Angel Haze
'Hi, this is me, I have scars to show you." The 20-year-old rapper Angel Haze begins talking casually about the most raw, unflinching song she has written but her words soon pour out, as though she has practised them in her head for years. "When I listened back, I felt disgusted. I wanted everyone to feel that. It was good that they felt it, because it was fcking wrong. I want someone who's a father to listen to the song, and be like: 'No one had better ever fcking touch my daughter like that. And if they do, you can tell me.'"
Quietly uploaded to her Soundcloud account last October, Cleaning Out My Closet – a version of the Eminem track of the same name – tackles the sexual abuse Haze endured between the ages of seven and 10. She spares the listener nothing: the graphic details of what happens to her body, the fury and trauma that run through her mind. Redemption comes at the end, but not before you're left physically reeling. "There are people who go through this shit every day, and people turn a blind eye," says Haze. "They're too scared to say what happened to them. To make people feel uncomfortable." Of all the responses she has had, the ones she treasures most are from fellow survivors. "Surprisingly, more boys than girls," she muses. "A lot of guys were like: 'I've been suffering, I don't know how to love anyone, you really helped me with that.'"
The brutal catharsis of Cleaning Out My Closet is in keeping with the no-holds-barred honesty that runs through Haze's work. If hip-hop's most fundamental maxim is to keep it real, she not only passes the test but redefines it. Over the six mixtapes she has released to date, she documents and dissects her inner life with dexterous skill and intelligence – from gothic fantasies so dark that Haze's producer nearly downed tools (he couldn't see God in it and tried to get her to change the line "don't scream, don't ask for God" before he'd continue working on it, but eventually backed down) to evocative outpourings of deeply felt love poetry to ruminations on sexuality and religion. (Haze is a self-confessed hopeless romantic: "I'm really obsessed with the idea of love. I have this desire to have this immaculate form of love that really doesn't exist, so my obsession goes on through life and I never find it and I end up miserable. But it makes me a better writer.") When she turns her hand to more traditional battle raps, the ferocity with which she shreds her foes is lent extra significance by her experiences.
'Hi, this is me, I have scars to show you." The 20-year-old rapper Angel Haze begins talking casually about the most raw, unflinching song she has written but her words soon pour out, as though she has practised them in her head for years. "When I listened back, I felt disgusted. I wanted everyone to feel that. It was good that they felt it, because it was fcking wrong. I want someone who's a father to listen to the song, and be like: 'No one had better ever fcking touch my daughter like that. And if they do, you can tell me.'"
Quietly uploaded to her Soundcloud account last October, Cleaning Out My Closet – a version of the Eminem track of the same name – tackles the sexual abuse Haze endured between the ages of seven and 10. She spares the listener nothing: the graphic details of what happens to her body, the fury and trauma that run through her mind. Redemption comes at the end, but not before you're left physically reeling. "There are people who go through this shit every day, and people turn a blind eye," says Haze. "They're too scared to say what happened to them. To make people feel uncomfortable." Of all the responses she has had, the ones she treasures most are from fellow survivors. "Surprisingly, more boys than girls," she muses. "A lot of guys were like: 'I've been suffering, I don't know how to love anyone, you really helped me with that.'"
The brutal catharsis of Cleaning Out My Closet is in keeping with the no-holds-barred honesty that runs through Haze's work. If hip-hop's most fundamental maxim is to keep it real, she not only passes the test but redefines it. Over the six mixtapes she has released to date, she documents and dissects her inner life with dexterous skill and intelligence – from gothic fantasies so dark that Haze's producer nearly downed tools (he couldn't see God in it and tried to get her to change the line "don't scream, don't ask for God" before he'd continue working on it, but eventually backed down) to evocative outpourings of deeply felt love poetry to ruminations on sexuality and religion. (Haze is a self-confessed hopeless romantic: "I'm really obsessed with the idea of love. I have this desire to have this immaculate form of love that really doesn't exist, so my obsession goes on through life and I never find it and I end up miserable. But it makes me a better writer.") When she turns her hand to more traditional battle raps, the ferocity with which she shreds her foes is lent extra significance by her experiences.
