Life, Values & Legacy: Our Chat with Haunz Noire of Brooklyn

We recently had the chance to connect with Haunz Noire and have shared our conversation below.

Good morning Haunz, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: When was the last time you felt true joy?
One of the most recent times I felt joy was actually a week ago, I stood in my living room, looking at everything my best friend and I co-created together, and I felt a wave of emotions. The journey to peace wasn’t an easy one, I can say 2020 – 2025 broke down everything I thought was true about myself and others around me, and to feel a moment of gratitude, safety and calm, brought me joy for the first time in a while.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Hello there my name is Haunz Noire, I’m a
Multi-hyphenate artist from NYC

I create at the intersection of word, image, and presence.

Poetry is where my truth speaks.
Photography is where my vision lives.
Expression is where my freedom personified.

I strive to make honest art for myself and for the everyday person, whoever they or I might be in this moment, the beauty of being human is we have endless outcomes until the day we return to sender, the ugly side of that truth is, a lot of us are afraid to be the version of ourselves we want to be, we are shrouded in the judgements of the world, our families and our friends, so we become a cesspool of expectation.

My hope is that my art and my being challenge the social standards and generational pressure that we’re all fighting, the need to be validated by accomplishments, the need to hide when we’re not our best expression, I want there to be realness in art again, storytelling that weaves us all together, visuals that display all of our differences and expressions that brings us all closer together.

What does Haunz do?

I walk as myself in hopes that others want to answer that call from within, the one that says “Hey, I’m ready to be me now” and leave their version of the world alone.

Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
I was actually thinking about this the other day,

From as early as I can remember, I was always the most whimsical child on the block,
My life felt perfect within the innocence of being a kid, my grandmother and mother were my first loves, I loved bike riding, gardening and puppies, I was always great with my hands, I loved train sets, race car sets, when the toys would break I would have a fit, because I always took care of my stuff, I was also very inquisitive, everything was a question or me heading down to the Carnegie Library in Brooklyn to check out books on whatever I needed answers to.

I was a kids kid, a person who always dreamt of more, from as early as I could remember I want long friendships where we life’d together, rode bikes, explore parks, there was always a theme of longing and companionship, although there was a lot of whimsy there was also a lot of loneliness as well, 7 year old boys aren’t writing about life and trying to process the changes and challenges and then there was me.

When you were sad or scared as a child, what helped?
When I was sad, mother’s singing, the way she smelled and silence, were my cures of choice.

My mother had the voice of angel, when she opened her mouth to sing, I would be on the edge of my seat, I thought my mother was a celebrity, from singing at big packed churches. To having cassette demos lying around, that I would put into my walkman and just replay them until the tape unbound.

Ms.Walker wore this Avon Brand perfume called “Haiku”, (which I found very interesting in my adult life as poet) it calmed me down because if I smelled it I knew she was in the room, 10 women could of worn that scent but it wouldn’t smell like it would on her.

Now silence is a wild card looking back I don’t know if it helped or was a trauma response, however I do remember, in times of silence the beautiful background noises always got louder, birds chirping, rain fall, it’s like my ear from childhood came with volume buttons, it still happens til this day.

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. What would your closest friends say really matters to you?
I think my closest friends would say that I want to leave the world a better place, one of my best friends calls me safety, the other calls me an experience,

I’ve made myself a safe space because there aren’t many in the world, from my close friends to people in the streets I will extend kindness, grace and empathy, because it’s free, and with proper boundaries it causes no harm.

I’m known as the experience because I am going to give you love but also I’m that hard kick in a**, sometimes my love is tough, when the logic is missing or the morals are unjust, I can’t let people operate outside of themselves, I’m like…if a therapist and a lawyer had a very eccentric child from NYC.

Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. What do you think people will most misunderstand about your legacy?
The same thing they misunderstand now…

That my legacy is being hand crafted with ego and vanity, as an artist and a person, I experience a lot of jealousy from the way I do things, to the way I walk into a room, when I open my mouth people assume it’s about them, or they tell people not to listen or engage, because it’s not them delivering the message.

I have a tattoo on my right leg, in Chinese that reads “your greatness is yours”, that is my firm belief, I don’t get jealous or threatened, no matter what the next person has going on, good, bad or indifferent it has nothing to do with me or my greatness, when I meet other artists I don’t see competition, I see other storytellers, when I meet other men, I’m not thinking to myself, if his manhood is bigger than mine, competition is social war in an era where everyone is trying to make it, while a new digital rule book is being updated by the minute.

The way I walk, talk, dress and smell is me coded always, why would I want to be a lesser version of myself or someone else for public consumption?

I think it’s time people stop misunderstanding on purpose and work on their insecurities.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/HaunzNoire
• Youtube: https://www.YouTube.com/HaunzNoire
• Other: https://www.TikTok.com/HaunzNoire

Image Credits
Photos By Haunz Noire