“Millenial Poster Child” Hawk Oviim Is Out of His House, but Not Out of Hope
Introducing the DMV rapper
When Hawk Oviim’s dad and stepmom kicked him out of the house over a year ago, they perceived him as a listless, lazy 20 year-old with little direction in life.
On the surface, they may have had a point.
Oviim was unemployed, going through the motions at a local community college and constantly butting heads with his parents.
However, what his dad and stepmom perceived as a lack of direction would be better described as an inability to articulate his master plan.
Oviim, whose real name is Khiry Maxberry, would plug away on his Macbook for hours, trying to make connections in the music industry, making beats and plotting a way to actually manifest a career in music.
That dream wasn’t something he viewed as possible within the confines of a strict household, or consistent with spending long hours at school. Nor was it something he thought his parents really believed in or understood, as the self-described loner would often keep his thoughts and plans to himself.
After dropping out of college, moving away from home and transitioning into a “pseudo-homeless” lifestyle, it seems Maxberry’s dream has actually received a boost.
“I know I’m about to do something grand,” Oviim said. “My peers that I work with every day, closely, that we’ve made a family out of, we know we’re about to do something grand. I can’t take any breaks for that. I can’t be tied to any institution.”
Since he swapped living with his dad and stepmom for living in a University of Maryland dorm room (his friend Demar lets him sleep on the couch), Oviim has reveled in his newfound freedom, fully dedicating himself to his musical career.
Maxberry, now 21, struggled to describe his sound in concise terms, and noted that he wasted a lot of time figuring out what type of music he wanted to make.
While he was able to offer up the term “negro spiritual” to characterize his music, it’s clear that Oviim’s influences are a hodgepodge of different sounds, as he cites James Brown, the xx, Kanye West and Mac Miller as some of his favorite artists.
That wide range of influences manifested itself in the production of “Pray,” the first song he made after he was kicked out of his parents’ house.
While the melodic, soulful cut now has over 65,000 plays on SoundCloud, Oviim describes its inception as a stressful, uncomfortable process, as he felt vulnerable singing about his struggles in front of others, and nervous that he wouldn’t have a hit after two hours of studio time.
“In the midst of everything, I broke down,” Oviim said of that day. “I just broke down crying in the middle of the studio.”
While the rapper recounted his studio experience as a painstaking one, he admitted that his best music often comes from the type of true, raw emotion seen that day, when he’s just about to boil over.
It’s evident that Oviim’s creativity has truly come to life in Maryland, but an equally important element of his time there is the stability he’s found in the Old Line State.
After a childhood where he frequently moved around — he lived in eight different cities and five different states as a military child — he’s never felt more at home than the couch he currently crashes on.
“I would rather be homeless here than anywhere else, because I can step outside and literally get involved in anything,” Oviim said. “If I were in Ohio, if I were in Indianapolis, if I were in even Chicago, it would still be hard. You need a car, you need — you need so many things to get minor things done. And where I’m at now, because I can just hop on a train and be wherever, it’s so ideal.”
While Oviim says he will always have somewhere to sleep, he lacks many of the resources and luxuries that other artists may have, with things such as studio time hard to come by.
Still, the rapper is able to produce music despite these financial limitations, and his tiny catalog of songs (he’s posted five on SoundCloud) has already landed him write-ups from DJBooth and Pigeons and Planes.
Oviim will be looking to garner similar attention from his upcoming project Living to Die, which fans can expect to be released at some point in 2017.
The rapper said the project’s name is inspired by the counterproductive nature of his lifestyle, as he will go from smoking a blunt one moment to struggling to sing with a sore throat the next.
Additionally, Oviim mentioned the independence his current living situation affords him, and the potential pitfalls that follow this.
“I have so much freedom out here… But at the same time I have the freedom to fail,” Oviim said. “I have the freedom to f*** up.”
Oviim said he hopes to make people uncomfortable with his upcoming release, as he plans to inform people “unapologetically” of his roots as a person and artist.
Though he has only been recording music seriously for slightly over a year, Oviim’s musical aspirations are impenetrably linked to his identity, as they influenced his move away from home, and dominate his everyday thoughts, hopes and actions.
His obsession with his craft may end up being entirely futile, result in stardom or possibly land him somewhere in between.
Nonetheless, his commitment to success is unquestionable, and intense.
“I’m either going to achieve my goals or die crazy,” Oviim said. “You’ll hear about one or the other.”
Listen to Oviim’s music here
