“Someone once told me I should write all my dreams but I don’t see the point / rather live and learn and light a joint,” Siul Hughes begins on “Still Doubting,” the opening cut from Hueman, Hughes’s fifth and latest album, but first with New Haven’s own Fake Four, Inc. It’s a disarming introduction to the bars that follow, which are both effortless and acrobatic, direct and elusive, filled with the complications of being a talented, self-reflective Black man in America, as the pressures from society get mirrored in the pressures that come from within. “The pain is mine,” Hughes concludes, an acknowledgement of both oppression and personal responsibility. It’s a heady trip, and it’s just the beginning.
Originally from Bridgeport, Hughes has been a part of the New Haven hip hop scene for years. Last year he appeared on Ceschi’s Sat, Fat Luck and made a half-hour movie, Hate Fear(s) Love, based partially on his then-most-recent album, F O H. The connection to Fake Four (Ceschi, a.k.a. Julio Ramos, is the label’s head) paid off, as Hueman represents Hughes’s most accomplished work to date. Hughes’s lines are sharper and more incisive than they’ve ever been, while remaining true to the artist’s past and current identities. His arrangements, which have always included thought-provoking samples and jazzier textures, have now also incorporated elements of trap and other more recent styles. In words and music, Hueman is the work of a diligent student of hip hop who also has something to teach.
That sentiment is built right into the album. “If you are an artist, you are a teacher,” says the sampled voice at the beginning of the second cut, “PTSD.” “You’re probably one of the first teachers ever on this planet. That’s what art is. Artists remind us of the beauty, the oneness, the highness, the sacredness. That’s what artists do, all the time. Artists remind us that we are the ones creating the world that we want.” Hughes shows over and over again how seriously he takes this mission, without losing his sense of humor about himself. So “PTSD” finds Hughes delivering his laid-back philosophy while mocking himself for being maybe too up in his feelings.
“Kamehameha,” meanwhile, uses a pastoral piano line as a spine for a more driving electronic beat while the rapping kicks it up a notch, Hughes spitting lines full of love for those around him. It flows nicely into “Where the Heart Is,” which keeps the piano and adds a string section and an old-school drum sample, only to twist itself out into hard-hitting trap, while Hughes moves from style to rapping style with ease and grace, confessional in one line, confrontational in the next, humorous in one minute and heartfelt in the next.
The middle of the album is a master class in how to keep an album cohesive yet varied. “Mama (Who Knows)” manages to be both serene and a little paranoid at the same time, while “Onto Somn” is the kind of song that should be blared out of a set of speakers in a summertime park. “Inanet” — one of dozens of clever wordplays on the album — seems particularly apt for the times as it takes a sideways look at the ways online life has changed us, maybe more for the worse than the better, even as Hughes lays the responsibility for those changes at our feet, not the medium’s. The paired songs “Selfworth” and “Selfluv,” along with “Hear Myself Pt. 2.” find Hughes at his most contemplative, taking on the responsibility of being an artist who knows the effect music can have on an audience. “Are we filling the room with feelings or different elephants?” he asks.
And then, “I Am” takes all that contemplation and turns it into a call to action. Looking at the social unrest we’re currently going through, Hughes talks about finding a way forward that takes in all his thoughts, feelings, and experiences, and then uses them to build a community around him, a community that could encompass us all. “It takes a village just to keep yourself from being shot,” he raps, but “it takes a world just to keep yourself from going nuts.” On Hueman, Hughes’s journey inward leaves the door open for everyone to join him. What better way to try to create the world that you want?