Haz Mat

Haz Mat is an ambassador of the Detroit vibe in all its diversity. With a musical knowledge going way beyond electronic music, the artist is blending different influences within his musical creativity to bring a new spirit in house music. His “electric improv” approach allows him to reinvent himself continuously and his live performances are garnering him critical acclaim from the Detroit and international techno communities.

Detroit based, pianist, producer and talkboxer, Walter “Haz Mat” Howard has been blending hypnotic beats and tantalizing sounds effortlessly for the past fifteen years. Inspired by his peers like Norm Talley, Haz Mat attributes much of his musical inspiration from working with artists such as Kenny Dixon, Amp Fiddler, Bass Culture and a good friend Delano Smith. As a result, Haz Mat personally builds his house music from scratch, from the bass part to the beats, to the melody. After growing up in a rich musical culture and spending his early years being self taught, Haz Mat was afforded the opportunity to further is musical education at the Detroit High School for the Fine and Performing Arts as an instrumental and vocal major and the Bethune-Cookman College Jazz studies program.

Haz-Mat did a lot of collaborations in the soul and the hip-hop scenes with artists such as Bilal, Mr. Porter from D12, Mary J Blige or The Game to name a few. The artist finished a tour of Asia lately with Motown legends The Four Tops and also had the privilege to play with The Spinners and Charlie Wilson, founder of the funk group The Gap Band most recently, He teamed up with the Scott Grooves to form the live group Overdubs. They have played at the famous TV-Lounge in Detroit, the Electric Forest, and at the Electric Pickle in Miami.

Haz Mat also performed in many of the major music festivals in Detroit, including both Tec-Troit and Charivari festivals as well as Movement pre-parties at The Marble Bar and The Works. HazMat recently signed on as an artist with Third Ear Recordings where he released his first album (2017) Movement Festival.