#HometownGlory — Dharni On Homeliness, Dreaming Big, And Starting Trends in Singapore - Men's Folio
Style, Interview

#HometownGlory — Dharni On Homeliness, Dreaming Big, And Starting Trends in Singapore

  • By Asaph Low


Dharni is wearing an Onitsuka Tiger Wool-blend vest, wool-blend scarf, wool-blend shorts, CRESTY canvas and suede sneakers; Gentle Monster Seydoux 032 metal and acetate sunglasses.

The Men’s Folio August issue is traditionally focused on locals, as a vast majority of the magazine content curation shines the spotlight. Fronting the Men’s Folio August ‘22 cover are Dharni, Tabitha Nauser, Glenn Yong and Shye who share their connections with Singapore, and how that has shaped their identity and career.


Click here to purchase our August ’22 Hometown Glory issue featuring Tabitha Nauser, Glenn Yong, Shye, and Dharni. 

Here, Dharni talks to us about homeliness, dreaming big, and starting trends in Singapore.

 

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Home is more of a state of mind; wherever you are and the connection you have with it can be considered home. You can have homes in different pockets of the world but you always have that favourite one. Most of the time it’s where your ground zero for the things that happen which are the most memorable to you and creates you as a person.

It’s crazy I was in Poland for 10 years. The reason why I moved was because I felt I didn’t have any space to develop in terms of creativity and innovation. During that time, the beatboxing scene was majorly focused in Europe only so it was a very logical decision to just go there and be more immersed in the beatboxing culture, and I learnt a lot when I was there. I realised Asians are more operational, and not as forward and innovative or as risk-taking with crazy ideas and concepts.


But in the West, they go beyond the limits of creativity. Both are good, you need both like Yin and Yang, it’s a plus-minus thing. You need both to function, right? And I feel if we extract those essentials from both cultures, that would be the best.

I feel more whole on both sides because I understand both sides, my perception of things is also broadened. I innovate, create, and I like to do crazy things that no one has done before just using my creativity. So it’s not only just by beatboxing content creation, but something more that can help the world and stuff like that. And I don’t even promote that on my socials because it’s totally different things. It’s super satisfying for me personally, I think we should limit ourselves to what society perceives us to be.

 

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Honestly, I have nothing to say because when I tell them to have a dream and go for it, you’ll always have people say, “yeah, but you’re lucky, you’re this and that” and they’re giving excuses. I’ll tell them it’s up to you — if you want to do it, do it. If you don’t want to do it, you’re going to make excuses for the rest of your life and maybe regret it at the end and be an unhappy person or you can do it the other way around.

You know, if you believe in something and something can change, make sure it’s practical, make sure it’s within your limits and you know how to work towards it step by step.


I’d tell my younger self to learn piano; learn music theory because I think it’s super important. I only listen by ear, so now I have to do it the long way. I don’t have the time to learn it now but I still make good beats — very different types of beats. They reflect my personality and character, this is also my language and I think that’s cool.

 

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My fondest memory was the first time I performed on stage in 2002. It was talent time in school, and I said to myself, “I’m gonna destroy the crowd” and I did when I went on stage. It felt very good, everybody stopped. When I went on stage, people were not expecting, then boom, the whole school started to cheer and dance. I don’t know what I did, they were just hyped. It was a very good feeling and I said, “okay, this is what I’m going to do”.

I think the next generation needs to learn how to think for themselves, and not always listen so much on social media. News is really twisted these days, narratives are all over the place. If you’re smart enough, you should know that not everything is true. Headlines are to buy into you, you need to choose and filter out all the nonsense and think for yourself. Another thing is that people need to be mindful, and think rationally and practically.

 

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Singapore is great at it, although we are multiracial, multi-religious, we’re still very practical. Singapore is in the middle, it’s not at the extreme left or right — it’s like centralised but still having a sense of freedom. People might argue and want to be super free and autonomous but then where’s the order? That’s just an ideal.

I think the world is changing, we’re going on this course of uncertainty right now so we don’t know where we’re headed. A lot of people are “fake woke” or just lying. I don’t want to say too much but politicians not agreeing with each other are victimizing the whole world. We have no control over this; so I feel I don’t know where we’re going. But what you said about gender equality, diversity — all these things are developing well. We need to think logically. You always have a grain of salt in everything you think for yourself.


I define Hometown Glory as doing something that makes your country or even your hometown proud. But in Singapore there’s no such thing as a hometown, it’s one whole city or there’s districts! [laughs] I’m two times beatbox world champion but I still don’t feel accomplished in a sense because my two dreams are still unaccomplished. It’s part of living, if you achieve everything, that’s the end game. It keeps you alive and keeps your mental health driven. I want to do something that can benefit people in Singapore and the world.

Trends should start here; in this time, innovations should be from Singapore, not the West and not anywhere else. If you started a global trend that’s from Singapore, that’s the real Hometown Glory. From there you create a new kind of culture and pride in Singapore. I think that’s the mission for people in Singapore to adopt, start a new path, not for Singaporeans, but for the world.

Photography Zantz Han
Styling Izwan Abdullah
Grooming and Hair Eric Tan / Palette.Inc using M.A.C Cosmetics and KEUNE Haircosmetics
Photography Assistant Dennis Er
Styling Assistant Manfred Lu

This story about Dharni first appeared in our August ’22 Hometown Glory issue