Justin Hicks - Man of Style (CD)

Recorded almost entirely across two days in Long Island City, Queens, and produced with longtime collaborators Meshell Ndegeocello and Chris Bruce — Man Of Style is a biography of a voice exploring its own edge, and its beating heart. Hicks’ art is an experiment in singing, and in each track on Man Of Style his voice builds a bridge to the listener. As a songwriter, Hicks makes a home loitering at the edge of folk, R&B, even noise, but in the end the songs stand alone on their own terms — letters, poems, dreams, mantras, manifestos. With this album Hicks claims a space for music that lives with you, not for you — music that takes care.

The album’s title, Man of Style, is more than a nod to fashion or polish. It’s an acknowledgment of multiplicity. Hicks is not one thing—he is many, and his music makes space for all of it.  Justin’s work moves with a kind of narrative intimacy, drawing on the storytelling traditions of artists like Marvin Gaye, Roberta Flack, James Taylor, and Jeff Buckley—artists who blurred the line between confession and performance. And while the record finds kinship with more contemporary artists like Nick Hakim, Georgia Anne Muldrow, and Moses Sumney—musicians who let the work lead, his approach feels fully his own. Hicks offers not just an album, but an invitation: to feel more, to hear differently, and to embrace the strange poetry of being alive in a complicated world. It’s the kind of work that doesn’t beg for validation—it simply unfolds, confident that those meant to find it, will.
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QUOTES

"Truth and Surprise Fill the Songs of Justin Hicks" — Tidal

"Transparent voice moves from pretty to pained within a single phrase" — Wall Street Journal

"The album serves as an autobiography of sorts, one that finds Hicks exploring the boundaries of his own voice through elements of soul, folk and even noise rock." — Rock And Roll Globe

"He manages to fuse a rich array of R&B, soul, rock, jazz, and folk music, dressing his songs in each genre effortlessly." — WNYC

"A Soulful Meditation in Poetry and Song." — The Culture LP

"Justin Hicks with his deeply expressive, vibrato-laden lines that brought life to the moving balladry of “Eyes” and the triumphal encore of “Love,” where he merged with Ndegeocello’s groove to produce a euphoric experience of group harmony that reverberated long into the night." — Downbeat

"Justin Hicks reclaiming the singer-songwriter identity that persisted through decades of noise rock, sound art, and theatrical performance." — The Tonearm
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