''Negro Swan'' is the fourth studio album by
Blood Orange
The blood orange is a variety of orange ( ''Citrus'' × ''sinensis'') (also referred to as raspberry orange) with crimson, almost blood-colored flesh.
The distinctive dark flesh color is due to the presence of anthocyanins, a family of polyp ...
, an alias of British musician
Dev Hynes
Devonté Hynes (born David Joseph Michael Hynes, 23 December 1985), also known as Blood Orange and formerly Lightspeed Champion, is an English singer, songwriter, record producer and director based in New York City. From 2004 to 2006, Hynes was ...
. It was released on 24 August 2018 by
Domino
Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces, commonly known as dominoes. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ''ends''. Each end is marked with a number of spots (also ca ...
. The album was preceded by the singles "Charcoal Baby" and "Jewelry".
Release and promotion
On 19 July 2018, Hynes shared a teaser video of the album featuring a snippet of new music, before announcing the album and making it available for pre-order later the same day. The cover art features an image of Kai the Black Angel sitting on a
car's front window with a white
do-rag
A durag ( alternate spellings) is a close-fitting cloth tied around the top of the head to protect the hair; similarly a wave cap is a close-fitting cap for the same purpose. Durags may be worn to accelerate the development of long curly/kinky ...
on his head and wings clipped to his back. The album was released on 24 August 2018 through
Domino
Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces, commonly known as dominoes. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ''ends''. Each end is marked with a number of spots (also ca ...
.
In a press release, Hynes described the album as "an exploration into my own and many types of black depression, an honest look at the corners of black existence, and the ongoing anxieties of queer/people of color. A reach back into childhood and modern traumas, and the things we do to get through it all. The underlying thread through each piece on the album is the idea of hope, and the lights we can try to turn on within ourselves with a hopefully positive outcome of helping others out of their darkness." The album focuses on these themes heavily in today's current ideals of gender and sexuality. Honesty is a very powerful tool in the production of the album because it is what bridges the gap between understanding viewpoints of oppressed groups. With songs like "Hope" and "Runnin" masculine influences are brought into analysis in order to create an understanding of how societal forces impact the ideals of sexuality. Each song on the album presses this issue with a mix of soul, R&B, and other genre's styles in order to convey a story of facing depression.The press release also stated that the album was entirely written and produced by Hynes.
On 23 July, Hynes performed multiple tracks from the album at the
Pitchfork Music Festival
The Pitchfork Music Festival is an annual summer music festival organized by ''Pitchfork Media'' and held in Union Park in Chicago, Illinois. Starting in 2011, the festival announced a branch staged in Paris at Grande halle de la Villette. The fe ...
, including "Nappy Wonder" and "Charcoal Baby",
the latter was released as the first single from the album on 26 July with a music video directed by Crack Stevens. Shortly afterwards, another single titled "Jewelry" was released, accompanied by a music video directed by Hynes, featuring an appearance from
Janet Mock
Janet Mock (born March 10, 1983) is an American writer, television host, director, producer and transgender rights activist. Her debut book, the memoir '' Redefining Realness'', became a ''New York Times'' bestseller. She is a contributing edit ...
.
In promotion of the album, Hynes embarked on a North American and European tour which began on 5 August at the
Osheaga Festival
The Osheaga Music and Arts Festival (french: Festival musique et arts Osheaga) is a multi-day indie music festival in Montreal, Quebec, that is held every summer at Parc Jean-Drapeau on Île Sainte-Hélène. The festival takes place on six stages ...
and ended on 8 November in
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
.
Composition
''Swans 16 songs weave "impressionist"
psychedelic pop
Psychedelic pop (or acid pop) is pop music that contains musical characteristics associated with psychedelic music. Developing in the late 1960s, elements included " trippy" features such as fuzz guitars, tape manipulation, backwards recording, ...
and "interstellar"
funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...
together, as well as working in "cosy"
bedroom pop
Lo-fi (also typeset as lofi or low-fi; short for low fidelity) is a music or production quality in which elements usually regarded as imperfections in the context of a recording or performance are present, sometimes as a deliberate choice. The ...
.
Due to Blood Orange's eclectic musical sounds, ''Swan'' also digs into
alternative pop
Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commercial ...
,
chillwave
Chillwave (originally considered synonymous with glo-fi and hypnagogic pop) is a music microgenre that emerged in the late 2000s. It loosely emulates 1980s electropop while engaging with notions of memory and nostalgia. Common features inclu ...
,
dream pop
Dream pop (also typeset as dreampop) is a subgenre of alternative rock and neo-psychedelia that emphasizes atmosphere and sonic texture as much as pop melody. Common characteristics include breathy vocals, dense productions, and effects such as ...
,
hip hop soul
Hip hop soul is a subgenre of contemporary R&B music, most popular during the early and mid 1990s, which fuses R&B or soul singing with hip hop musical production. The subgenre had evolved from a previous R&B subgenre, new jack swing, which h ...
,
post-punk
Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-roc ...
,
quiet storm
Quiet storm is a radio format and genre of R&B, performed in a smooth, romantic, jazz-influenced style. It was named after the title song on Smokey Robinson's 1975 album ''A Quiet Storm''.
The radio format was pioneered in 1976 by Melvin Lin ...
,
R&B,
indie hip-hop,
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
, and more.
Critical reception
At
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a
normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, ''Negro Swan'' received an
average
In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...
score of 84, based on 26 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".
David Sackllah of ''
Consequence of Sound
''Consequence'' (previously ''Consequence of Sound'') is an independently owned New York-based online magazine featuring news, editorials, and reviews of music, movies, and television. In addition, the website also features the Festival Outlook ...
'' stated that "''Negro Swan'' is a grand work that gives credit to the pioneers of the culture while building a path forward within that framework, placing Hynes firmly in the canon as one of the most insightful musicians of his generation."
''
Slant Magazine
''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York ...
''s Zachary Hoskins wrote, "It's this ability to capture both sides with equal commitment—the struggle and the resistance through self-love—that makes ''Negro Swan'' Hynes's most assured, accomplished, and significant album to date."
''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' critic Jazz Monroe said "While ''Negro Swan'' elaborates on Hynes's best work, he remains grounded in cosy bedroom-pop by shambling drum machines, vocal compressors and gratuitous psych pedals."
In the review for
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
, writer Andy Kellman stated that the album, "qualifies as Hynes' most inward work, but it's a product of considerable interaction, whether the singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist is handing off ideas to Diddy on the Connected-era
Foreign Exchange
The foreign exchange market (Forex, FX, or currency market) is a global decentralized or over-the-counter (OTC) market for the trading of currencies. This market determines foreign exchange rates for every currency. It includes all as ...
-like "Hope", trading primary instruments with
the Internet's Steve Lacy on the swirling "Out of Your League", or leaving enough room on each track for up to four additional voices, including Kelsey Lu,
Amandla Stenberg
Amandla Stenberg (born October 23, 1998) is an American actress. She was included in ''Time''s list of Most Influential Teens in both 2015 and 2016, and has received several accolades, including a Teen Choice Award, an NAACP Image Award, and no ...
, and
Adam Bainbridge."
Accolades
Track listing
All tracks produced by
Devonté Hynes
Devonté Hynes (born David Joseph Michael Hynes, 23 December 1985), also known as Blood Orange and formerly Lightspeed Champion, is an English singer, songwriter, record producer and director based in New York City. From 2004 to 2006, Hynes was ...
.
Personnel
Credits adapted from ''Negro Swan'' album liner notes.
*
Devonté Hynes
Devonté Hynes (born David Joseph Michael Hynes, 23 December 1985), also known as Blood Orange and formerly Lightspeed Champion, is an English singer, songwriter, record producer and director based in New York City. From 2004 to 2006, Hynes was ...
– vocals, production, guitar, bass, keyboards, saxophone, drums, drum programming, electronic wind instrument, piano, sampling, mixing, art direction
*
Janet Mock
Janet Mock (born March 10, 1983) is an American writer, television host, director, producer and transgender rights activist. Her debut book, the memoir '' Redefining Realness'', became a ''New York Times'' bestseller. She is a contributing edit ...
– narration
* Ian Isiah – vocals
*
Amandla Stenberg
Amandla Stenberg (born October 23, 1998) is an American actress. She was included in ''Time''s list of Most Influential Teens in both 2015 and 2016, and has received several accolades, including a Teen Choice Award, an NAACP Image Award, and no ...
– vocals
* BEA1991 – vocals
* Ava Raiin – vocals
*
Adam Bainbridge – vocals
*
Aaron Maine
Porches (formerly stylized as PORCHES.) is an American synth-pop project of New York-based musician Aaron Maine, formed in Pleasantville, New York in 2010.
History
Maine has also released music under the names Aaron Maine, Aaron Maine and the Re ...
– vocals
*
Tei Shi
Valerie Teicher Barbosa (born 4 October 1989), best known by her stage name Tei Shi, is a Colombian-Canadian singer, songwriter, and record producer based in New York City. She released her first singles and music videos in 2013, also performing ...
– vocals
*
Puff Daddy
Puff may refer to:
Science and technology
* Puff, a small quantity of gas or smoke in the air
** Puff, a light gust of wind
** Exhalation
** Inhalation
* Puff model, volcanic ash tracking model developed at the University of Alaska Fairbanks
* PUF ...
– vocals
* Eva Tolkin – vocals
* Zuri Marley – vocals
* Fai Khadra – vocals
*
ASAP Rocky
Rakim Athelaston Mayers (born October 3, 1988), known professionally as ASAP Rocky ( ; stylized as A$AP Rocky), is an American rapper, music producer and record executive. Born and raised in Harlem, he embarked on his musical career as a membe ...
– vocals
*
Project Pat
Patrick Earl Houston (born February 8, 1973), better known by his stage name Project Pat, is an American rapper from Memphis, Tennessee. He is the older brother of Juicy J, the co-founder of Three 6 Mafia.
Houston was formerly a member of hip h ...
– vocals
*
Diana Gordon – vocals
*
Caroline Polachek
Caroline Elizabeth Polachek (born June 20, 1985) is an American singer, producer and songwriter. Raised in Connecticut, Polachek co-founded the indie pop band Chairlift while studying at the University of Colorado. The duo emerged from the late- ...
- vocals
*
Kelsey Lu
Kelsey Elizabeth McJunkins (born May 12, 1989), known professionally as Kelsey Lu, is an American singer and cellist based in Los Angeles, California.
Early life
Kelsey Lu was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and had a strict Jehovah's Witness ...
– vocals
*
Georgia Anne Muldrow
Georgia Anne Muldrow (born 1983) is an American musician from Los Angeles, California. In 2008, she co-founded the SomeOthaShip Connect record label with fellow artist and former husband Dudley Perkins.
Life and career
Georgia Anne Muldrow grew ...
– vocals
*
Steve Lacy – vocals , keyboards , drums
* Marti – vocals
*
Andrew Aged – vocals , guitar
* Austin Williamson (of Onyx Collective) – drums
* Jason Arce – flute , saxophone
* Mikey Freedom Hart – piano , guitar , keyboards
* Ben Marino – drums
* Malcolm – synthesizer
* Rob Ackwood – guitar
* Matthew Testa – recording
* Zach Brown – mix engineering assistance
*
Mikaelin Bluespruce – mixing
*
Joe Visciano
Joe Visciano is an American Grammy Award-winning, mixing engineer and audio engineer, based in Brooklyn, New York, United States.
Recognition
*2015 Grammy Winner Album of the Year, ''Morning Phase'', Beck
*2015 Grammy Winner Best Engineered A ...
– mixing , additional mixing
*
Ana Kras – cover art
* Matthew Cooper – design
Charts
Release history
References
{{Authority control
2018 albums
Domino Recording Company albums