Taking The H Train

Videographer: Natasha Ayoo @directedbynatashaayo

I tell him that I’m going to ask him deep, intrusive, difficult questions, and he says that that’s just how he likes them.

This is the first thing he says that throws me; the second is that he grew up on jazz standards, played by an unorthodox designer father more interested in supporting his craft than making him a doctor. For Hiribae, deep and difficult is no strange fruit. In fact, his parents were introducing his music to the rest of his family, in a way that provided a level of support and reassurance in his choices that not much else could. Jazz standards? Not Angela Chibalonza and Okatch Biggy like the rest of us? Not for him.

Hiribae – pronounced
HI – ri – ba – i -

reminds me of another African artist, who also has an almost casual intensity imbued in his personal flair; someone who several words with the prefix ‘afro-‘ can describe: Afropolitan, AfroPunk, AfroChic, AfroEdge. AfroRave, even, which is the word they use for his compatriot, Rema. His slight frame both inhabits and contradicts the thought of what a ‘serious’ artist looks like, and intimates the template of the future: the future with his partly founded producer-centric label, EA WAVE, and in his new collective, Kelele Kollektiv. They’re not trying to release or repeat anything that’s already been done either. They’re – pun intended – making noise, yet another little something he’s familiar with.

“I played the trumpet, and the French horn in high school, and I was in the marching band when I was sent to boarding school for punishment. But that gets boring, unless you’re sitting down and writing the music yourself. That leaves no room for expression.” Do you even artist if there isn’t at least a suspension in your past? I kid, I kid. But this jazziness and improvisation, this deliberate deviation from the norm, is what Hiribae brings to the table every time.

Models: Hiribae Wanyoike
Photographer: Alvin Mwaniki (@barutti_)
Stylist: Angel Munoko (@aunty.awa)
Hair stylist: Pambo Mel (@pambo_mel)
Make-up: Nirbas Beauty (@nirbasbeauty)
Videography: Natasha Ayoo ( @directedbynatashaayoo )
Creative concept: YM Life
Location: Dedpixl Studio (@dedpixl_studio)

Having more to say,
and finding people to say it with,
is how his producing career started:

One that breaks away from an older generation mould that starchly defined music, masculinity, and emotion. The freedom he was exposed to allowed and exposed to when younger manifested in freer thinking later. He would follow the friends who later formed EA WAVE with him on social media, and they would geek out over mutual loves of EDM and house music, all the while trying to create the music they enjoyed, but watching it morph into something different.

Creation and expression are the why – even for romance! Which I notice after stalking his Instagram, and seeing him gush over his girlfriend – ‘my slime my makamasi.’ I didn’t think body fluids and Ghostbuster material could sound so sweet. Improvisation yet again.

‘my slime my makamasi’

We talk about the change on
the musical scene,

and in reality, concerning what men look like, or should be. As you would expect, he doesn’t subscribe. “I’ve always been emotional. Me and my friends can be emotional around each other – I can even cry right now!” He laughs. “And the fact that men are sharing more, even if they’re not showing it, is a good thing.”

The smile after this statement comes from a place that’s simultaneously shy and blooming, private and open: the very epitome of becoming, and incoming. Hiribae doesn’t have to say everything he means immediately, but he’ll sure make us the soundtrack.