Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to John Hannibal, aka Hvnnibvl. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hvnnibvl, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
I’m happy to speak on this because this is something I don’t believe I’ve shared in depth in an interview before. I’ll tell you this – learning to sing, produce, and songwrite didn’t happen overnight, and I’m still not finished learning, I probably never will be & sort of hope I don’t stop learning. It takes countless hours of time by yourself, and if you have them around other likeminded people, to figure out what sound you want to create for yourself – as well as if you’re outsourcing any of those skills, an understanding of the depth / vibe of your collaborators to make things work for their sound. I started all of this when I was about 12 years old – I was previously drawing art and playing the drums all of my life but decided I wanted to make full songs with my life. I am 27 at the time of this interview, so I’ve really stuck with this and have seen so many wild changes in the music industry, from the way you create to the way you consume; it’s just a pivotal time to be alive with the exponential digital shift that keeps you on your toes every day, and that drastically affects art. I can’t say there was anything I could have done to speed up learning how to do what I do – I started right before social media allowed the current extreme accessibility to other people, so I was on my own for a lot of time figuring things out myself, not really trying to rush to get things out but rather focusing on how to make things sound good. I was hell bent on production mainly, and still am, for such a long time. Listening to the burst of Electronic music influence in the US at the time when I started making songs really helped shape my approach to beginning to make music. I would call that period of time, from about 2008 – 2016, pivotal and essential to what I do, because I realized the rhythmic driven nature of most of the hits I heard & knew that not being a melodic instrument player or the craziest singer wasn’t going to hinder my ability to make dope songs, and that was completely inspirational. I do wish I had access to more tangible people to learn from when I was younger, but I grew up in a place where that wasn’t really happening at the level I needed. I suppose that for the most part, it all happened as it was supposed to happen in my eyes. My life so far has made for a good story and I’m both scared and excited to see how it continues because I know the curve balls aren’t over.
Hvnnibvl, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Sure, my name is John Hannibal and I go by Hvnnibvl. The reason for the spelling is because I am John Hannibal the fifth and the letter V is the Roman numeral for 5; so I made the A’s V’s in my artist name. It was a hot thing to swap V’s for A’s and U’s at the time I made the name, though the reason I did it has relevance to my identity. It does make looking me up using things like Siri and Alexa difficult though (I’ve spoken to developers at Apple and Amazon about solving this for artists with different characters in their names, but never got anywhere with them – if any developers on those teams see this please help). Anyways, I am I’d say primarily a music producer, but am also a singer and songwriter. I’ve done all of these things for my own releases and outsourced each of these skills to other people over the years, which cohesively has given me some cool accolades since about 2015-2016, including a couple charting songs, sync and radio play amongst other things, and I’m very thankful for all of it & everyone who has helped me on the business or the listener end along my journey. The majority of my songs unless they’re collaborations are 100% self produced, written, performed and engineered by me, and while that means it takes more time for me to make songs I do take pride in it, but am always open to working with other great creatives on any of those things. I do also consider myself somewhat of a graphic designer as I do my own album art and branding, but know that for photo and video I need other creatives’ help to execute the best it can be because that just isn’t where my focus is. One day I would like to get in to apparel design, as I have a love for certain cuts, materials, and subtle intricacies in fashion / take a lot of pride in my style. I’ve gravitated toward all of this because I truly just love art – I found a route through music to get my name out there a little bit and spend the most time on that lane, but just want to live my life making money to live as an artist of any kind really. I am heavily influenced and intrigued musically by Electronic music as a producer, because it continuously evolves underground to shape Pop sound, and generally I really like Pop sound. I started doing all this with the goal of being like the first kid production Pop star; I think that dream was a little ahead of my time but the way these kids now are learning to produce so young, the Justin Bieber of music production is definitely gonna be a thing soon. The thing though is that Pop today varies between sounds of singer/songwriter, hip-hop, r&b, dance / electronic, and really just goes back to who the artist is as a brand or presence – I long for just blending all of it together to make the most unique music, and it’s definitely been getting there globally I’d say the past 4-5 years. When people reading this reach out to work with me or follow me to listen to what I’ve put out so far, I just want them to know that my desire for versatility and blending sound is a blessing and a curse – I want to fit into the structures people are comfortable with, but because of how eclectic I consider my upbringing as a person and an artist, I’m going to draw from a lot of different things from the trials and tribunes of my life to make music, and it reflects in my brand and the messages I spread. I’m not what I’d call “shallow” by any means, and to me it allows me to be emotionally intelligent enough to connect with a variety of people from a variety of backgrounds. That is the beauty of being a blended sound and a blended human being.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
The concise answer is to continue to consume, which society does, but it gets deeper. Music industry success has always been a popularity contest, but the problem is that now, it’s a popularity contest that is guided by (sometimes questionable) online presence as a prerequisite to be considered to be pushed by a label or distribution (they want to mitigate the risk they once took on artists which I understand but it shouldn’t be as severe as it is), algorithms that only show personalized interest which makes it hard for people to discover new talent, and bought out top placements for streaming – that don’t make artists any money – all in a time where the content market is more saturated than ever. I don’t think that’s for society to fix, rather the companies that we use as mediums to share our work, to properly assess these issues and create a more fair way of sharing & music monetization for artists. I think for consumers, if you want to help independent and struggling music artists, you have to take the time to deviate from what is immediately programmed in front of you to find artists and playlists that aren’t programmed in to these top spots. And to be honest, I as an artist am not even sure how to do that efficiently. It’s a real problem that needs to be solved. The furthest I’ve got along this thought is that I think there needs to be parameters as to the “quality” of music being shared (like Datpiff used to do), to determine whether or not music is eligible to be shared on some of these services, because that would eliminate the stress of the service’s programmers having to go through too much music, would promote quality of music over the numbers game, and therefore give artists a more fair shot at being heard. One thing remains though, buying artist merch and going to local shows really helps tremendously for signed and unsigned artists. That gets into why the fusion of streetwear and music is so insane right now, but I could go on about that topic and how to help other creative lanes as well. I chose to speak on the music landscape specifically because every other creative thing I can think of has tangible products and services provided, while music (and video content) is stuck in the subscription model that doesn’t pay out well for artists, there is no more buying CD’s DVD’s cassettes, VHS etc. to get music for a fixed priced.
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
I think what non-creatives need to understand is that there is no real guidance or path in this journey unless you’re fortunate enough to have a more successful “mentor” of sorts that can tell you what to do differently based on their mistakes – not many people will get that. This inherently creates loads more failures and hard days, unstable income, mental trauma, and pressure from friends & family to fit in to society / become stable to align with the mould we see. It also often feels days are numbered especially as a performer (musician, model, etc.) because so much of it based on youth and looks, though I do think some of that is changing the past few years. In my specific case being mixed race / non light-skinned, I unfortunately also have to worry about things like racism and stereotyping that hinder my ability to propel to a degree, because there is not the same level of connection to me visually in some of the major markets – but sonically, I do have the ability to connect to a lot of people, I’ve seen it in doses over the years and it’s rewarding. All I’m trying to say is that creatives choose a path that is really hard to succeed in for so many reasons, so you have to take it easier with your creative friends and cut them some slack if they haven’t lived up to societal norms and expectations. On the days where I need pep in my step so to speak, I try to look at people like Pharrell, who have crossed ridiculous boundaries as a multi faceted creative and more obstacles than anyone can imagine to do it. Virgil Abloh also, being initially not in a creative field, and transferring his knowledge over to fashion to create one of the most successful creative careers in such a short time that we’ve seen, is another prime example of someone I look up to. I have not been able to sustain a creative career full time thus far depending on how you define it, but as I get older, I like to expand what that means to me. Honestly, I’d be happy to work IN music and have been trying to see things from the other side of the desk for years, as I think that it takes an educated creative mind to often be best situated for those types of roles, but that hasn’t quite happened yet. I think doing an A&R role or doing interviews with artists like Zane Lowe does would be amazing to me to help put other creatives on & guide them with whatever sense of eclecticism I may have. As long as I’m doing something pertaining to art I’ll find it meaningful. I know that went a bit beyond the question, but I do like to think it’s good to help others see they’re not alone with the ways they think – I know a lot of artists specifically that think this way.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: instagram.com/hvnnibvlmusic
- Facebook: Facebook.com/hvnnibvlmusic
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-hannibal-811424129
- Twitter: twitter.com/HVNNIBVL
- Other: My email is always open to connect with others [email protected]
Image Credits
sqwnt stella choi dre cooley