Neat thing about listening sessions: it's the one space in time where constructive criticism is thrown completely out the window. That can be dealt with afterward, once you figure out what exactly your ears have just digested.
Naturally, OneHunnidt angled mostly for fun and relaxation on Monday night. He'd already written 60 songs for his Field Sobriety project, whittling everything down to 13. In so many ways, while speaking about the album OneHunnidt expressed that is about always being indecisive -- and human.
"The concept behind the album is about me and the maturity of me as a man," the rapper said with a hint of pride in his voice. "I'm indecisive and I'm a person. Since I change every day, it was hard to put these thoughts together."
He stood inside a renovated area, a small ballroom outfitted with a full stage, a projector hanging overhead and dim lights to add ambience. "You wouldn't have guessed this was KCOH," a woman told us beforehand. "Two weeks ago this room didn't look like this."
Yes, KCOH is undergoing a facelift and Hunnidt joked that for one night he was at least going to be fake-fancy with catered food and alcohol. But once Field Sobriety became the singular topic of discussion, the words were minced.
Nobody appreciates February 4 if you've known OneHunnidt. It's not Groundhog Day, but it is the inspiration for his first full-length project, Legacy of a Legend. A bowling ball of catharsis and agony, it stems from the death of his brother Jonathan Johnson in 2010. OneHunnidt's advancement as a rapper, leaving the parameters of just making poems, rose with 2012's Keep It 100, which eventually garnered him a Best Solo Rap plaque at the Houston Press Music Awards that year. Even if it wasn't on the album, Hunnidt was going to play us "Forever In Our Hearts" and make us realize the significance of the album coming at this particular moment in time.
Any listening session will tell you that probably nobody is truly analyzing the music the way a critic might. It plays in the background, the soundtrack to idle conversations and plenty of catching up. Given how connected OneHunnidt is to seemingly everybody, the rapper made slight concessions here and there, offering how a long conversation with local scribe and music journalist Cecilia Smith helped spawn the entire tape. Her voice is heard throughout much of Field Sobriety, her own time stamp opening up the boom-bap, old-school vibes of "Empty Goals" with George Young.
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