Hak Baker: “That whole episode at Glastonbury was due to imposter syndrome”
Prison can often be cruelly viewed as the end of the line. Instead, it should be looked at as a chance at rehabilitation. For Hak Baker, the East End singer-songwriter, it proved to be a life-changing experience. Upon leaving the institution, he learned an invaluable skill that is now contributing immensely to the British cultural landscape.
As a young adult, Baker regularly had skirmishes with the law and revelled in troublemaking until his antics eventually caught up with him. While 24.9 per cent of offenders go on to re-offend upon leaving prison, Baker didn’t want to contribute to that frightening statistic, and a fortunate stroke of luck while inside changed the trajectory of his life forever.
While serving a two-year sentence for armed robbery between 2010 and 2012, Baker used his time to reflect on the error of his ways and ensure that he left prison as a reformed character. At the time, the prison was offering guitar lessons to a small number of inmates, which was decided through a lottery system, and fortunately for Baker, his name was selected from the hat.
Though music was already a part of Baker’s life—having been a member of the grime collective Bomb Squad as a teenager—the acoustic guitar introduced him to a fresh avenue for expression.
The documentary Hakeem, directed by James Topley and Ivo Beckett, presents an unflinching portrayal of Hak’s journey from a troubled teen to performing on The Other Stage at Glastonbury, ten years after his release from prison. Filmed over five years and interspersed with home footage from his youth, the film avoids any fairytale illusions, instead providing an honest narrative. Baker openly addresses his mental health challenges and the pervasive imposter syndrome that continues to shadow his successes.
When they began making what became the documentary, there was no grand plan for a film, but after five years of Topley following his journey, it became clear they had captured an important story to tell.
Baker, who is speaking over Zoom from his car, gets visibly emotional during our conversation, proving himself to be as raw and honest as his debut album, 2023’s World’s End FM, or, in Hakeem, which he admits is “still bloody difficult to watch now” and describes as “very emotional”.
Even though Baker wears his heart on his sleeve with everything he does, humour also plays a crucial role in Hakeem, which is part of the ongoing Doc ‘N’ Roll Film Festival. During even his darkest moments, he and his close friends, who have created a like-minded brotherhood, find a reason to laugh, which Baker describes as “free medicine”. He poignantly adds, “My best friend, Taylor, always says, ‘We’ve always known how to laugh through pain since we were kids’. I think that’s our talent.”
While Baker’s life has changed immeasurably, his tight-knit circle remains the same. Beautifully, his friends have also been on the same journey as him, and they’ve grown together. For Baker, they are only getting started, too; he tells me of their collective plans for the next five years, which involve everything from creating films to owning a café.
Although this sounds ambitious, Baker is confident they have the skills required to make this dream a reality. “Being from East London and having a lot of immigrants, a lot of Black, mixed race, and white together, our culture was all crashing into each other from being young. The way we grew up in our corner of the East End is kind of unique, and we want to show that to people,” Baker says of their special ingredient.
Baker firmly believes that everybody has the talent to be creative, but “the conditioning that society creates” prevents most from realising their potential. For him, he knows that his whole life flipped due to having the opportunity to learn the guitar in prison, but Baker is aware of the rarity of his tale, which is why he now teaches in prisons as often as possible.
“It was a turning point, complete turning point, and something new in my life,” Baker says of learning the guitar while incarcerated. “Everything I was doing in my life at that point was tried, tested, and recycled. I don’t know if I would have got there on my own,” he honestly admits.
On the surface, Hakeem is about Hak Baker, but it’s also a tale of redemption and hope that should resonate with us all. It refrains from delivering a glamorised version of events, including footage of Baker breaking down in tears following his set on The Other Stage at Glastonbury Festival in 2022, which should have been the highlight of his career.
Baker amassed a huge crowd to his set and was joined by Pete Doherty, who calls him “the hope of England” in Hakeem, yet he wasn’t in the mood for celebration once departing the stage. “That whole episode at Glastonbury was due to imposter syndrome,” Baker reveals. “I wasn’t happy for myself. (I was thinking) ‘How have you done this? What’s going on?’.”
Although Baker had been booked to share a bill on The Other Stage on the same day as acts such as Olivia Rodrigo, Glass Animals, Burna Boy and Megan Thee Stallion, he couldn’t accept that his position was richly deserved. Thankfully, his friends were on hand to pick him up during this overwhelming moment when the gravitas of his situation had become too much.
This summer, Baker had the pleasure of performing the biggest headline show of his career at Somerset House in London, but again, events took a downward spiral. “My mate ended up in hospital that night, so I was in bloody A&E at like 6am because, you know, (he was) just a bit drunk and silly,” he reveals.
“Again, as I say, life will make you think, ‘What’s going on here? Why am I there and my mate’s here?’ It’s where I’ve got to be. I wasn’t even able to be happy about Somerset House for two weeks after. It’s really difficult,” Baker emotionally adds, reliving the painful memories of the night which should have been career-defining.
Hakeem is full of the same vulnerability Baker brings to the conversation. No moment in the film is more moving than when he sings, ‘Tom’, a tribute to his late friend, in front of Tom’s mother. Even recalling that memory during our talk was enough to bring tears to Baker’s eye, “Tom died when I was in jail”, he tells me before taking an extended pause to calibrate his thoughts.
After taking stock, Baker mournfully continued, “We wasn’t talking at the time because of money, and then he died. It’s sad. When I came out of jail, I looked online and saw on his Facebook that he was always posting ‘Free Hak’, even though we weren’t talking at the time. I can’t express myself, he can’t express himself, so we didn’t end up chatting, but there was no malice. And then he died, that’s always sat with me. His mum was always good to us. Specifically, she was always good to me. She was always so lovely, so it was a moment to sing that to her.”
While topics that Baker covers in Hakeem are widely addressed in society, they are not usually done so by ordinary, working-class Jack the Lads with strong East End accents like him. Baker is a multi-dimensional person who can wear many different hats, and the documentary offers a raw, unfiltered exploration of mental health rather than the sanitised version typically served up.
Baker has yet to crack the secret to happiness and doesn’t attest to having lived a perfect life, yet all of us could take a leaf out of Hak’s book by embracing our vulnerabilities and trying to find a way to laugh through the inevitable pain.
Visit here to see upcoming screenings for Hakeem across the United Kingdom as part of the ongoing Doc ‘N’ Roll Film Festival.
