Do we like them?

Do we like Hanni El Khatib?

Our score: 6 out of 10. Nothing harmful or dodgy turned up, but the reporting I could open is thin, so it's a cautious six.

Hanni El Khatib grew up in the Bay Area, soaked in golden-era rap, and made beats in his spare time. Rock songs came partly as a reaction against all that beatmaking. Innovative Leisure signed him after its founder was handed a CD-R of his music.

Between 2010 and 2017 he put out four albums and toured them hard. After the Savage Times run in 2017 he stepped back from the road, returned to graphic design, started a skateboarding company and produced for other artists. He has said he “honestly didn't think I was going to make another album”.

The comeback was FLIGHT, his fifth album, finished with collaborator Leon Michels in about a week. It swaps his guitar sound for 808 drums and electronic textures. The interview says it got a warm reception, and he told the interviewer “No one's batted an eyelid, honestly”.

On the harm test, I found nothing. No anti-LGBTQ+, anti-vax, climate-denial or culture-war material, no dodgy collaborators, and no court or allegation trail turned up. His 2016 song Born Brown draws on his parents' immigrant story, and a PopMatters reviewer called it “a full-throated proclamation of immigrant pride”. That's one reviewer's read, but it points the right way.

The gaps are real. Several outlets wouldn't open for me, I found no 2026 news about him, and I found no charity work I could verify. So this is a clean sheet, not a glowing reference, and a thin record doesn't prove much.