If there’s one song that we weren’t able to get out of our heads this festive season, it was ‘Have Fun’ by Vincent Barrea. The vocalist, producer and rapper released the track on 19 December via Maitre Music, just in time to be played on new years eve to bring in the new year with a bit of flirty pan flute and flashbacks to summer memories.

The Russian producer brings with him knowledge of theatre, dance, upstage vocals, acting and fashion photography, providing the perfect background to create the next summer dancefloor hit. Curious about the musician who created our festive season favourite, we knew we wanted to learn more about what made him tick. You can too in our exclusive interview below.

Tell us about your highlights for the year

We released an EP, 2 singles and 2 clips, and then we changed the vector of our work. Now we’ll release singles almost monthly. We’ve already finished 7 singles and we are in the process of creating new ones, and we’re always playing around with different compilations of styles. So there will be a lot of news coming up.

If you could paint a picture with of sound, what would it look like?

I would make out the track by notes and rhythm, understand the mood of the music and paint it out in expressionism.

What are the 5 albums and artists that have influenced you the most?

Michael Jackson (yes, I try to split the scandals around his persona and his talent as a musician in my head), Wax Tailor, Roisin Murphy, out of contemporary artists I really like what J Balvin, and Cardi B do.

What other artists do you really like at the moment and why?

Gallant, Maggie Rogers, Floorplan, Shuma,  Santino Le Saint I like their music, they like texts, they like visual content, energy

Tell us one interesting fact about yourself that no-one would expect.

I’ve been fighting being overweight all my life. And not many people know, I played in musicals. I also work as a photographer at the same time and will never give that up, because it sparks my creativity and passion.

Your latest track, ‘Have Fun’ is a very different direction from your previously released, ‘Chemical Or Love’. Tell us about the inspiration for both.

I am an actor in the past (maybe I will return to this in the future too) and in my work, I am used to transmitting other people’s emotions. For example, “chemical or love” is a real story. The story of a very strong love, which, for example, I have never experienced. To be honest, I’ve never seen anything like this. But it does exist. The feeling was so strong and over such a long period of time, that the person thought the chemistry between them will never fade.  Because of this, this person experienced everything that we have in the song and video.

Tell us about the music scene in Moscow. What do you enjoy and what would you like to change?

Guys, this is my “sore subject’, you really hit the spot here. Our country has been living under the Iron Curtain for far too long. Do you know that our older generation couldn’t legally buy even jeans, like Levi’s,  when they were worn by the entire world? As well as selling records of Western artists such as The Beatles, Doors, Janis Joplin, it was illegal. People in the prowl, illegally dubbed and shared these records with each other. And all this time, television imposed a certain format and music. Of course, a certain taste was formed in people by this method of imposition. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, 2 styles were firmly rooted in the former USSR – “Chanson” is a simple melody with lyrics, which, for the most part, is about the hard life of prisoners and bandits. The second style, “Variety” – same thing basically, but about love and simple life, but with a bit more of pop in this style. I’ll tell you more, these styles are still very popular and the artists who work in them commercially are the most successful in the music scene in Moscow, and all post-soviet countries. This is also due to the fact that the era of the Internet came not so long ago to our countries. It’s going to take 2-3 more generations for people to change the taste of music. So, I would like our radio stations and tele, to begin to pay more attention to new talented, unique artists and reduce the traffic of those who work in the above-mentioned styles that I’m talking about, because, let’s be frank here, no one likes it, except for babuskas.

What do you consider your biggest achievement so far?

The fact that my childhood dream came true and I began to make music. The fact that I was not afraid to take this path and the fact that I overcome with my team all the tasks that life throws at us.

Famous last words?

Set new goals, achieve them, believe in yourself, surround yourself with people who believe in you, and you will succeed.

Follow Vincent Barrea

Website – Facebook– Soundcloud– Instagram – Youtube – Spotify