Get To Know: Berry Galazka

'Nothing deserves unquestionable reverence.'

Those were the first words that came out of Berry Galazka's mouth when we started talking about music today. Recently, New Wave Magazine sat down with the intriguing Polish-American artist to learn more about her debut EP 'Man Can't Hang, Ain't Part of the Gang' and how she's settling into her unique groove.

‘Choosing violence’ has always been Berry Galazka’s default setting. Raised by her stern yet liberal Polish mother in the beautiful sunshine state of Florida, she is currently tearing up the rulebook with her DIY attitude and provocative usage of the dictionary. A Sagittarian who consumes anything TikTok, astrology and Real Housewives related, Galazka is a lyrical powerhouse capable of painting the most startling of pictures with her trigger-happy rhyme schemes. She's also created an incredibly empowering and positive EP full of tunes to blast this Summer.

Growing up around David Bowie records and My Chemical Romance, as well as reggae and polka, gave Galazka a deeper understanding of sound and how to intuitively make music that is true to her. Having relocated to London to pursue her career as a full-time artist she now finds herself featured in the likes of Spotify Misfits 2.0, The Line of Best Fit, The Independent, DORK Magazine and CLASH. She’s also receiving a lot of radio play in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

With ‘Man Can’t Hang, Ain’t Part of the Gang’ she features five versions of herself on the cover and five very different tracks (6 if you count the new all-star remix of ‘Man Can’t Hang’ with GIRLI & Suzi Wu). The explosive opening track ‘Man Can’t Hang’, which now has over 100k plays on Spotify, gives us the savage refrain ‘it’s all over baby for the yang’ (meaning it’s all over for the men). Far from being the song to bash men over the head with, if you pay attention to her wordplay, it’s really a song to elevate yourself, not bring others down (but also to bash men).

In fact, all of the tracks on ‘Man Can’t Hang, Ain’t Part of the Gang’ offer a level of self-empowerment and humour spread evenly with Berry’s butterknife approach. You can tell she's having fun with it, something few in this genre have been able to grasp.

‘Blunt like a butter knife, I don’t take sh*t.’ ('Marisa')

Galazka attributes this line to her straight-shooting talk (a family trait) which some may take offence to. The second track of the EP, ‘Marisa’, narrates the story of Berry having to stand up to her school bully at the age of 8, learning that often it takes a show of strength to teach bullies a lesson. 'She never bothered me again after that' the artist remarked, proving her point. Even though New Wave (for legal reasons) does not condone any type of violence, Berry explains in her trademark assertive tones that 'bullies need to be taught that it's not cool'. Her mother did, in fact, take her for ice cream afterwards and yes, that's really her voice in the bridge saying 'I'm so proud of you sweetie'.

As you can see, Berry Galazka can sing, she can rap and she can create a song within minutes (having recently recorded eight new tracks and shooting two music videos in less than 10 days). She’s a one-woman powerhouse. We were lucky enough to ask the intriguing Floridian a couple of questions before she had to get back to work:

Tell us about a few goals you want to achieve.

'Tour the world a ton, buy my mom a house, multiple streams of massive income.’

What’s your DAW (digital audio workstation) saying?

‘I use Ableton, and right now I’m really feeling Soundtoy’s Decapitator.’

Sounds scary and entirely on brand!

'Yep.'

One thing that you’re obsessed with right now.

'Amber and alligators'

What inspired the track 'LA ME'?

'I was people watching one time and saw how people call babies ‘cute’ and stuff. It was so ugly! I just don’t get this whole fascination with it. I don’t see why anybody would think a baby is "cute" unless they have some sort of biological stock invested in it. I've also never held a baby, they freak me out, I thought I would put that in a fun kids bop.'

'The intro line to the song comes from when I moved to the UK and said "my name is Berry" and everyone would say ‘Like Mary Berry?’ and I had no idea who she was. When I finally found out she's famous for baking and my favourite strain of weed is purple cookie, I was screaming about how perfect the lyric was.'

'You wear Gucci and you talk about it. You wear Gucci and you talk about it, that's not cool.' ('LA ME')

'I also saw Migos wearing Gucci and noticed rappers will have one f*ckin Gucci shirt and never stop talking about it. People who are always covered in brand names - it's lame.'

Fashion or interior design?

'Interior design. My environment affects my mood more than what I'm wearing. My interior Pinterest board right now includes pastels, the Simpsons, fresh tulips, orange and blues, purples and yellows.'

Do you think it's better to write about real-life or fictional storytelling?

'People don't condone "lying" when kids embellish a story but that’s BS. Why do we tell children to not exaggerate a story? It’s like we’re encouraging mediocrity. Why not have a vision for something bigger than what it is? How do you make something exciting, fun? No one wants to hear how you caught a minnow one time. They wanna hear how YOU killed Moby Dick. It's mirror neurons.'

Favourite drink?

'Mezcal Negroni.'

I'm guessing you've been to LA?

'Yeah, Louis Theroux checked me out when I was leaving the gym. The grocery stores there are peak.'

What's one fact people don't know about you?

'I used to breed guinea pigs when I was a kid, I cross-bred them until one had curly hair, his name was Curly.'

Dream collabs?

'Denzel Curry (cuz he’s from Florida) and Royal Blood. Speaking of, Denzel Curly would've been a good name for my guinea pig.'

Cover art for the 'Man Can't Hang' remix starring GIRLI & Suzi Wu. Created by Berry Galazka.

'I choose me over you, every day of the week' ('No Effect')

With new pop sounds coming through the radio waves every day and genre-bending tracks being popular now more than ever, Berry Galazka’s unique sound will only get bigger and bolder. With there still being half of 2021 left to get through, we expect big things from this artist from across the pond who now calls London her home.

Stream ‘Man Can’t Hang, Ain’t Part of the Gang’ here, 'Fran Fine' is definitely our favourite.