So many music documentaries have a kind of faked intimacy; they dangle the promise of lifting the lid on a star’s darkest secrets but end up feeling more like propaganda. You can’t say that about this film featuring the London singer-songwriter Hak Baker. What you see is what you get with him and, like him, the documentary feels genuine and very likable. It was filmed over five years by James Topley and Ivo Beckett (working together as Deadhorses). The pair must be mates with Baker, going by the number of shots of him at his kitchen table, beer in hand, or lugging a sofa down stairs as he is evicted from yet another flat, face fixed with a smile that could raise the room temperature by at least five degrees.
Baker was raised by his Jamaican mum on the Isle of Dogs (gentrification is a big issue for him). Aged 14, he joined the grime collective Bomb Squad and a few years of “parties, booze, puff and girls” followed. By 19, Baker was in prison, where he picked up a guitar and began to hone his blend of grime, folk and spoken word. The film charts it all: playing to three people in a festival field to rowdy pub gigs, Glastonbury, supporting Pete Doherty at the Royal Albert Hall.
A lot of the footage looks like it’s been shot with a phone – it’s intimate and rough around the edges, but tightly edited. There’s a clip of Baker backstage at Glastonbury just about to perform; he picks up a freebie T-shirt, but then a security guard intervenes. On the voiceover Baker describes the voice in his head, always telling himself that he doesn’t deserve it. It comes from his background: “Lads thinking they’re nothing, we’re shit.” Baker’s voice is honest and sincere, his warmth unfakeable.
• Hakeem is in cinemas from 4 March.
