Speaker 1: Pushkin. I first heard Brahanna watching Donald Glover's show Atlanta.
Speaker 1: It's one of the few shows I know I'm going
Speaker 1: to discover new music when I watch it. Some tracks
Speaker 1: don't stand up to repeat listens outside of the show,
Speaker 1: but Burhanna was one of the artists from the second season.
Speaker 1: I kept going back to. Berna's voice really stands out
Speaker 1: in modern R and b Whill. Pretty much everyone else
Speaker 1: these days sings with a whispery, atmospheric falsetto Brohanna has
Speaker 1: a crisp tenor and it sounds refreshing. Branna doesn't mind
Speaker 1: being different. He's first generation American born in Atlanta to
Speaker 1: Ethiopian parents, so he's always felt a bid out of
Speaker 1: place anyway. Still, he managed to find his people and
Speaker 1: eventually his sound. As you'll hear in this episode. The
Speaker 1: song You're listening to Janet is an ode to the
Speaker 1: original Dark Skin Aunt viv from The Fresh Prince of Blair.
Speaker 1: I sat down with Brahanna at Village Studios in LA
Speaker 1: to talk about how a young artist can go from
Speaker 1: working bad restaurant gigs to earning enough on music to
Speaker 1: eke out a living, and how he ended up in
Speaker 1: Tokyo to record most of his album Han. This is
Speaker 1: broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmond.
Speaker 1: Just a quick note here. You can listen to all
Speaker 1: of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist,
Speaker 1: which you can find a link to in the show notes.
Speaker 1: For licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced in
Speaker 1: this episode, you'll hear this sound effect. All right, enjoy
Speaker 1: the episode. Here's my conversation with Brehanna. But first he
Speaker 1: starts off with the performance of the song that got
Speaker 1: me hooked, Gray Love. Yo. That was amazing, man, that
Speaker 1: was beautiful. Appreciates you. Yeah, so that was an acoustic version,
Speaker 1: stripped down version of gray Love, which is from your
Speaker 1: first project, your EP, and it's called Brahanna self titled exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, that song is actually how I first discovered you,
Speaker 1: like I'm sure many people, because it got featured on
Speaker 1: Donald Glover's show Atlanta. Yep, um No, must have been
Speaker 1: huge for an up and coming artist like you were
Speaker 1: at the time. He might have even been up and coming.
Speaker 1: You were just someone putting out music. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it must have been massive. It was crazy. It was
Speaker 1: crazy for a few different reasons. That show is my
Speaker 1: favorite show on television by far. I was like super
Speaker 1: in tune with it. Um, I loved the writing. I'm
Speaker 1: from Atlanta. Um, Donald's one of my favorite artists. So
Speaker 1: just all of that, you know, happening at once was
Speaker 1: a very cool moment for me. Yeah. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: like a lot of a lot of younger artists like
Speaker 1: look for placements and fine placements. How big are placements
Speaker 1: for like an artist like you? I think it, you know,
Speaker 1: it depends on like the show. It depends if it's
Speaker 1: like a movie commercial. You know, it's all different. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't go out of my way to like get placements.
Speaker 1: I think there are a lot of people that do.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, this movie is looking for these style songs,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like you, only fifty Shades
Speaker 1: of Gray came out. I was with this other team
Speaker 1: at the time, and they were like, oh, like fifty
Speaker 1: shades gray, like you just gotta you just gotta make
Speaker 1: something a little sexy. And I was like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: not about to do that, you know, um yeah exactly,
Speaker 1: But to like have your own song it feels like
Speaker 1: you yeah, and then someone else takes that that's cool.
Speaker 1: That's um not going out of my way for it
Speaker 1: feels better. Absolutely, So another reason that must have been
Speaker 1: like important and big for you because you weren't initially
Speaker 1: trying to be a musician or be you know, like
Speaker 1: play music for a living. You were trying to be
Speaker 1: a screenwriter. Yeah, and that's like that's like so it's
Speaker 1: like kind of your two worlds colliding in a way,
Speaker 1: like this amazing show with your music, how'd you get
Speaker 1: into screenwriting? My sister, that's like the easiest chance of
Speaker 1: My sister's twelve years older than me, and she kind
Speaker 1: of like shaped who I am. She would always she
Speaker 1: wants to NYU, but she would always like come home
Speaker 1: for extended amounts of time just to like stay with
Speaker 1: me and still be present in my life, and would
Speaker 1: put me onto different movies. She really liked in television
Speaker 1: shows and would break down A stories, B stories, C
Speaker 1: stories like she she already knew what like she wanted
Speaker 1: me to be in a way, like we kind of
Speaker 1: joke about that all the time. But I like, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I want to go to n y U.
Speaker 1: I want to be in the dramatic writing program. And
Speaker 1: that was like I was like Oh, that's what I
Speaker 1: want to do. I love TV, I love film. So
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I just want to like write
Speaker 1: for the rest of my life. I just want to write.
Speaker 1: And I did music, but it was more so like
Speaker 1: a passion project. It was for me. I show a
Speaker 1: couple of friends here and there, but I never thought
Speaker 1: it was going to be the driving force by any means.
Speaker 1: And what were the first songs you wrote. The first
Speaker 1: song I wrote was about like my dad who like
Speaker 1: left I was like seven or eight. My sister left
Speaker 1: the house at the time, but my brother was still there.
Speaker 1: And it was to no music. It was just like story.
Speaker 1: It was just like writing. I had no I wasn't
Speaker 1: playing piano. I wasn't I was just like creating the
Speaker 1: melody and just writing the thing. And I showed my
Speaker 1: brother and he was the first person to really encourage
Speaker 1: me when it came to music, because he saw it
Speaker 1: as like almost like a journal. He was like, yo,
Speaker 1: you have to make sure that you keep doing this
Speaker 1: and letting out how you feel this way. He was like,
Speaker 1: I had no idea you felt like this, And that
Speaker 1: was Yeah, that was the first song I wrote. That's
Speaker 1: amazing to start trying to write songs at seven? What
Speaker 1: were you I mean in Atlanta? Is you grew up
Speaker 1: in Atlanta and that's like such a diverse musical town.
Speaker 1: Like there's so much music going on and all kinds
Speaker 1: of music. You know people think now just think of
Speaker 1: like trap music or whatever, but there's so much KNTO
Speaker 1: music going on atlant So what was there just a
Speaker 1: lot of music going on in your home? Um? In
Speaker 1: my home, yeah, there was. There was a bit of music.
Speaker 1: I'd say, like there was a lot of like oldies
Speaker 1: like Sam Cook my mom loved, like Stevie Wonder. There
Speaker 1: was also like Ethiopian music being played a bunch, and
Speaker 1: then whatever my brother was listening to, whether it was
Speaker 1: like BC Boys outcasts, and my sister as well used
Speaker 1: to always make me CDs mix CDs. So and we
Speaker 1: were in the church. But I didn't have, like, you know,
Speaker 1: one of those parents. I was like, listen to all
Speaker 1: apprentice discography, like this is amazing. You have to understand
Speaker 1: why I didn't have that. And I think the first
Speaker 1: thing I gravitated towards was storytelling. It was just like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're telling a very like unique story. I like how
Speaker 1: the words sound together and That's what drew me in first.
Speaker 1: How steeped in Ethiopian culture were you growing up as
Speaker 1: a kid? Um, It was interesting growing up in Atlanta
Speaker 1: and like having being first generation African because you go
Speaker 1: home and it's, you know, the smells are Ethiopian. The
Speaker 1: language that you're hearing your parents speaking us from Ethiopia,
Speaker 1: the decor, you know, everything is is Ethiopia. And then
Speaker 1: you like walk outside and it's like this Georgia. So
Speaker 1: there's like the southern pride aspect, and it's also Atlanta,
Speaker 1: so it's like very black and it's like very proud
Speaker 1: as well. So to be in like these three different
Speaker 1: worlds at once was it was a lot at times,
Speaker 1: but as an observer I began to like really take
Speaker 1: it all in and appreciate it as you know, the
Speaker 1: older I got. Yeah, those are the three really strong
Speaker 1: culture exactly. Yeah, you're just like I didn't even think
Speaker 1: about that part because I think of Atlanta sometimes it's
Speaker 1: like on an island, you know, same as like New Orleans.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's like that southern sort of element to
Speaker 1: it too, right, especially if you're not specifically in Atlanta
Speaker 1: right outside of it, Like, did you ever feel I
Speaker 1: don't know, so I know a lot of first generations
Speaker 1: sometimes struggle with feeling like, you know, maybe you don't
Speaker 1: want to accept your your heritage because you want to
Speaker 1: sort of just you want to be if you want
Speaker 1: to fit in at school. You know. So you did
Speaker 1: you ever find yourself wanting to be more more fit
Speaker 1: into more one culture than the other or yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: There were definitely different times because I went to a school.
Speaker 1: My mom put me in this private school that was
Speaker 1: predominantly white that she worked at so that I could
Speaker 1: go to the school. But I remember once there was
Speaker 1: like a show and tell and my mom brought some
Speaker 1: different Ethiopian food and like kids were like spitting it up,
Speaker 1: like what is this? What is some of my favorite foods?
Speaker 1: Like some of my favorites. And then seeing that made
Speaker 1: me feel like, you know, ashamed because I was really
Speaker 1: young at the time, and I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: guess this isn't good, So I don't I don't want
Speaker 1: kids to come over and smell my house and eat
Speaker 1: the food we have. I'd rather go to your house,
Speaker 1: right yep. Um, So there was a lot of that
Speaker 1: when I was really young, and then the order I
Speaker 1: got the more of that just like went away and
Speaker 1: I found a community of a lot of different like
Speaker 1: first generation Africans through church and sports. We became super
Speaker 1: close and those were the people I really identified with,
Speaker 1: even though they weren't Ethiopian or they didn't go to
Speaker 1: the same schools or whatever. It was just, oh, we
Speaker 1: share that that thing of being in different worlds than once. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're sure being different in this place exactly. That's heartbreaking, man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just like, Yeah, the one that spit out, it
Speaker 1: wasn't even crazy like food. It's like ginche. It's like
Speaker 1: kind of like similar to like rice or it's like
Speaker 1: something that no one should spit out some dump kids. Yea.
Speaker 1: His name was Casey. You remember the name still at
Speaker 1: His name is Casey punk. I saw you went to
Speaker 1: Ethiopia recently right there? Often to go back there. That's
Speaker 1: my first time actually the first time a month ago. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had an opportunity to do a show over there.
Speaker 1: My mom hasn't hadn't been back for forty seven years. Wow. Um,
Speaker 1: so I was like, this is the time we should
Speaker 1: both go. And I got to bring her with me
Speaker 1: and see the country through her eyes, and it was
Speaker 1: a surreal experience. And how did you connect with him
Speaker 1: a lot to a stocky out there man's that's insane. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was amazing, brilliant if you Opian musician, like incredible discography,
Speaker 1: incredible absolutely. Um. He's been one of my favorites since
Speaker 1: I was young. That was one of the ones my
Speaker 1: mom put me onto at an early age. And I'll
Speaker 1: be um, a girl from our team who's incredible. She's
Speaker 1: right over here. Yep, she uh she she made that happen.
Speaker 1: She yeah, she I knew, she knew I really liked
Speaker 1: Mulatto and she had a connection. Yeah, she got us
Speaker 1: sometimes so we could sit down and really chop it up.
Speaker 1: Super thankful. It's crazy. How was that time? Man? What
Speaker 1: did he It was crazy? Man. I like came to
Speaker 1: him kind of like approaching him with an idea I
Speaker 1: wanted to do and it kind and he was like,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of down, but then it totally clipped,
Speaker 1: it totally flipped. He was like immediately went into He
Speaker 1: just like taught me so much. It was like we
Speaker 1: sat down for nearly three hours and he just talked
Speaker 1: to me about the history of music, how Ethiopia like
Speaker 1: plays into that. What instruments started in Ethiopia, then no
Speaker 1: one knows about and he's really like championing this kind
Speaker 1: of like no one really knows like that much about
Speaker 1: Ethiopian music in its history, including Ethiopian people, and he
Speaker 1: really wants to educate others. And he yeah, he did that.
Speaker 1: He taught me so much. Was crazy. That's like sitting
Speaker 1: down with like the that's like the Ethiopian Quincy Jones exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just shut up. I like didn't. I barely talked
Speaker 1: those three hours. What instruments are from Ethiopia. I didn't
Speaker 1: even realized it was. The massinco is like a really
Speaker 1: big one. It's kind of like a cello. That's one
Speaker 1: of the things he said. He was like, oh, what
Speaker 1: came first, the massinco or the cello? And I was like,
Speaker 1: I guess, Yeah, I guess the massinco because just how
Speaker 1: he was praising question and then he kept doing that
Speaker 1: with different instruments, horned and whatever it was, and then
Speaker 1: he would go into the history of it and how
Speaker 1: how that instrument was built in which tribe made that instrument. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of unique instruments Piopia. That's amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can hear. When you listen to the music, it
Speaker 1: sounds like it's like orchestras full of like instruments. You
Speaker 1: feel like what is that? You know, either they playing
Speaker 1: in a way I've never heard this thing played, or
Speaker 1: some completely different instruments, but it's just it's such a beautiful,
Speaker 1: like like sound that it's just you know, when you're
Speaker 1: when you're not used to hearing those sounds. It just
Speaker 1: sounds especially just like like mystical or something. You know,
Speaker 1: it's incredible. We'll be back with my interview with Brehanna
Speaker 1: after a quick break. We're back with Brahanna. How do
Speaker 1: you How so you have two siblings, Yeah, and you're
Speaker 1: the youngest youngest, and they're both putting you on to
Speaker 1: movies and TV shows and music totally. And so then
Speaker 1: you decide you want to go study screenwriting and are
Speaker 1: you making music in college or are you? I was
Speaker 1: when I got there it was like I'd put music
Speaker 1: behind me. I remember I did one show in Atlanta
Speaker 1: right before I left, where I just did like covers
Speaker 1: and a couple of my songs, and then after that
Speaker 1: it was kind of like my all right, I'll come
Speaker 1: back to this label. How you how did you how
Speaker 1: the performance look? Like? What? Was it just you? It
Speaker 1: was me in a band of like people I just
Speaker 1: like recruited who were who were great. Um, But we
Speaker 1: rehearsed like maybe for a week, and they like played
Speaker 1: this show with me for free. I had like no money. Um.
Speaker 1: And then when I came to New York, I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna put that behind me and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go all into this writing. Did you put it
Speaker 1: behind you? Because did it go well or did it
Speaker 1: just feel? No? It went it went fine, but it
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this isn't what I'm pursued. I'm going
Speaker 1: to New York to be successful in this field. So
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm gonna I'll just revisit this later.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I was just for the most part
Speaker 1: only doing writing in turning its shows, I'm doing a
Speaker 1: lot of different stuff like UCB, Upright, Citizens Brigade. And
Speaker 1: then into like my senior year, I started like getting
Speaker 1: kind of restless because I really wanted to do music,
Speaker 1: but I just didn't know how. I hadn't been like
Speaker 1: there were a lot of like jazz school kids I'd
Speaker 1: been hanging out with, but it wasn't people I was
Speaker 1: like necessarily trying to make music with. And then this
Speaker 1: one kid, his name was Jimmy. He had heard I
Speaker 1: like sang because I used to like go to the
Speaker 1: piano room downstairs at the dorm and play songs now
Speaker 1: and then and people would come listen. And he was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: we should just do something together, just for the fucker
Speaker 1: to see how it goes. And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, let's do it. And we did one song
Speaker 1: called Kingdom together for his project and then it did
Speaker 1: pretty well, like for the first time i'd ever like
Speaker 1: put out a song, it like got right up, so
Speaker 1: it was like he doing really well for him, and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, you know, this is cool. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try and make my own stuff, or at least
Speaker 1: one song. I'm gonna try and make one song under
Speaker 1: my name, see how it go. And then I wrote
Speaker 1: like basically the outline of Janet, the song that I
Speaker 1: ended up putting on my EP. And I had connected
Speaker 1: with this kid's name Sapphire, who also went to my
Speaker 1: school for jazz, but he had dropped out because he
Speaker 1: was like, I know exactly what I want to do.
Speaker 1: I don't need to like be in school for it,
Speaker 1: and I loved that. I was like, oh, this is cool.
Speaker 1: I want to work with you. I want to like
Speaker 1: see if we can create something, and we ended up
Speaker 1: making the full EP together. Wow, how did you write
Speaker 1: so I love Janet too? Because it's a again, it's
Speaker 1: combining both of your world's right, it's music and it's
Speaker 1: combining like it's like, it's clearly someone with the love
Speaker 1: for TV how to write that? And I think probably
Speaker 1: everyone in our age grew up loving, like obsessed with
Speaker 1: the Fresh Prince. So it was such a beautiful send
Speaker 1: up to Ann Viv. Yeah, how did you come up
Speaker 1: with the idea for that? And how did it kind
Speaker 1: of develop? I saw a tweet from one of my
Speaker 1: really close friends who was one of those first generation
Speaker 1: kids I was trying about that I was super tight
Speaker 1: with in Atlanta. He tweeted it, if you fuck with
Speaker 1: the light skin on Viv, I can't trust you. And
Speaker 1: I thought it was so fun. I just like started laughing,
Speaker 1: you know, I like I retweeted or whatever. Um. But
Speaker 1: then it like kind of was this. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: what did happen? You know? It kind of like planted
Speaker 1: the seed. And then I started just researching, like going
Speaker 1: in like this wormhole, what is like what happened? Why
Speaker 1: was she kicked off the show? Does anyone really know?
Speaker 1: Like did? And then and then that led into being like, oh,
Speaker 1: the situation's kind of like fucked up. She hasn't worked
Speaker 1: in since that show really really she like has had
Speaker 1: small stuff but like too yeah she was, and she
Speaker 1: was kind of like, yeah, excommunicated from this community. She
Speaker 1: worked so hard to be a part of UM. She
Speaker 1: had you know, she was a really talented dancer, singer, actress,
Speaker 1: went to Juliard was in the first production of Cats
Speaker 1: on Broadway, finally snags this UM series regular on NBC,
Speaker 1: does so well, people love her, but because of a
Speaker 1: couple of TIFFs she gets in NBC is like you
Speaker 1: know what, No, we're gonna you're crazy. We're gonna tell
Speaker 1: everybody you're crazy, and you're off of this thing. And
Speaker 1: it's just like that, it all went away and it
Speaker 1: made me so sad, and I was like, wow, I
Speaker 1: have to I want to write something about this. So
Speaker 1: I wrote the chorus first UM at my house in
Speaker 1: Atlanta over like my piano, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is I'm gonna keep going with this, and then
Speaker 1: you called it Janet because that's Janet names the actress
Speaker 1: who played the initials right the O GM viv um.
Speaker 1: And then the verses are those are those about her too?
Speaker 1: Because it seems like those the verses are maybe, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all about her. It's all about her. It's funny
Speaker 1: a lot of people when I first put it out,
Speaker 1: it's like girls would come up to me and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: like my name's Janet, or like I want to be
Speaker 1: like I want to be your Janet. And I was like, yo,
Speaker 1: if this song completely went over the head. This is
Speaker 1: not about a love interest. This is not about anything
Speaker 1: of that sort. It's about you know, it's an ode
Speaker 1: to Janet Hubert, and it's about like being forgotten and
Speaker 1: what that's like and how I'm afraid of that. You know,
Speaker 1: you're afraid of being forgotten? Yeah, of course a man.
Speaker 1: That's a good songwriting man, because it's like it's about
Speaker 1: something so specific and and because the dressing around it
Speaker 1: is sounds so great. It's like you can hear almost
Speaker 1: whatever you want to hear in it, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you could hear that song and totally think it
Speaker 1: was about, you know, being left behind by a lover
Speaker 1: or you know, it just depends on certain I love
Speaker 1: that it's open for a trip. That's always been my
Speaker 1: favorite stuff. And it took me a long time to
Speaker 1: be like, Okay, this is what it means to me
Speaker 1: because I like that people were taking away their own things.
Speaker 1: That's one of my favorite things about music and something
Speaker 1: that I did with like the music I was listening
Speaker 1: to when I was younger in college. Even now, it's
Speaker 1: like I can I make my own interpretations and that's
Speaker 1: what makes it special. Yeah, all the time. Often sometimes
Speaker 1: I like sometimes I like to look at lyrics and
Speaker 1: then sometimes they don't sounds I'm disappointed. Not the lyrics
Speaker 1: are bad, but I'm like, wow, I thought this whole time,
Speaker 1: this was about this and identified it with this, and
Speaker 1: when I was feeling this way, I put this on
Speaker 1: and it made me feel so like, you know, so good.
Speaker 1: Oh it's like room now. Yeah, And I don't want
Speaker 1: to ruin it. You know. That's the same reason why
Speaker 1: I don't look up lyrics a lot of the time.
Speaker 1: It's because I don't want it to be ruined. So
Speaker 1: when you put out the EP you worked with Sapphire,
Speaker 1: what was your intention for that just to put it
Speaker 1: out or yeah. My intention was well, a little bit
Speaker 1: before i'd put out the EP, I like I was
Speaker 1: working on it, but I wasn't fully in. I was
Speaker 1: still doing so many other things. And I remember I
Speaker 1: was sending in a lot of like different packets, like
Speaker 1: applying to shows and writing packets. And there was one
Speaker 1: show I thought I was gonna get and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: if I get this, I'm gonna go all in with
Speaker 1: this and I'll like marinate on the EP and i'll
Speaker 1: you know, it'll come out when it comes out. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was a Colbert when he like took over and
Speaker 1: then I ended up not getting it, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna finish this. I'm gonna finish the EP right now.
Speaker 1: I was like, there's nothing else I want to do.
Speaker 1: I'd stopped um sending in packets at that point, and
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, here I go. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna go for it. I'm gonna put this out. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna move to LA before it comes out, and then
Speaker 1: I'm gonna see where it goes. And it went fine.
Speaker 1: It was a slow you put it out what you
Speaker 1: want you want on the label at the time, right,
Speaker 1: I wasn't on a label. No, I I had just
Speaker 1: gotten managers like after I'd already finished the project and
Speaker 1: they were like, oh yeah, you should put this on
Speaker 1: Spotify and all these different you know, Apple Music whatever, whatever.
Speaker 1: And then and then and then I got a job
Speaker 1: in a restaurant in LA and then it slowly just built.
Speaker 1: What was the what was the tipping point moment for that?
Speaker 1: Like when did it start? But at some point that
Speaker 1: caught fire? When did um? It's funny. I was working
Speaker 1: at this restaurant in day that I really hated. But
Speaker 1: I'd worked in a restaurant in New York where I'd
Speaker 1: like you know, worked up from a server to chef
Speaker 1: to assistant manager. So I was making like five I
Speaker 1: was making like good money for where I was at.
Speaker 1: But then I went to La and then there's the
Speaker 1: same style restaurant. They're like, now you're gonna be a
Speaker 1: busser and you have to train for like a month,
Speaker 1: and when you're training, you get no money. You get
Speaker 1: like just you get paid shit. So I was still
Speaker 1: in that phase. And now remember Tyler the creator came
Speaker 1: into the restaurant and I was like, you know, someone
Speaker 1: I like look up to an artist I look up to,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, damn, this is not how
Speaker 1: I'm trying to the creator, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I was like, so I'm just avoiding his table at
Speaker 1: all costs. And then my boss is like, yo, I
Speaker 1: want to see wipe down this table which is like
Speaker 1: kind of close to his table, and uh I was
Speaker 1: like fine, dude, whatever, like head down, go wipe the table.
Speaker 1: And then this man yells at me because he's like,
Speaker 1: you didn't get the sides. So he like shows me
Speaker 1: how to like wipe the sides of a table. He's like, look,
Speaker 1: takes the rag and like does it. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quit this week. I was like this is
Speaker 1: the worst, Like, this is the worst feeling ever. And
Speaker 1: then it just so happened to be like that next
Speaker 1: week I got paid from my music just enough to
Speaker 1: like make it through one month, and I was like, Okay, cool,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make sure I stretch this bitch out and
Speaker 1: not I'm not about to get another job right now,
Speaker 1: and if if to next month, cool, But it ended
Speaker 1: up being the next month I got a little bit
Speaker 1: more than I got in a month before, and I
Speaker 1: was like, all right, we're gonna do the same thing.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make you know, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
Speaker 1: stain my ass inside, right, Um, And then it kept
Speaker 1: like growing. That was the last time I had to
Speaker 1: work at a restaurant. That's amazing. Yeah, that's incredible. And
Speaker 1: what you're doing shows when at that point or no,
Speaker 1: no one is just coming in from from the from
Speaker 1: the EP from Yeah, from the EP from streaming. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank god for streaming, man, thank god, thank god. I
Speaker 1: love it. I was trying to put that EP out
Speaker 1: for free too, so I'm glad I didn't do that
Speaker 1: because it enabled me to, yeah, start doing this full time.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with Brehanna after the break. We're
Speaker 1: back with Brahanna performing his song Golden Cool. Incredible. So
Speaker 1: where'd that cuter guardline come from? Man? Oh? That was
Speaker 1: um college. In college, we were reading Kika Guard in
Speaker 1: one of my philosophy classes and his ideas on authenticity
Speaker 1: were something I really gravitated towards. Um. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: that's the line. That's line's actually not even in the
Speaker 1: song that we put out. It's like, I've never lost verse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, speaking of like not listening to
Speaker 1: the lyrics, like I've listened to that song a bunch.
Speaker 1: I never heard that line today. Yeah, we were like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, let's like stretch out the song a bit.
Speaker 1: And I haven't ever performed that verse, so I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do it here. Thank you. Thanks ye. First of all,
Speaker 1: I mean I got I studied philosophy in college because
Speaker 1: I got into Kirker Garden. I loved it, and I
Speaker 1: didn't been to study in the Kirker Garden college, like
Speaker 1: you just didn't have any of that in the curriculum.
Speaker 1: I was bummed. Um, and yeah, so that was great.
Speaker 1: I just I just just broked up on that because yeah,
Speaker 1: I just hadn't heard that in the song. So how
Speaker 1: come with idea to structure? So your new album it's
Speaker 1: called Han and this is your first actual album other
Speaker 1: one to be more of an EP. Yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: really cool because there's these little skits and not like
Speaker 1: these extended rap skits, but there are these like these
Speaker 1: cool little skits in between songs that kind of remind
Speaker 1: me of like Midnight Marauders or something. Right like how
Speaker 1: this like this lady got in you through the album.
Speaker 1: In this case, it's a flight attendant. How'd you come
Speaker 1: up with that? I do? Mina Marauders is one of
Speaker 1: my favorite albums growing up, and I thought I always
Speaker 1: wanted to do my own version of that where it
Speaker 1: felt like a little more narrative based and I could
Speaker 1: put it in a space specifically, And so the concept
Speaker 1: of the album came before anything. When I when I write,
Speaker 1: it's like I go about it different ways the process
Speaker 1: of it. But for this album was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: know what the how I want the album to sound sonically,
Speaker 1: I know what I want the concept to be, and
Speaker 1: I know I want them to flow together seamlessly, um
Speaker 1: and have all of these different sounds, Like certain songs
Speaker 1: don't sound like other songs on the album, but they
Speaker 1: still feel like they come from the same world. And
Speaker 1: that's kind of that was my starting point. Yeah. He
Speaker 1: used a band on this one, right, Yeah. I used
Speaker 1: to a lot of UM. I used to band a
Speaker 1: lot of like great musicians. Danny McKinnon, who's in here
Speaker 1: playing with me today, Pomo, he produced the entire record
Speaker 1: with me. He was someone I really wanted to get
Speaker 1: into a session with him and Danny both. Actually they
Speaker 1: were putting out a lot of like different videos just
Speaker 1: them doing covers and like jamming. It wasn't even them
Speaker 1: putting out songs. They were putting out videos of just
Speaker 1: you know, where they were and like what they were
Speaker 1: listening to. And it really I was like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: listening to the same things like right now. I was like,
Speaker 1: I really want to get in a session and see
Speaker 1: like what that's like. Then one session turned into like
Speaker 1: three sessions, and then I kind of finessed. I was like,
Speaker 1: throughout this idea, like, oh, what if we did like
Speaker 1: a few songs and made it, you know, into its
Speaker 1: own project, knowing I wanted this to be the album,
Speaker 1: and but yeah, Palmo was so down. He was That's
Speaker 1: like something that's really great about him as a producer.
Speaker 1: He's he loves like challenges, and even though I was
Speaker 1: throwing like a lot of different things his way, he
Speaker 1: was just really excited to do something he hadn't done before.
Speaker 1: From the initial idea of it just being like a
Speaker 1: small project to becoming a full record. One did that.
Speaker 1: I'm Japan in Japan. We went to Japan to record.
Speaker 1: I had a couple of festival dates out there, and
Speaker 1: Danny came to play with us, Palma came to play
Speaker 1: with us, and we just had this like whole group
Speaker 1: that we were already working on the album together. So
Speaker 1: we're like, oh, let's stay like a few more weeks,
Speaker 1: rent out a studio, and just go as hard as
Speaker 1: we can in Japan. And then when we were there,
Speaker 1: it was like that's when it was like, oh, here's
Speaker 1: that line. It's all right there now we just need
Speaker 1: to finish these songs in the like drunk for instance,
Speaker 1: which comes after Golden and you guys will play at
Speaker 1: some point today. The opening line is drunken Japan, Drunken Tokyo,
Speaker 1: drunkn Tokyo, Drunken Tokyo. I do not know the language,
Speaker 1: nor how I know your name. And the going to Japan?
Speaker 1: Did recording there did that like change? Did that change
Speaker 1: the vibe of the of the recordings at all or
Speaker 1: the sessions or like what? For sure? I think it's
Speaker 1: whenever you're in a new place, it kind of opens
Speaker 1: you up, like you're not in the same routine. Everything's
Speaker 1: super new to you, especially a place like Japan where
Speaker 1: it's everybody looks different from you. Every store is different
Speaker 1: from any store you go to in America. It's a
Speaker 1: whole new world. So being in like that environment and
Speaker 1: like creating, you're going to get something different than you
Speaker 1: get when you're at home. So it definitely informed everything
Speaker 1: that we're doing. Sure, and the restaurant you're working at
Speaker 1: in New York was a Japanese restaurant and you had
Speaker 1: to like learn some of the language there. R Is
Speaker 1: there like a do you have an affinity for the
Speaker 1: culture there? Or was it? Is this all kind of
Speaker 1: accidental that you worked at a restaurant and had to
Speaker 1: learn some Japanese and that you ended up getting like
Speaker 1: dates and oh yeah, it was. It was super accidental.
Speaker 1: It was when I got the job. It was right.
Speaker 1: It was around the time where I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm just doing this EP I'm gonna finish this uh
Speaker 1: And I was like, whoa, I'm broke. I need some money.
Speaker 1: So I'd applied to so many different jobs, couldn't get anything.
Speaker 1: Then I had a buddy in New York who was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I have this job. They're looking for people, but there's
Speaker 1: like a catch. They want you to speak Japanese. They
Speaker 1: want you to do this like fifteen minute chant before
Speaker 1: shift starts that you have to learn they want you to.
Speaker 1: It's like still very Japanese. All your bosses are gonna
Speaker 1: be Japanese. They barely speak English. It wasn't the chant
Speaker 1: you have to do before you started crazy. Actually, if
Speaker 1: at the end of Golden there's like you kind of
Speaker 1: here like the sky end of this chant, and that
Speaker 1: was me recording the actual chant that we did. Can
Speaker 1: you what is? Do you remember any of it? Still?
Speaker 1: I remember fifteen minutes, but you got like twenty seconds
Speaker 1: in you Yeah, Uccino sauka. It's a long thing. It's
Speaker 1: a very long thing. To my entrained ear, that sounds
Speaker 1: like the access perfect too. Man, Like you're killing hazy bros.
Speaker 1: And I was working like forty hour weeks and if
Speaker 1: you do like the lunch shift and the dinner shift,
Speaker 1: that's thirty minutes every day getting on the clock. Here
Speaker 1: we're on the clock. But yeah, it was it was
Speaker 1: a very intense you just is it just it's just
Speaker 1: I know, I know, like the gist, I don't know exactly,
Speaker 1: I don't know everything. My Japanese used to be way
Speaker 1: better when I was there, but uh, yeah, that kind
Speaker 1: of like kicked off the affinity I guess for it
Speaker 1: was never You know, there are a lot of musicians
Speaker 1: in particular and artists who will say that, like like
Speaker 1: I said with this album, a big starting point for
Speaker 1: me was Japanese funk, and I feel like there are
Speaker 1: a lot of artists who would who would be like, oh,
Speaker 1: like I just heard this, like Japanese funk from the eighties,
Speaker 1: It's so weird and unique. I'm going to use this
Speaker 1: as a starting you know, kind of fetishizing this thing.
Speaker 1: Where for me it was like, oh no, all of
Speaker 1: my bosses where Japanese only spoke Japanese, they would tell
Speaker 1: me like, yo, you should read this book by Riyono Sukyakatagawa,
Speaker 1: or you should watch this movie by Yasujiro Ozu, or
Speaker 1: you should listen to this album by you could hear Takahashi,
Speaker 1: or like they would put me onto things where I
Speaker 1: was like it was like oh because of that, then
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, this author is really tight. Who
Speaker 1: did he inspire? Or this filmmakers really tight? Who are
Speaker 1: his contemporaries? And it kind of I kind of kept
Speaker 1: going down that too. That's how I got inspired. You know,
Speaker 1: It's because of the environment I was in. Wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is like putting you in like a whole fourth
Speaker 1: other culture totally. That's also very strong in this thing.
Speaker 1: So you were listening to all that stuff even before
Speaker 1: you went out there to record. So that must have
Speaker 1: been kind of fun to be able to record out there.
Speaker 1: That would give you the idea to say, like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's try to absolutely the troops and do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely cool man, definitely want to do drunk, Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: do this is this is about your first trip to Japan, right,
Speaker 1: first and second, first and second combined in one great
Speaker 1: cool Thank you for doing these guys, It's all over,
Speaker 1: It's it. That's it man. Thanks to Brahanna for taking
Speaker 1: us through his first two projects and sharing some of
Speaker 1: that incredible Japanese chant with us. Be sure to check
Speaker 1: out his album Han, along with our other favorite Brahanna
Speaker 1: songs on a playlist we created at Broken record podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. You can also find a playlist we hadn't
Speaker 1: put together some of his favorite Japanese city pipe he'd
Speaker 1: be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube
Speaker 1: dot com slash Broken Record Podcasts. We're always putting up
Speaker 1: our old interviews there and our new ones, sometimes with
Speaker 1: bonus content. Broken Record is produced with help from Jason
Speaker 1: Gambrel me LaBelle Lea Rose, and Martin Gonzalez for Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: A theme music by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.