Get to know Mach-Hommy, rap’s new renaissance man

“Play stupid games and win stupid prizes!” advises Mach-Hommy on “Mozambique Drill”. Here he floats like an apparition, exquisitely weaving in and out of chopped-up violins that producer Nicholas Craven has cleverly used to replace the drums. The multilingual rapper (who speaks several languages including English, French and Haitian Creole) precisely cushions his flow under pockets of soothing coos, which conjure up hazy memories of your grandma humming while doing the Sunday dishes.

“People stay dripped in designer… but they treat themselves terrible,” the artist raps on another career highlight, “Self Luh”. Over Conductor Williams’ fuzzy beat, the rapper ponders the political puppet strings that make junk food so accessible, and how this strategy results in a zombie-like conditioning among the working classes that’s difficult to shake off. “Head to toe rockin’ Fendi / but when it comes time to eat, they go and buy Wendy’s / Puttin’ trash in ya body, that’s non-friendly / eat gas station hot dogs in the back of Bentley’s, yuck.”

The artist’s fans clutch onto these observational bars more like life mantras. Aside from the enlightening poetic powers, it’s because these lyrics are the only real window into who their favourite rapper is as a human being, with this Haitian-born, New Jersey-raised artist tending to shun interviews and obscure his face under silk scarves. Just like MF DOOM before him, there’s a foggy cloak of mystery around what makes Mach-Hommy tick — he’s an enigma wrapped up in an enigma. 

What we know for sure is this: Mach-Hommy is an eternally wise street poet whose empathetic social observations and sharp-tongued sense of humour (“My bullets break up the band just like Yoko” from “Riveria Ralph” is a personal favourite bar) consistently combine to create luxurious-sounding jazz-rap. The kind that makes you feel like you should be dressed in your best suit and drinking a Barbancourt on the rocks in order to fully appreciate the sophisticated aura. Cutting yet intimate, to hear Mach-Hommy spit at full flight is a glorious thing — like a mixture of golden era Mos Def or hearing a passionate reading of New Dimensions in African History.

A rapidly growing cult fanbase is also prepared to spend thousands of dollars on his independently released vinyl, most of which still isn’t available on streaming, therefore creating a scarce value. Across classic albums like Pray For Haiti, Haitian Body Odor, The G.A.T., and Luh Hertz, the artist’s homeland of Haiti is defined by its persevering intellect, revolutionary ideals, and naturalistic beauty. It’s the diametric opposite of what has typically fuelled our Western understanding of this Caribbean country, whether that’s through reports of chaos, bloodshed, or the kind of corruption that means greedy dictators let the populous live without basic plumbing yet feel OK with embezzling millions in taxes so their wives can buy fur coats. Mach-Hommy knows Haiti has its fair share of ghosts, but he never fixates on them for too long, resulting in a radical shift in storytelling. 

In a TikTok era where we know far too much about our favourite artists, Mach-Hommy has refreshingly built a name off being unknowable, earning high-profile fans including Jay-Z and Earl Sweatshirt (who produced six tracks on the Fete Des Morts AKA Dia De Las Muertos EP). His supposedly reclusive nature is also a dream for a music journalist to dig into, with our interview a rare chance to peel back the layers and reveal more behind a masterful writer who can transform even police brutality (see “Brand Finale”) into belly laughs: “Pop locking out the chains like Little Richard / when the cops come get me”. 

During a revealing phone conversation, the artist told me how moving and assimilating from Port-au-Prince, Haiti to Newark, New Jersey as a small child was a foundational experience. He also temporarily turned the camera on to show me the designs of a new camouflage clothing range, which recontextualizes Haitian war symbolism and seems to be the start of a more focused leap into fashion.

When I compared Mach-Hommy’s dry sense of humour to the British, because of its self-deprecation and the underlying strategy of using one’s wit (“The closet got more loafers than welfare” is the subversive boast at the heart of the sax-heavy “LABOU”) to survive the bleakest of situations, his confident reply reflected an artist at the very peak of their creative powers. “There’s definitely a sardonic nature to what I do,” he said. “So, yes, I can understand why people might compare [my humour to the British]. A lot of words in the modern English language are attributed to Shakespeare’s ubiquitous use of poetic licensing, right? I think I’ve added a lot of words to the lexicon myself. I don’t know if anyone is going to give me that type of credit, though.”

The Shakespearean-level confidence can be attributed to Mach-Hommy’s stellar new album, #RICHAXXHAITIAN, easily among 2024’s best releases. Its title track and lead single features Watts’ trap crooner 03 Greedo howling about racing through the Hollywood Hills, somehow making even the words “eeenie meanie” sound thugged out. Sitting in a halfway house after finally being released from prison, Greedo sent back his vocals 20 minutes after Mach emailed the song over. Their collaboration has a humid synth-heavy beat courtesy of Kaytranada, which bounces forward with the kind of sticky friction more appropriate for a rave on a beach in July. 

It feels like an important career moment: definitive proof Mach-Hommy’s writerly style can fit naturally on loose production meant for club dancefloors. Another high point of the new album is the mystical yet murky prog-rock-indebted sound of “Politickle”. It inspires blunt social commentary from Mach-Hommy, and will resonate deeply with people who feel rappers have been way too silent on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Middle East. “White phosphorus fell on civilians in Gaza / troglodyte squadrons yelling epithets in their jargon,” he raps with snarling venom (the song was recorded two years before Israel’s most recent assault on Gaza).

For all the witty metaphors and clever punchlines, the new record’s best moments are arguably the most straightforward pearls of wisdom. In fact, it’s “Lon Lon” where I believe Mach-Hommy’s true mission statement can be found: “It’s easy to juice a lot of grapes but it’s harder just to eat one.” The Haitian artist agrees: “To truly understand the value of a grape, I believe you need to experience and focus on one grape versus a whole bunch. Less is always more. The way I dispense my words, my visage, or my image, it’s conducted just like that. It’s little by little. The value is in the scarcity.” 

To celebrate the release of #RICHAXXHAITIAN, Dazed spoke to the elusive Mach-Hommy at length, covering everything from chasing the perfect mango, constantly beating death as a child, and turning rapping from a “shameful secret” to a noble pursuit.

I always remember back on ‘Wheaties’ when you rapped ‘I’m only 10 years old but I’m going on 40’. I don’t think people fully realise that when you grow up somewhere as violent as Haiti, or in a ‘crack zone’, you’re ageing exponentially faster than the kids over in the suburbs, just through the stress alone. 

Mach-Hommy: I think that line is testament to the innocence of youth and how you don’t really understand how fast you’re growing up until much later on. When you are finally able to look back on it all, everything suddenly dawns on you! Like, shit man… I really skipped out on a lot of things. Back in Haiti, I was very sick as a child. I was constantly in the grips of certain death and being brought back to life by either my grandmother or mother or a female doctor; I think that’s probably why I see God as a feminine force today. 

Remember Haiti is a country with no economy. There’s no infrastructure or even basic waterworks. Then you come over to America and you go to school in a crack zone, right? There are bullet holes in the street you walk down every day. On our block there were people having a good time, because they’d mastered the art of survival, but it felt like my family were just transplants trying to figure America out. You quickly realise that where you’re living is just another military-occupied zone, and that there are command units posted throughout the neighbourhood. Sometimes you can’t really tell the difference between America and Haiti. I mean, they’re not bombing you in the traditional sense… but you’re still getting bombed on. 

“Whenever I go to Haiti there’s just a visceral ease and my stomach is no longer in knots. No matter how poor, most of the people there are so grounded in spirituality and a sense of self” – Mach-Hommy

I imagine assimilation was really tough. Did rapping serve a therapeutic purpose when you were growing up, just in terms of processing it all? 

Mach-Hommy: At first I stood out like a weed in a perfectly manicured lawn. Sometimes I even had to announce I was Haitian. I was wearing church pants and church shoes and, well, you could easily get beaten up for shit like that [back then]. But I was also dressed in things that are all the rage today. I remember the girls at school would be like: ‘Damn, you dress good for a Haitian. I thought you would stink. You lying, you can’t be Haitian!’ If other Haitian immigrants would start at the school who didn’t speak English, they’d always get bullied. If I stuck up for them, it would always be: ‘It’s either the USA or you with that ni***.’

Rapping as therapy? Maybe so. One thing I can tell you: it was definitely a secret! You kept the fact you were rapping to yourself. It was a shameful fucking secret, as among Haitians, rapping was looked down on with real disdain. Rapping was just so Hollywood to us. We took our cues from the older guys, who told us that the job of the rapper was to terrorize or extort our communities. There wasn’t anything fucking noble in that pursuit. But it meant I was always finding ways to try to make my raps sound more noble. 

Historically, Hollywood has presented Haiti in such a fucked up way. In film adaptations like Wes Craven’s The Serpent and the Rainbow or Victor Halperin’s White Zombie, it is this country built on deathly voodoo spells and people sleep-walking into oblivion. These films either exotified Haitians or made them into something only worth fearing. I’ve always sensed by rooting your music in intellectualism, you’re trying to reverse some of that damage. Haiti’s existence is fuelled by a slave rebellion, so it’s important to show the world how radically smart its people are, right? 

Mach-Hommy: Hollywood and its stereotypes are so persuasive, you know? People absorb these concepts [subconsciously] and treat you differently [without even realising it]. We’ve been reduced to a sack of shit right now! It’s like: you’re the main carrier of HIV/AIDs and, by the way, there’s a very colourful story as to how that happened, which has everything to do with [corporate] greed and corruption. Haitians are still dealing with diseases from the dark ages! In the last 20 years, the Haitian people have been completely divorced from their own culture, too. There are all these parasitic entities taking over the collective mind and the people are being puppeteered. 

So yes, I’m really big on humanising Haitians, because they’ve been vilified for so long! Whereas, you know, the perpetrator and the oppressor have constantly been lionized. I guess [I want to reverse that cycle]. 

I’ve never been to Haiti, but my research tells me of trees that reach to the stars and hibiscus blossoms that glow like a Dalí painting. When you think about what makes it so special as a place to walk around in, what are the first things that come to mind?

Mach-Hommy: I’m going to tell you right now: the sand is white and the waves are bitching! There’s some of the best surfing in the Western Hemisphere. There’s just a limitless beauty to the landscape, you know what I am saying? You wanna talk about delicious fruits, well, I never had a mango taste that good. I’m a grown-up now and I’m still longing for a fucking particular kind of mango. Whenever I go to Haiti there’s just a visceral ease and my stomach is no longer in knots. No matter how poor, most of the people there are so grounded in spirituality and a sense of self. Wishing strangers good morning and good afternoon is still a thing! A big part of why the narrative has been skewed, and everyone talks about Haiti [as haunted], is because the greater collective mind of white supremacy just can’t handle a positive story. They’ve got to turn Haiti into a tragic legend, right?

Right. I wanted to go back to a line on ‘Fresh off the Boat’, where you said the true lethal weapon was the mind and how ‘it ain’t the guns / it’s what you’re thinking’. As you’ve said yourself so much in the past, Haiti is a corrupt country with a lot of political violence. As your voice becomes more powerful, and uplifts more of the oppressed, do you ever fear becoming a target? 

Mach-Hommy: My friend recently asked me if I was scared for my life, to which my response was: ‘Yo, son, nobody in my neighbourhood thought I was going to make it past 18!’ My own mother sits and openly tells people today she thought I’d be dead by 18, due to what I was involved in. I don’t fear anything, ’cus I’m a spook myself. I can run surveillance and interference. I’m more concerned with my offensive than my defence. 

“Vocally, I do my best to add and not reduce. I see myself like another instrument”

On the new album, particularly on ‘SONJE’, it feels like you’re duelling with the instrumentation whenever you flow. Is that your core approach to rapping?  

Mach-Hommy: I’m just another member of the band. That’s the way I see it. Vocally, I do my best to add and not reduce. I see myself like another instrument. That’s how I approach recording and music in general. You know what I mean? My main focus is just to be like a complimentary instrument. If there’s anything I am striving for, then it’s that.

You once rapped alongside Westside Gunn: ‘I’ll write some thorough shit and buy us a coast.’ Is that still the dream? To own some land and, say, create your own utopia?

Mach-Hommy: One thing about me is I don’t draw any pleasure from lording over others. I don’t care to be anyone’s fucking saviour or boss. It’s like the last thing I want to do on earth, ever. Of course I want my own piece of land to retire on and invite all my friends over to, but as far as leading a utopia? I just don’t think that’s possible. How can you ensure everyone will remain healthy and sane? I’m no one’s guru. If you think I am, then God bless you! But this shit is so topsy turvy, and we’re moving at breakneck speeds as a people, that I can’t ever tell others what to do in this life.

What is the dream ending for Mach-Hommy, then? 

Mach-Hommy: The dream is just to see a little bit of the change that I’m hoping to see take root, particularly in Haiti. Just to be able to see the first blade of the fucking sapling come through. I’ve still got a lot of work to do. There are a lot of things I need to say and a lot of people I need to heal. 

And, lastly, did you ever end up getting that Python trench coat you rapped about on ‘The 26th Letter’?

Mach-Hommy: People keep making me promises about it [laughs]. I’ve had a couple of fashion designers say they’d do it for me, but nothing ever happened. I think next year I’m finally going to go ahead and just make it myself. 

Things are more powerful when you create them yourself… 

Mach-Hommy: Exactly that. 

Mach-Hommy’s #RICHAXXHAITIAN is out now on Mach-Hommy Inc.