On a blazing July afternoon in Midtown Manhattan HULKSICKO! walks into my semi clean office in his green BooHooMAN hoodie. He appeared to be unbothered by the ninety degree temperature that casted over the day. As I watched him twist his hair, he stopped to look around my office.
Surprisingly, he wasn’t accompanied by the crew you’d assume an upcoming artist with his status would have. It fits perfectly with the type of music he makes, but I think he will need to put together some type of entourage soon.
After shaking my hand he immediately turned and said “I’m cool?” referring to the comfier of the two chairs in the room. We then reminisced about his times living in the Bronx and the many other places he’s been since. He repeatedly mentioned being bummed about having to cancel his trip to Los Angeles in two days. Although, it wasn’t too bad as the former highschool basketball player is willing to go anywhere to shoot content. No LA meant heading back to Maine to record and grab some Portland lobster rolls at the end of the month.
His most recent single “One at a Time” has gotten over 550,000 plays on Spotify and he just graduated highschool. But he doesn’t let this get to his head, telling me about his dreams of becoming an entrepreneur. It’s one of the reasons he studies Chinese so hard, and has been for over six years. He said he feels it’s apart of him, teaching him “Hard work pays off in most cases.”
Even though he has never said so, the self proclaimed “Sicko” can be considered one of the most unique artists of this generation. He climbed the latter from being a highschool kid randomly uploading tracks on Soundcloud to a solo recording artist traveling internationally to make music.
Reaching different corners of the world he has managed to get his music in the ears of the right people. It left us discussing his plans to possibly be heading to Shenzhen, China. Not a spot many U.S. artists go to record. Hulk encourages artists to “step out of their comfort zone” saying it’s mandatory for any artist trying to grow. It’s something he’s learned from his favorite rappers Lil Baby and Lil Uzi. The two household names that have motivated him to keep making music over the years. Even immediately after having hip surgery HULKSICKO! remembers freestyling in the back of his moms Toyota on the way home.
New melodies are a strong suit for this dual lingual rapper. Prior to discovering the sound he stuck with on his glorified single “4 Floors,” he listened to every genre of music. “You have to try every flavor before you know your favorite” says the soft spoken New York artist. While living in the Bronx he never rapped and was always on the courty which kept him on the right path for the most part. Although, after getting in too much trouble by his mom’s standards, she sent him to boarding school to focus on playing basketball. It wasn’t then until he decided to start recording with former teammate Noah Collier. He showed his range of melodies in his first ever project “Slap Ya Self” where all 11 songs sit uniformly in the new age trap genre.
His rap style is reflective of his two favorite super stars mentioned earlier. With that said, he puts a twist on things using his beat choice to really
set the tone for each song. Looking back to his soundcloud days in one of his earliest songs “Adama,” Hulk experimented with stretching vocals for the first time. From then on it was something that he made sure to add to his arsenal of tools that is constantly developing.
With much of his career still ahead of him, we can expect for HULKSICKO! to drop a lot more visuals during quarantine. It goes without saying that getting his face out there while everybody is stuffing their face in the newest technology won’t hurt. I won’t be surprised to see his face on a billboard one day, so if you’re ever in China make sure to keep an eye out.
