Justin Hicks makes music that doesn’t rush to explain itself. There’s a measured confidence in his work, a sense that each song knows exactly how much space it needs and refuses anything extra. His voice is the anchor: supple, searching, and quietly commanding, capable of holding fragility and resolve at the same time. Rather than chasing genre or trend, Hicks shapes songs that feel lived in—personal without being closed off, expansive without becoming abstract for abstraction’s sake. His work traces what it means to move through the world as a Black man in America, not by declaration, but by accumulation: mood, memory, texture, breath.

That sensibility is especially present on “Oh!,” the second single from his forthcoming debut album Man of Style, due February 20 in recognition of Black History Month. The track pairs Hicks with his wife, Tony-nominated actor and singer Kenita Miller-Hicks, and their voices intertwine with striking intimacy. They don’t perform at each other so much as alongside one another, blending into a shared emotional register that feels unguarded and slow-burning. Miller-Hicks brings a richness and agility to the song that evokes classic soul vocalists without imitation, grounding the track in warmth and depth.

Musically, “Oh!” moves with an understated momentum. Jake Sherman’s Fender Rhodes glows gently at the center, while synth tones flicker like light passing through water. The arrangement resists traditional ballad structure, favoring repetition and restraint over climactic release. It’s a song that leans inward, built for closeness rather than spectacle. Even its most urgent lyric—“I’m so tired but I gotta go faster”—lands not as a cry, but as a shared confession, whispered rather than announced.

Across Man of Style, Hicks treats singing as a form of inquiry. His songs don’t arrive with answers neatly packaged; they linger, hover, and leave space for reflection. Recorded largely over two days in Long Island City and produced with longtime collaborators Meshell Ndegeocello and Chris Bruce, the album feels intimate without being insular. It documents a voice testing its edges—emotionally, sonically, spiritually—and discovering what can live there. Folk, R&B, experimental textures, and noise-adjacent moments all surface, but none dominate. Each track stands on its own, functioning less like a genre exercise and more like a letter or meditation.

The album’s title gestures toward multiplicity rather than surface polish. Man of Style isn’t about aesthetics alone; it’s about holding contradictions. Hicks draws from a lineage of narrative-driven songwriters—artists who blurred the line between confession and performance—while remaining firmly himself. You can hear echoes of classic soul and singer-songwriter traditions, but also the influence of contemporary artists who let form follow feeling. The result is music that doesn’t demand your attention so much as earn it over time.

Hicks’ background informs this approach. Raised in the Midwest by creatively inclined parents—a pastor with visual art ambitions and an educator who sang folk and gospel—music was less a profession than a practice, something embedded in daily life. That ethos carries through his work now. He treats songs as acts of care, aware of their limitations but committed to their potential to comfort, challenge, and connect.

Beyond his solo work, Hicks has built a wide-ranging collaborative life, contributing as a composer, vocalist, and sound artist across disciplines. His collaborations span visual art, theater, experimental opera, and concert performance, including Grammy-winning projects with Meshell Ndegeocello. Yet for all his interdisciplinary reach, songwriting remains his most direct mode of communication—a place where his instincts for clarity, tension, and emotional honesty come into sharp focus.

What ultimately sets Justin Hicks apart is his refusal to perform urgency. His music unfolds patiently, trusting the listener to meet it where it is. There’s no excess, no rush toward resolution. Instead, Man of Style offers something rarer: songs that stay with you, music that doesn’t perform for you but lives alongside you. It’s a body of work that understands intimacy as something built slowly—and believes that’s more than enough.

Veteran singer-songwriter Tony Saint Tone is kicking off 2026 with a burst of energy and optimism in his new single, “The Shift (Into the Light),” out now on all streaming platforms. Equal parts funky, soulful, and danceable, the track is a celebration of release, renewal, and embracing whatever comes next.

From the first note, the song radiates forward motion. A grooving bassline, bright guitar riffs, and a rhythm that practically insists on movement set the stage for a message of transformation and hope. Saint Tone’s lyrics encourage listeners to shed past burdens and step confidently into new chapters—a sentiment that feels especially resonant as the new year begins.

Musically, “The Shift (Into the Light)” bridges generations and styles. Saint Tone draws on the elastic funk of Prince, the soulful swagger of Lenny Kravitz, and the modern pop-rock polish of Maroon 5, creating a sound that’s both familiar and fresh. The chorus—simple yet expansive—lands like an affirmation:

“We’re going through a shift, a lift, a magical time / Out with the old and into the light.”

It’s a reminder that embracing change doesn’t mean ignoring challenges—it’s about moving forward anyway, with intention and joy.

With more than 40 years of performing experience and over 7,000 live shows, Tony Saint Tone has a track record of connecting with audiences. He’s shared stages with Foreigner, Jefferson Starship, Kansas, Blues Traveler, and Travis Tritt, while his music has appeared in films, on MTV, and earned multiple songwriting accolades.

Beyond music, Saint Tone’s Spirit of Music Foundation brings live music to underserved communities, blending art with purpose. That mission echoes in “The Shift (Into the Light),” giving the track heart and a deeper meaning beyond its infectious groove.

“The Shift (Into the Light)” isn’t just a song—it’s a call to embrace transformation with energy, optimism, and a sense of fun. Sometimes, change doesn’t have to feel heavy. Sometimes, it sounds like a groove, feels like a lift, and looks like stepping into the light.

 Garrett Anthony Rice has been quietly carving out a place for himself among songwriters who treat rock tradition as something living rather than nostalgic. His latest double single, “In the Night Time We Shone” and “Purple Man (For Jimi),” feels like a small but meaningful signal that he knows exactly where he comes from and where he wants to go.

“In the Night Time We Shone” arrives in a low glow. It leans into the atmosphere first, built on dark contours and a sense of movement that never forces itself into sharp focus. The chorus opens its arms a bit more, without losing the pulse underneath. When the outro starts to melt into subtle rhythmic experiments, the track has already gotten into this hypnotic pacing that is more like the afterimage of a moment than a remembered one. It’s low key in a manner which indicates the presence of confidence instead of caution. 

“Purple Man (For Jimi),” its companion, stands in conversation with the lineage Garrett draws from. The Hendrix shout out is evident in the title, but the track cleverly avoids the typical pitfalls of homage. Rather than imitation, he is at a place of deep musical communication, thoroughly absorbing the style and feel without attempting to make an exact copy of them. The cycling riff that anchors the song keeps everything locked into a steady forward push. There’s a hint of a softened Foo Fighters energy in the way it carries itself, roughened edges, but smoothed by reflection. It’s a tribute filtered through his own sensibilities, not a reenactment.

Lined up, these two pieces together seem to be a brief glimpse of Equinox, the daring double LP Garrett has been crafting with such meticulousness as to indicate that he is indeed setting up a long play. The work here isn’t flashy. It’s deliberate. It’s rooted. And it’s the kind of writing that tends to reveal an artist who is about to crest into broader recognition, someone aware of rock’s forefathers but unwilling to drown in their shadows.

Hamilton, ON blues-rock outfit Thomas Duxbury and New Mother Nature share “Istanbul” – an energetic, riff-driven release that pairs upbeat, sun-soaked guitar work with deeply melancholic reflection. Equal parts homesick postcard and blues-rock catharsis, the track captures the ache of being split between places, people, and past lives.

“I wrote the song when I was living abroad and feeling homesick,” Duxbury explains. “Before I left for Scotland, I was standing in my driveway talking with my buddy Bruce – who plays keys on this track/bass with us live – and we chatted about potentially doing a trip to Istanbul while I was in Europe. That’s where the line I’m leaving but my heart’s still full, I can’t wait to see you in Istanbul came from. Fast forward about a month – I’m sitting in my dorm room with my guitar, playing what eventually became the riff for this song. I’m writing some words about being alone, feeling away from home… but I can’t find a chorus. Then that memory of the driveway comes to me and I think, ‘that’s the line.'”

1. Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically? 

I feel like there is always this feeling of wishing you were somewhere else. Even now being back I miss the friends I made over there. Once you live away you basically (to be dramatic) doom yourself to a life of missing friends and family. With that said, it also creates the opportunity to meet new amazing people and make new friends. That hole in your heart somehow finds a way to fill itself with wonderful experiences and people. In this example, the wonderful music community of Aberdeen Scotland. Shoutout to my friends over there. In a different experience of mine in living in BC, the wonderful people I met working for Sea to Sky Parks/BC Parks. Shoutout to my Sea to Sky friends! Now, all that said, I wrote this song when I was living abroad in Aberdeen Scotland. I was sitting in my flat picking my guitar my first week there and I was feeling homesick. Wondering if maybe I made a wrong decision or something. It was a cold rainy October late afternoon on a Saturday. I’m thinking back to saying goodbye to my good friend and bandmate Bruce Cole and we’re discussing the idea of potentially doing a trip to Istanbul at some point. And I’m thinking of this line that Bruce had said “I’m leaving but my heart is still full, I can’t wait to see you in Istanbul”. And it clicks. It works with what I am playing at that moment, it works with what I’m feeling at this time. The rest of this tune kind of just came together from there. Following this, I decided to go on an adventure in town! I end up going to this local club thing with a DJ playing top 40s and like some first years or something. To be honest it wasn’t really my thing. I leave… I start walking to the bust stop, almost accepting defeat. But alas! I hear some punk music in the distance, and I think back to something my friend and fellow musician Jeremias said, “when you are lost in a new city you must follow the music”. So! I do! I sneak my way into this punk show, meet some wonderful people that I end up going on a bar crawl with. End up at this place called Krakatoa! And this place is magic. Like a neon tiki pirate punk bar. I ended up finding my way home this evening! The next night! I see that this Krakatoa place is doing an open mic, so I carry my ol’ Stratocaster there and do my best at ripping some tunes. Get invited to hang with some kind folks who eventually ended up working on some upcoming projects that are to be announced. And yeah, this experience I feel perfectly embodies this feeling of the world presenting these experiences so long as you are open. The other side of it too is that I’m always here. I have a line in this tune, “don’t hesitate to call my name from the bottom of a bottle”. Life gets low sometimes and it’s hard to forget that there is love everywhere. I left, my heart was still full, and I cannot wait to see those I care about again. But, there is love everywhere. I am so happy to have these opportunities to live these new experiences and meet such wonderful people along the way. Easy to forget sometimes that although life can be low and painful sometimes there is love everywhere.

2. What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)? 

I wanted to film this at the Hamilton airport for a number of reasons. I feel like I have such an emotional connection to this place from going to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum as a kid when my dad used to volunteer there. The number of spontaneous adventures I’ve gone on from that airport. When I used to have an old pickup truck, I used to bring my dates there to watch planes land and take off. Wondering where people are going or coming from. I wouldn’t say there was much of a story to this video, it’s more of just like a “oh wow this is kind of a neat shot” kind of gorilla videography with some lyric edits. But this place and everything to me I feel fosters such an emotional connection. I feel the video expresses this idea of travel and motion just via its setting basically. 

3. What was the process of making this video?

Yeah, so my buddy Dan Sullivan and I took my old high 8 VHS camera out there right before a sunset and filmed as much as we could before the battery died. So here we are, lining up this first shot with the plane in the background and all. And aside from a car driving by and giving me a weird look and honking (hopefully in support lol) we get the perfect shot! This is the main one you see featured in the video. Then, we look back… The trunk of my car was open the whole time… But its okay, we were racing this sunset, and the shot was too perfect anyways so we keep this open trunk in the video. Get our other shots looking for some cool locations or b footage to shoot yada yada… Decide we should get a shot of a plane landing. So I load up flight radar and find a jet. We are driving around trying to find what runway it will be landing on. Feels like some proper gorilla filmmaking. We get a spot, and boom! Battery dies… so okay great we have the main stuff we need here though. Overall, a successful day. I drop off Dan, and I drive home. I open the camera to take the tape out and forget that the battery is dead. Immediately, the cassette starts spitting out all the tape. At this point I’m thinking well… we’re going to have to redo all that. But the winter is about to start coming and we won’t get these fall themes… Luckily I was able to find a spot that repaired high 8 tapes so they were able to get it all sorted. They were confused why I didn’t want to also digitize it though. I was explaining I like to do some analog editing effects and stuff. You’ll see some glitchy type cuts and such. That’s why I digitize at home. Anyways I was able to get it all sorted and it came out great. We got an absolute magical sunset too. I recently lost a good friend to cancer pretty much within the same week as this was filmed. I like to think this sunset was some sort of gift from him maybe.