By virtue of jumping into an impromptu, on-the-whim cypher with his friends back in 2017, Harvey Galan, more widely known as, Anonymous H received a sign from God that he possessed natural talent for spitting rhymes.
“I ain’t gon front bro, you should prolly make a song. Like that actually didn’t sound bad like,” said Peter, a friend of his from his alma mater, The Collegiate Institute of Math and Science.
“My brother had a bunch of microphones in his room. I remember going in there and finding this little USB microphone,” said Galan. From there, Galan took heed to his friend’s advice and decided to try his hand at crafting a full-length track.
“I found some type of program online and I was like, you know what, let me try and give this a shot,” said Galan. Sheer curiosity is what led to him unlocking a novel passion: making his own music.
“I remember loving that shit. Like the song I made was wack but I was like wow, I actually made a song.” Shortly after, Galan became enamored by the thrill and process of cultivating his own tracks from scratch. “I remember catching myself making a song like literally everyday.” Despite not having any formal training at first, the now thoroughly seasoned crooner and rapper knew in his spirit that he was headed in the right direction.
“It wasn’t until like my six or seventh song, that I started to build confidence. I had sent my boy Tristan one of my songs and he was like, ‘I listen to this everyday,’” he said. After becoming aware of his impact, he reached the epiphany that maybe he could develop a legitimate career out of being a musician. “I think that interaction did it for me where I was like yo, people might actually like my stuff,” said Galan
Now with five years in the game, Anonymous H is adamant about trusting the process and being an inspiration to others around him. Through committing to the beat of his own heart, staying true to himself, remaining consistent and harboring complete faith in all the quirks and idiosyncrasies that make his sound unique, he has been able to carve his own lane from the ground-up.
Growing up in an ultra-loving, two-parent Dominican, devoutly Christian household, Galan was surrounded by a robust mix of sounds at any given time: bachata, merengue, ‘70s pop, salsa, and gospel. Ironically enough, hip-hop wasn’t the most prevalent.
“Coming up in a strict Catholic household, my parents didn’t really care for hip-hop too much,” said Galan.
The prospect of creating “secular” hip-hop music was a bit of a moral dilemma for the Bronx rapper early on in his trajectory.
However, after immersing himself further in freestyle rap, making his first EP and using social media as a tool to promote himself, he realized just how tangible a career in rap could be for him. The reception was beyond anything he could have imagined.
“Before dropping music, I started doing car freestyles at the time. From then, it really was like the type of traction I was getting that made me believe. Like, I threw it on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and they all did really good on each platform. I was like you know what, let me see if I can really try and make a living off this shit, said Galan.
It was a mixture of the reception he received on both the Car Freestyles, as well as, on his First EP: “You and The Devil are Not That Different,” that truly made the prospect of a career in music apparent.
Since the emergence of his career, Galan has been keen on optimizing the power of social media to bolster the visibility of his music since day one, which has been a major portion of his come-up.
“The strategy that I’ve found the most success with is making meme-ish, kind of stuff putting it on different people’s platforms, different influencers telling them to go to your page. I’m not a big fan of the advertising on Instagram too much. I try not to touch that too much because I feel like it messes up the algorithm.”
With over 23,000 followers on Instagram and zero assistance from the expert-level marketing teams that labels provide, Anonymous H has puzzled together an effective formula that works for him.
Hailing from Freeman St. in The Bronx, NY, Anonymous H strives to keep all of his content rooted in relatable, real-life subject matter with unabashed candor. “I used to steal all your percocets, you probably needed it way more than me,” says Anonymous as he laments the cancer-induced death of his late brother Junior on his 2019 track entitled “When My Brother Died, This Beat Helped Me Fall Asleep.”
While some of his sonic landscape does glance into tropes of vulnerability and melancholic gloom illustrated within his discography” I Don’t Want To Kill Myself and Signs,” he still has a major penchant a diverse array of tracks: intimate love songs, poignant, introspective tracks and of course, the turn-up.
Influenced by some of his predecessors among the sphere of grungy, alternative rap, including Tyler, The Creator and Earl Sweatshirt, Anonymous H is a shapeshifter with an adept ability to jump from one style to the next in seamless fashion. His acumen is vast and far from one-dimensional. Some ways one might describe it are eclectic, fluid and malleable.
Sometimes his inclination leads him to being a heartfelt, sentimental crooner over a lo-fi track and other times, he is spitting rapid fire over hi-tempo, alternative trap-rap production. Admittedly, he confesses that the process is a bit whimsical and oftentimes contingent on what the people want to hear.
“I love singing melodic songs but whether it’s from fans or supporters in general, they love the rapping stuff. It’s what works for me the most,” he said.
One essential pillar to H’s artistry is that he doesn’t take himself too seriously. His passion and fervor are always active throughout his creative process but he makes having fun a priority just as much as producing high-quality music.
“One of my favorite things to do on top of that is sometimes we’ll [his camp] travel, bring the studio with us, legit get a hotel room, experience the city, come back, make music,” he said.
Anonymous H is only concerned with playing for keeps. Currently, he’s “in talks” with some major record labels and evaluating his options — the margin between reality and his dreams is getting smaller day by day.
“I wanna be big enough to affect other people’s lives, whether it’s signing other artists. Being big enough to sign other artists. Just affecting lives. That’s what I want for my brand, he said.
To keep up with Anonymous H, check him out on Instagram.
