More Than Freedom: Jon Batiste and the Hyundai IONIQ 3
There are tracks that work as background and tracks that work as argument. “Freedom” by Jon Batiste is firmly the second kind. It doesn’t sit quietly under a campaign film. It makes a case. For joy, for individuality, for living fully rather than just efficiently.
That made it a natural fit for Hyundai’s launch film for the IONIQ 3, the newest addition to the IONIQ line-up. Tracks & Fields handled music research, clearance, and licensing, placing “Freedom” at the heart of a campaign that had a genuinely ambitious brief.
A Campaign That Reaches Beyond the Road
The IONIQ 3 launch film isn’t really a car ad in the traditional sense. There’s no sweeping mountain road, no close-up of chrome catching light. Instead, the film addresses its audience directly. It speaks to people who turn a gig into a masterpiece, who transform their car into a private space, who make room for the people around them. The message is deliberate: this car is for those who want more than the baseline.
The IONIQ 3 itself supports that framing. With its Aero Hatch design, a lounge-like “Furnished Space” interior built for five, and up to 496 km of range on a single charge, it’s a car built around how people actually live. Fast charging from 10 to 80 percent in around 29 minutes, the Pleos Connect infotainment system, and Hyundai SmartSense safety features all point toward the same idea: a vehicle that keeps up with a full life rather than asking you to work around it.
The film, produced by Zauberberg Productions for Hyundai and Innocean Berlin, gives that story a visual rhythm that feels celebratory and personal at once.
A Track That Feels Like Freedom
Jon Batiste occupies a specific and rare place in contemporary music. He moves between genres, jazz and soul and pop and R&B, without ever sounding like he’s trying to. “Freedom,” taken from his 2022 album We Are, has that same quality. It sounds like someone who knows exactly who they are.
That’s not incidental to why the track works here. The campaign’s entire premise is about people who live without apology, who find their own way rather than following the script. Batiste embodies that in everything he does. The track doesn’t just score the film. It confirms the film’s worldview.
Musically, “Freedom” builds. It starts warmly and opens up into something genuinely euphoric without ever tipping into bombast. That arc matches the film’s own movement, from intimate and direct to expansive and celebratory. It doesn’t just describe freedom, as the social post rightly says. It moves it.
When the Music and the Brief Are the Same Idea
The best sync decisions are the ones that feel obvious after the fact. Of course it was “Freedom.” Of course it was Jon Batiste. That feeling of inevitability is hard to manufacture. It comes from finding a track where the creative instinct behind it and the creative instinct behind the campaign are genuinely aligned.
For T&F, that’s what the work is really about. Not just finding a track that fits the tempo or suits the tone. Finding one where the music and the message pull from the same source.
Get in touch and let us help you find the right music for your next project.
