Dylan Sinclair released No Longer in the Suburbs on May 11, 2022, through The Orchard, an eight-song project that reads, four years on, as the exact moment the Toronto singer stepped out of the family home and into his own story. This is a catalogue project, framed as catalogue: nothing here is new, and the Dylan Sinclair No Longer in the Suburbs record has only grown in stature since, carrying a Polaris longlist spot and a Juno nomination on its way to becoming the foundation his debut album was built on.
Sinclair was 20 years old at release, a Filipino-Guyanese singer raised north of Toronto who had started in a church choir and built his name the slow way. He explained what the move in the title meant to him at release:
“No Longer in the Suburbs really represents the search for that stimulation, that faster life or those experiences that when you’re old, you get to look back on them and be like, yeah, I did that and with people that I love.”
Dylan Sinclair No Longer In The Suburbs Started With Proverb
The road in runs through producer Jordon Manswell. Sinclair’s 2018 debut EP Red Like Crimson caught the ear of the Toronto producer known for his work on Daniel Caesar’s Freudian, and the pair’s first collaboration, Proverb, arrived in September 2020 through Five Stone Records. That short, gospel-tinged project tallied 25 million streams and earned Sinclair his first Juno nomination, for Traditional R&B/Soul Recording of the Year at the 2021 Juno Awards. A teenager from the suburbs had a national nomination before he had a second project, and the question hanging over the follow-up was whether the voice would survive contact with the city it was singing about.
No Longer in the Suburbs is his answer, and he framed it deliberately as one more short statement before the full album he already had in mind. He told Raydar Magazine:
“I wanted to just put one more EP together before I really get in with my guys and now I’m at a place with my songwriting abilities and ear where now we can put together an album.”
Eight songs, then, on purpose: less is more was the stated logic, and the sequence plays like a diary of the move itself, from the opener “Rational” through the closing doubts, each track a different room in a first apartment.
Eight Songs About Leaving, Sung From Inside The Move
The production bench tells the ambition plainly: Boi-1da, Jordon Manswell and Marcus Semaj share the board, Grammy-winning hands building a small, confessional record. “Rational” opens it, carrying the lyric Sinclair named at release as his favourite on the project: “to be free is to feel the pain with no sense of fear.” “Too Soon?” slows the vocal samples to a crawl while he challenges a partner not to treat him differently after a confession of love. “Lifetime,” released ahead of the project on April 13, 2022, is the doubt song, Sinclair questioning his own resolve in the face of coming fame and singing that he hopes he does not change like the wind.
“Suppress,” the February 25, 2022 single he built in his room while pushing himself toward new flows and cadences, sits beside “I’m In It,” the track written for the live rooms he was about to play. The focus track, “Open,” states the project’s thesis in relationship terms: a promise to be more reciprocal, to actually let a partner in. Its official video, above, directed by Ryan Fanseda, puts Sinclair at a studio microphone in headphones, singing the promise like a vow he is recording for evidence. “If You Feel Like Leaving Me” does the opposite work, reluctantly opening the door if the love is no longer enough, and that honesty about both directions, staying and leaving, is what separates this record from a simple coming-of-age postcard.
What The Project Set Up
The industry heard it clearly. Sinclair was named one of Apple Music and Complex’s R&B Artists to Watch for 2022 and was picked as Spotify’s RADAR Canada featured artist for May 2022, the month of release. He played a Juno Fest showcase presented by CBC Music on May 12, 2022 and made his debut that July 7 at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, the world’s largest jazz festival. The deluxe edition followed on November 3, 2022 with four additional songs, including the September 28, 2022 remix of “Open” featuring Destin Conrad and Jvck James and “never,” his collaboration with Joyce Wrice.
The honours then compounded in a way few eight-song projects manage. No Longer in the Suburbs was longlisted for the 2023 Polaris Music Prize and earned Sinclair his second Juno nomination, for Contemporary R&B/Soul Recording of the Year at the 2023 Juno Awards. That same night he won his first Juno Award, taking Traditional R&B/Soul Recording of the Year for “Last One,” his duet with Savannah Ré. The through-line is direct: the polish, patience and producer trust built on this project carried straight into FOR THE BOY IN ME, the 12-track full-length he released on September 27, 2024, which drew his third Juno nomination. Debut albums rarely arrive this prepared, and this EP is the preparation, documented.
How To Hear It Now
Play No Longer in the Suburbs in sequence, “Rational” to the end, and listen for a singer narrating a move he is still in the middle of: the suburb behind him, the city unproven, the relationship held together by promises he is learning to keep. For his newer work on iimiTV, read the coverage of his “Safe To Say” video. Released May 11, 2022, No Longer in the Suburbs is Dylan Sinclair leaving home on the record, and Toronto R&B has been following his route into the city ever since.
