Lost Travelers & Longing Memories: A Review of Berhana’s HAN
The world was first introduced to Berhana back in 2016 with his first EP titled Berhana. After a three year hiatus he has returned with his first album titled HAN. Berhana, who’s real name is Amain Berhane, has stated in several interviews that he is heavily influenced by his Ethiopian parent’s music, Sam Cooke, Erykah Badu, Stevie Wonder, and Michael Jackson. All those influences show when listening to HAN, which sonically is groovy enough to imagine yourself in roller rink skating along. What I especially love about HAN, and what Berhana did very well on his EP too, is that the album tells a story from start to finish. Using interludes that employ the language and sound of a flight attendant talking to passengers, Berhana takes us on a trip through his first album.
HN 001 is an interlude that opens up the album and sets the metaphor as a plane ride through the album. The groovy beats that play through the album take the “trip” metaphor a little farther by making the listener feel as though they are tripping off some drugs. Golden is the first song of the album and sets the tone sonically as this being a very beat heavy album. Lyrically, this song seems as though Berhana is longing for a certain time period of his life. As a listener, I could easily imagine him having a flashback as this song plays. HN 002 is the second interlude that plays and is simply as set up for the next song that plays titled Drnuk. Drnuk tells the story of Berhana high and drunk in Tokyo. This song seems to address the loneliness that comes with travelling for work. Berhana sings about how his love is in need of romance and this could be him talking about how he travels and hooks up with people but never actual falls in love with anybody and he dearly misses that in his life. I Been is the next song that plays and this topic transition is one of my favorites on the album because he goes from getting high and drunk to experience a limited romance on Drnuk to speaking on how he’s improved himself and simply asking for romance on I Been. He keeps with the same travelling metaphor referencing how he uses burner cell phones to contact the person he’s addressing on this song. Crush, a South Korean R&B and Hip Hop singer, features on this song and takes it to the next level. There’s no universe in which I could imagine this song being as good without him on it. HN 003 is the interlude used to set up Lucky Strike, a song in which Berhana compares his love interest to cigarettes only after talking about how his cousin has blackened lungs from smoking and how his brother died from his addictions. Berhana comparing this woman to cigarettes exemplifies how toxic there relationship is, which is running theme throughout the album. HN 004 is the interlude used to set up Health Food, which goes from comparing Berhana’s love interest to cigarettes to comparing her to a peach. He sings about how he needs her in his life because she provides him good health food as opposed to the PCP on his shelf at home. Sonically, the album has yet to change, mostly consisting of groovy 80s dance music. However, G2g, which plays right after Health Food, changes that drastically.
Keeping the travelling airplane metaphor, I’d say G2g is the turbulence of this flight.
Berhana uses rock beats which still keeping some groovy elements to lament about a girl who’s become obsessed with him. The remainder of the album brings the listener back to smooth flying up until descent. Flasbhack is a call back song to Drnuk using many of the same lyrics and beats while also adding in some drums and guitar similar to G2g beats. The last song of the album I Wasn’t Told is the exact kind of music I’d listen to as the plane lands which makes it a wonderful last note to be played as the descent of the album.
Overall, I’d give this album a 10 out of 10. I loved the use of the lost, travelling, altered state and memory, and longing themes Berhana used. This truly feels like a story that you can listen all the way through or pick and choose from and still understand the meaning of it all either way.
