Artist Spotlight: Berhana
Written by Bethel Biru on August 11, 2016
It’s so hard to pin point a certain genre when listening to songs these days. Even though that might suck for people who like to categorize the music they listen to, it’s also awesome because music shouldn’t have to stick to just one genre anyways. Enter Berhana who makes a sort of downtempo, hip hop kind of music. If “Caroline” by Amine is for summer days, “Janet” by Berhana is perfect for summer nights.
Brooklyn based, Berhana is a Ethio-American whose music is pretty mellow. He even tweeted why he chose yellow for the artwork of his EP.
https://twitter.com/amainberhane/status/757332486334521344
But if you pay just enough attention, you’ll find out his lyrics are pretty sad. Some songs are sort of Frank Ocean-ish in a way but unlike Frank, Berhana isn’t a continuous disappointment.
Wonder if you’ll dismiss me
Maybe light-skin Aunt Viv me
– “Janet” Berhana
Nowadays you have trap music with jazz, rock music with rap, basically everything mixing together and that’s one of the amazing things about music. The ability to break barriers and not fit into a specific mold yet still falling under the same umbrella, which is pretty cool. Berhana perfectly proves this with his EP Berhana – the cover art written in both English and Amharic – as he sings about the temporariness of life and ones place in the world. One really cool thing I liked about this EP is how he has his Aunt and Grandmother speaking Amharic on the begingin of two songs “Wade Green” and “Brooklyn Drugs.” My favorite so far is “Grey Luh” and of course “Janet.” Check out his EP on Soundcloud or Spotify and follow him on Twitter and Instagram for more updates.
