, which gives the film and its subject a 70s feel. There’s a nostalgia for friends and family, a time when community was strong.
We see Baker, with his best mate, Jack, larking around, drinking, smoking weed and pissing in alleys. The smaller gigs look like wild events, his fans a mixture of white and black people. With the Caribbean influences to Baker’s music, these smaller performances are reminiscent of the early 70s again when British skinheads flocked to hear Reggae and Rocksteady, long before skinheads were connected with the Far Right. Baker’s shows are filled to the brim with a sense of ladishness and frenzy.
However, as the film reaches its second half, Baker is keen to stress that he’s extolling a newly constructed masculinity in which men can support each other, even cry on each other’s shoulders. With suicide being the biggest killer of men under the age of 50, Baker calls upon his fans to open up more and not be afraid to talk about their feelings. Being more vulnerable doesn’t mean a man still can’t have fun and be one of the boys.
Hakeem isn’t just a celebration of Baker’s music – and it’s hard not to sing along to Fuck You or thrill to its drunken horns – but also a celebration of a less harmful masculinity. A refreshing mission statement from a musician who has only just got started.
Hakeem is released in cinemas from 4 March.
