Haroinfather, born Tommelik Ward, is an artist that the majority of rap fans have been overlooking, despite the fact that he is sitting at around 15,000 followers on SoundCloud. There are two main reasons that signify Tommy is your atypical underground rapper. Firstly, he came to prominence mainly through Instagram, where he just reached 40,000 followers. Secondly, Tommy managed to get to the position that he is in the span of only 8 months.
You may wonder what is so special about Haroinfather, but interestingly enough, Tommy is just a normal 18-year-old who has been working hard since the beginning. Nonetheless, his distinctive retro-jazzy approach to rap music is certainly refreshing, and his fans find it easy to empathize with the honest personality behind his work. Have a listen to the recent track “Table for Two” to see for yourself.
Tommy is certainly an artist with a peculiar story. It all started with an Instagram fan page he created for XXXTENTACION, hence the name Haroinfather. Although Tommy wants to change his artist name, it is without a doubt that X plays a vital role as an inspiration point. The fan page itself served as an invaluable boost for his own music as it managed to reach 70,000 followers before it got deleted. This also marks the beginning of Haroinfather’s love-hate relationship with fortune.
There seems to be this tendency for his accounts to get a following very fast and then get deleted. Tommy’s SoundCloud got removed 8 months ago while it was at 4,000 followers since there is this one person who holds some sort of a grudge against him. That mysterious figure had made multiple spam accounts reporting his profile and at the time of writing this article it was found out that the same person has just hacked Haroinfather’s SoundCloud again. He has now deleted all of his songs on there, including an upcoming Shiloh-based EP, a collaborative project with fatboibari.
When it comes to Haroinfather’s art itself, his endeavor into the rap genre initially started with a blissfully nostalgic and melancholic flavor to it with songs such as “Lonely Nights” and “Slave to the Hurt.” These lo-fi tunes go perfectly well with Tommy’s soothing voice and “Lonely Nights” was the first track that blew up for him (It currently has over 1.5 million streams on Spotify.)
However, there has been a stylistic shift in Haroinfather’s craft as he seeks to achieve a more upbeat and positive feeling with his music while at the same time retaining the authentic aesthetic he started with. “I’m kind of drifting away from the whole lo-fi scene, venturing into more of the retro, vintage and jazzy type stuff. I don’t see many people doing that at the moment.” One reason for doing so is that Tommy hopes to transform negative emotions and experiences into something positive and beautiful. The only music video that he has out right now is for the song “Princess Bubblegum” which embodies that very same sound:
Most of his songs are in fact short and that is done on purpose. “I’m teasing everybody. X did the same thing; he said in one interview to not give people the full nut.” Although X is a main influence for Tommy, he tries to, “Hit every single genre as I just love them all,” Other artists who have inspired him are Joji, Tyler the Creator and lillbootycall, to name a few. Moreover, it is essential to mention that Haroinfather’s vision extends beyond the sphere of music. Everything from pop culture and everyday life serves as some sort of inspiration for him. “All that shit is shit I like, you won’t see me making something about shit I don’t like.”
One example could be the TV show “The End of The Fucking World” as we can see that Tommy uses a lot of footage from the TV series incorporated with his music on various video edits. As far as lyrics go, he says that, “Each of my songs is about every girl that broke my heart…My whole fan base is a spinning image of me; they relate to me a lot and I try to respond to all my messages because all of them come to me with their problems.” Therefore, it is not surprising that Tommy has managed to create such a close and interconnected community with his music.
Hence why it ought to be a mistake if you didn’t give Haroinfather a chance. A lot of collaborations are to be expected from him in 2019, and there will be one particular feature which Tommy assures us to be huge. In the meantime, you can listen to one of his best tracks to date, “Mia Wallace.”