Not all titles feel form-fitting. Some feel forced. Others feel purposefully abstract. But just like the nature of his deadpan, dead-on flow, Sincere Hunte’s new album, ROADMAN is titled with purpose. Born in North Carolina, raised in Huntsville, Alabama, and now in Nashville, his is a roadmap of Southern locales that have unavoidably left many marks on his expanding creative persona and versatile sound. And yet, one listen to his new project, to last year’s SO FAR, SO GOOD, or to his 2021 debut, Genesis, and there are no assumptions to be made of where it is that he’s from, or where it is that he’s been. So, where is it that he’s going? Far, by way of Knowledge, Wisdom, and Understanding towards which he credits his creative journey to this point. Reminiscent not of any artists whose sounds represent a particular place, Sincere Hunte is instead reminiscent in many ways to different musical moments, and to the ways in which all of us have experienced and consumed those spaces in time.

 

There were pockets of the early 2000’s where lyrical minimalism in rap was moved underground, while so many in the limelight were outright with their maximalist sounds and subject matter. Through those spaces underneath the floorboards run hip-hop’s eternal centrality, and through it, ROADMAN travels too. Video game soundtracks from the same era - reference Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater or the NBA Street series - and hear the steadfast lyricism and deadpan flow that made their soundtracks not only so listenable through hours and hours of gameplay, but simultaneously influential and timeless. From those cultural confluences, ROADMAN draws parallels. Hear, at the project’s core, something that is truly of rap’s most centric pillars. Rhythm and poetry, both in coalescence with one another, project a retrofuturistic sheen onto Sincere Hunte’s music. And his new album is even more dedicated to depth, individuality, and yet innate reminiscence than either of his prior. That’s because he’s reached the punctuation at the end of his career’s opening trilogy.

 

It’s a natural progression that is easy to hear from the moment ROADMAN begins with HAVANA CANDY. A downtempo sample beat calls to mind a not so distant hip-hop past, while his flow and inflection accentuates it. And yet, it’s new, refreshing, and necessary for a modern spectrum that should perhaps be less reliant on smoke and mirrors, and more focused on the process, the subject matter, and the way it’s conveyed to a listener. With a head-bobbing consistency in his delivery, a listener finds themself instantly submerged in his poetic world, delineating a well-articulated, widely-meandering stream of consciousness before a recording from his mother leads us into the next track. MT. ALTO is a natural progression from its previous. Another sample-ridden beat, and some more spoon-fed flow straight from the jump shines a brighter light on the unique signature that Sincere Hunte is furthering with ROADMAN as a whole. More than anything, it’s another glimpse into his lyrical prowess.

 

But rest assured, though his inflection is deadpan and his flow is dead-on, it doesn’t mean that Sincere Hunte’s sound isn’t flexible. Quite the opposite, his grip on a sound that ties one end of a project to the other graces him some wide maneuverability. Take ROADMAN’s next iteration, EXOSHAPER where his signature sound inhabits darker, noisier production to evoke a completely different set of emotions. Less introspection on his growth, more looking for trouble, the track is a peak example of his ability to change the mood and the energy while staying true to his established aesthetic. The same - albeit in a different direction - can be said for ISITREAL? where Hunte picks up his tempo and unearths even more penned propensity than at any point in the project. It’s a masterclass on a hard-nosed adherence to flow without ever once allowing the track to feel predictable. It’s also got a hell of a video.