He is fifteen years old, signed to Church Records and still has to go to school everyday. Life is long for electronic producer Happa.
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Being a child prodigy must be a bit boring. More intelligent and perspective than your average adult, little Leeds producer Samir Alikhanizadeh has already carved himself out a career in electronic music. Signed to Church Records before he could legally drink, drive or vote and already officially adored by electronic taste-makers Annie Mac and Mary Anne Hobbs. Happa’s tracks are a staple on most mixes right now yet he can’t break his curfew or make it past the doorman to enjoy his own success. Instead, Samir spends his spare time staying up late or getting up early to craft new mixes. Look right for Happa’s exclusive i-DJ mix and follow a day in the life of the lad.
“On a standard week day I wake up at around half seven-ish, mope around for a bit, shovel down some breakfast, then head to school. I arrive at school – usually 5 or 10 minutes late – in an awful mood, ready for the wonderful day ahead. I’m at school for about 6 painful hours, trying to maintain the enthusiasm to make it through the day, with a bit of help from my chums. I catch the bus at the end of school, arriving at home at around 4 o’clock with a longing for some sort of food. I usually take my food with me to either watch a bit of TV, or more likely to my “studio” to craft some out of this world beats. I’ll spend most of my evening producing some random genre of music, getting sidetracked by some utterly pointless shit on the Internet, (once again) with the help of some of my friends, however this can sometimes help when I come to a stopping point in the production area due to boredom or frustration. Aside from production, I occasionally meet up with some of my friends in town or Roundhay (where I live), get nagged by my mother to do homework, and I tend to talk to my brother a lot about music, motor sport and similarly orientated subjects. Oh and we watch cats on youtube quite a lot. I’ll either go to bed really early, for no reason or stay up into the early hours of the morning looking for new music and trying to find inspiration. I hope I don’t sound like too much of a miserable teenager.”
Happa will be playing Black Butter Presents @ Village Underground, London this Friday alongside Rudimental, Kidnap Kid, Gorgon City & Duke Dumont”.
11pm – 4am. Tickets:
http://bit.ly/10hmNdH
Text: Milly McMahon
Photography: Happa
