It’s a truism that our sense of self is largely determined by the view of us held by others. Thus fixed in a kind of perceptual amber, we spend half of our lives conforming to expectation and the rest struggling to escape it. Twenty-six-year-old St Paul native Sean Tillman is surely hip to that particular trip. As Har Mar Superstar he crashed into view in the UK in 2002 with his sophomore album, "You Can Feel Me", which quickly brought him cultish acclaim and catapulted him into a VIP world where he was frequently snapped hob-nobbing at parties with the likes of Kate Moss.
Har Mar’s live act reinforced his anti-hipster persona - a short, chubby whitey (un)dressed in leopard-print thong and white socks, who delivered self-consciously lascivious R&B/rap lyrics over pre-recorded backing tracks. It was a shtick so heavily ironic it obscured Har Mar’s true talents, cementing him in a one-dimensional, public perception – the so-uncool-he’s-cool dude. Recognising those creative limits, Har Mar set out to prove that he’s much more than a joke with a short shelf-life and – more importantly – that he’s deadly serious about his love of R&B, funk and soul. In these terms, "The Handler" is a storming success.
Essentially a homage to The Jackson 5/Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder and fellow Minnesotan Prince, "The Handler" proves that Har Mar possesses a fine R&B baritone, is an able rapper and pens exceedingly funky, party-primed tunes with a perfect pop core. The lyrical lewdness is now far less obtrusive and clipped, high-gloss production suggests Har Mar’s been paying close attention to the work of Timbaland, Darkchild and The Neptunes. Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, guitarist Nick Zinner and all-gal hip hop crew Northern State guest and cheeky borrowings from contemporary R&B and hip hop abound: from Eminem ("Save The Strip"); from Nelly ("As"); from Justin Timberlake ("O"); and from Neneh Cherry’s "Buffalo Stance" ("Cut Me Up") but Har Mar’s interpretive ability prevents pastiche.
Reinvention is usually the last refuge of the desperate, but Har Mar has rather shifted his focus from comic attitude to quality tuneage and the ‘Superstar’ tag now reads like rather more than ironic self-deprecation. The thong, mercifully, doesn’t always remain the same.
