Hanari on Building Worlds Through Her Music

Interview by Grace Franklin

Rising artist Hanari is carving out her own lane in the music world, one that’s as bold and visually striking as it is sonically innovative. Blending hyperpop, electronic, and K-pop influences, Hanari is building not just songs, but entire worlds for listeners to step into. Her latest single, SPEEDRUN, is a fast-paced, futuristic track that captures her fearless approach to music and life. We sat down with Hanari to talk about her evolving sound, the confidence she’s found in leaning into hyperpop, her love of world-building, and what fans can expect from her next era.

SOUND STAGE: Who is Hanari as an artist? 

HANARI: I'm a multi genre, singer-songwriter, and I really like blending lots of different influences, like her hyperpop, electronic music in general, and K-pop into something that is uniquely my own. Something that makes me pop are the high fashion aesthetics that I put into my social media nowadays. And I really want my music going forward to be tied into my own type of visual self expression to eventually cultivate individual worlds from each song. I take a lot of inspiration from K-pop, especially the band Aespa. They craft a full narrative and world with each song. It's incredible and obviously they have millions of dollars to do this, but it's really the storytelling, I think, that drives it both sonically and visually. I want to be as much a musical persona as a visual stamp. 

SOUND STAGE: Yeah, I just want to say too, I'm blown away by how strong your brand is. It's really hard to do it all on your own as an independent artist.

HANARI: I'm trying to set up all of these stepping stones just in case something pops off. I want people to already step into a furnished world that they think is cool and different. 

SOUND STAGE: Who are some of your biggest influences right now?

HANARI: I'm definitely pulling inspiration from Charlie XCX, Aespa, Adéla, and MARINA. I love how so many of these women set the trend sonically and fashion wise for women everywhere, not just in the entertainment industry, by influencing culture with your music. I especially have taken great influence from MARINA and her lyrics because I love the combination of her electrop pop and the deep lyrics. I think it's a combination of nostalgia and I just love the tone of her voice. I think tone is something you can't really learn. 

SOUND STAGE: You've been releasing music for a few years now. How do you think your sound has changed and progressed over time? 

HANARI: This year has really been the year that I started taking music seriously as a business. I've really loved and continued to love exploring all kinds of genres, and I wouldn't trade that time for the world. I think it taught me a lot of things such as melodies that span across many different types of tastes and how to collaborate with all different types of people, etc. If you look at my discography, I think it shows you how exploratory I was because I wanted to try everything. The stuff that I'm working on now, though, is reflective of who I am today and who I'm becoming through more of the lyrics and the melody. I've always loved hyperpop and electropop sound, but was always reluctant to give it a go for a lot of different reasons. I would tell myself I'm not working with the right producer, or I don't have that skill set. Now, I have a lot more confidence in myself. I think that confidence does show through in what I'm doing now, and it's great because I think those who've followed me from day one have really seen me grow into the person I am today. 

SOUND STAGE: Do you think that leaning into that hyperpop genre has helped you excel more as a musician too? 

HANARI: Yes! It’s definitely cyclical. Leaning into hyperpop makes me more confident and then my confidence makes me lean more into the music.

SOUND STAGE: Your most recent release ‘SPEEDRUN’ is a fast-paced track with many layers. Can you talk about your creative process when making this? 

HANARI: I worked with Kiba to do this track and he's an amazing producer and you should definitely check him out. I work best with top lining, which means I work on tracks that are more or less already made instrumental wise. He gave me a few bare bones tracks to listen to and this was the first one he gave me and I immediately fell in love with it, the ideas just started flowing. It wasn't a fully-fledged track, but I already could feel that it had the room to flesh out into this world of its own. I love building worlds. I wanted to make this fast-paced, futuristic, alternate reality world. I wanted it to feel like a video game with a constant pace that keeps pushing, and I also wanted it to reflect a side of me that doesn't really stop to dwell on my accomplishments for too long. The lyrics talk a lot about going really fast and not knowing when to stop. It's something I do really struggle with in real life because I'm really future oriented. I have this fear of dwelling in it, and then getting stuck. 

SOUND STAGE: I'm obsessed with the motorcycle photoshoot that you did. Is that your motorcycle?

HANARI: No it’s not! Ugh, wouldn’t it be so cool if it was though? My creative director knows a filmmaker who owned that motorcycle. So he brought the motorcycle and then did a lot of the B-roll, which was in my visualizer. 

SOUND STAGE: You've collaborated with a lot of different producers. What's that process like for you? How do you decide who to collaborate with on what projects? 

HANARI: It's a little bit of everything. I used to peruse Spotify and Instagram for a while, looking for producers who I thought reflected my next song's vibe. I definitely wasn't as choosy when I was first starting out, but there was definitely always that bare minimum of seeing how these producers' presence was on social media, seeing if their discography was compatible with mine, and how we could compliment each other. The more I've grown into my music, the more creative control I have over the instrumentals now. I still don't have a lot of production skills yet, but I do think that my communication skills have grown a lot over the years. I love seeing how different producers tweak the track, depending on the top melody I send over. That’s how it happened with ‘SPEEDRUN’. It just became a product of Kiba’s and my ideas, which is really cool. 

SOUND STAGE: Where do you see your sound heading next? 

HANARI: I want to continue with the electronic, hyperpop sound and expand on that. I want to reconnect with the music I grew up listening to and put a little Hanari twist to it and really continue cultivating my own unique sound. I know that I love synths and a good crunchy bass. I'm just excited to keep my options open and see what's out there, especially now with so much of the genre building stuff that's coming out. I'm just excited to be a part of it. 

SOUND STAGE: What can fans expect from you in the future? 

HANARI: I do have a new single coming out soon, which is revving up toward a bigger project. It's very dramatic. It's kind of like a catalog runway type vibe, very Lady Gaga. 

SOUND STAGE: I haven’t heard it yet but I’m already obsessed. 

HANARI: I'm really excited, I've never done anything like it before. 

SOUND STAGE: Well I am super excited to hear the new single and future music. Thanks for talking with us today Hanari!