Because just as the movie industry enjoys saying things like, “It’s Sharknado meets La La Land,” so, too, does the music biz relish the opportunity to help commodify art by comparing one entity to another in order to make it as relatable–therefore bankable–as possible. One could picture someone at a more corporate label (or even an “indie” one these days) saying of marketing for Dev Hynes’ fourth record in the incarnation of Blood Orange, “It’s like Kendrick Lamar for queer black folk.” And since it’s no longer deemed acceptable to bill all black people together as a demographic unit without many nuances and layers in between outside appearance (read: color), the exec in question has to liken the significance of Blood Orange’s work to an important conventionally straight black man.
That Kendrick Lamar’s 2017 DAMN. won the Pulitzer Prize for Music earlier this year is further attestation to the institutions that cater to the white masses gradually “coming around” to the “shocking” idea that black artistry is poignant–often more so than anything that has been or will ever be said by a white male (talking to you, Bob Dylan, but not you, Leonard Cohen). Blood Orange has never been shy about making music that describes the sadness of constantly being billed as “the other”–not merely as a black man, but as a queer black man.
Although dedicated to “anyone who had ever felt not black enough, too black, too queer, not queer the right way,” 2016’s Freetown Sound (named in honor of the town where his father hailed from in Sierra Leone) made the concept behind this perpetual feeling of outsiderness pertain to more literal foreignness, as was the case on the single “Augustine,” in which Blood Orange gets all M.I.A. with the lyric, “My father was a young man/My mother off the boat/My eyes were fresh at twenty-one/Bruised but still afloat/Our heads have hit the pavement/Many times before.” With Negro Swan, this theme of foreignness is no longer literal, so much as applied to the understanding that to be “the other” in almost every mainstream scenario can take a toll on the psyche, to say the least, leading to the solipsistic problem of wondering whether their perception of you as an ugly duckling is correct or if, somewhere deep down, you are perhaps the glorious swan you know yourself to be.
From the moment “Orlando” begins, Hynes digs deep into his past to address the very thing that ultimately spawned Blood Orange–being beat up on an incessant basis as a youth growing up in Essex, naturally because he was “different.” As he phrases it, “First kiss was the floor.” As a form of survival, Hynes likely had to suppress his emotions throughout this period of physical abuse, later commenting, “…that’s essentially what Blood Orange is the result of; me trying to find the most comfortable I can be with everything. It’s also what caused the delay; I had to almost build myself up again.”
Martyrdom might be a glamorized road these days (see: the sudden Heather Heyer dedication at the end of BlacKkKlansman), but it certainly doesn’t make it any easier to travel. That much is made clear on “Saint” (not to be confused with Kanye West’s child of the same name), with Hynes acknowledging “the ongoing anxieties of queer people of color” as he and a bevy of other vocalists sing, “Spreading all my love for you/You never tell me all that you do/Quiet when it’s done, will you ever run?” and “Your skin’s a flag that shines for us all/You said it before/The brown that shines and lights your darkest thoughts.”
The slowed down “Take Your Time” accents the vibrant emotionalism of Hynes as he reflects on the accepted and expected daily struggle of the black queer person who “can’t keep placing [him]self below/Waiting for [his] headache to go.” Laying into the overarching theme of self-acceptance that invades Negro Swan, “Take Your Time” leads into the affecting “Hope” featuring a shockingly, as Cher H would say, “way existential” Sean Combs (who will always be Puff Daddy no matter what) and Tei Shi. Rather proving that Kanye ain’t shit, Puff waxes, “Sometimes I ask myself, like you know, what is it going to take for me not be afraid to be loved the way, like, I really wanna be loved? But that I know how I really wanna be loved. But I’m, like, scared to really, really feel that. You know, it’s like you want something but you don’t know if you can handle it… Maybe one day I’ll get over my fears and I’ll receive.” It kind of makes one wonder if Jennifer Lopez made a huge mistake in letting him go.
The second single from the record, “Jewelry,” touches on the very thing that Americans are best at: doing the least and expecting the most, and all as a means to best fit in with the herd. Janet Mock’s (the first transgender black woman to both write and direct a TV series [thanks Ryan Murphy!], FX’s Pose) interludes throughout the narrative of the album (most especially present on “Jewelry”) add rich depth and credence to the sadness of not belonging and the wondrousness of finally coming to a point of “okayness” with yourself to where you finally do, because you have made a place for yourself in the world via self-acceptance. And part of that self-acceptance comes from not buying into this false notion that you have to dumb yourself down or lessen your abilities so as to be seen as a viable part of the masses.
Mock introduces the track with the spoken words, “So, like, my favorite images are the ones where someone who isn’t supposed to be there, who’s like in a space, a space where we were not ever welcomed in, we were not invited yet we walk in and we show all the way up. People try to put us down by saying, ‘She’s doing the most,’ or ‘He’s way too much.’ But, like, why would we want to do the least?” To this point, Hynes’ “on the runness” from America for a minute (recording the album in locations as far-reaching as Copenhagen, Florence and Tokyo) is clearly a result of a certain Orange One’s ominous overtaking of the land. In an interview with The Guardian, Hynes stated, “[Trump’s America is]” pretty intense. The most worrisome thing now is this sense of hyper-normalisation that takes over. It’s really at the point where there’s not a single thing that is shocking. Which is so crazy.”
Despite being away from his beloved NYC throughout most of the recording, Hynes commented on the irony of how, “In a way, it’s made the album sound even more New York-y. The city is so ingrained in me that being away from it makes it even more so.” To this point, possibly the most magical thing about New York, the element that keeps people staying in the face of every aspect of common sense telling one not to is, as Mock phrases it, “We get to make ourselves, and we get to make our families.” In so many ways, New York is the town most representative of this phenomenon of reinvention, of “the spaces where you don’t have to shrink yourself, where you don’t have to pretend or to perform. You can fully show up and be vulnerable. And in silence, completely empty. And that’s completely enough.”
The “Family” interlude transitions perfectly into “Charcoal Baby.” Redefining the meaning behind the associated conventional beauty of a swan by calling it a “negro swan,” Hynes laments, “No one wants to be the odd one out at times/No one wants to be the negro swan/Can you break sometimes?” Incidentally, the sparseness of guitar on most of the songs of Negro Swan is a result of Hynes only using the materials provided in each studio he just so happened to randomly record in, “but finally, through some blessings or luck, Fender made a guitar for me. Which is so crazy, because as a kid I had one guitar and it broke, and that was it.” So sure, you can break sometimes… and then maybe something new and better comes out of the brokenness, this “celebration of black skin” being one such example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2kg3I3biyM
Sometimes, however, it seems as though others of the non-black bent are a little too celebratory of black skin. That being said, the to the point in its message, “Vulture Baby,” another “interlude,” of sorts, for its brevity is Blood Orange expressing his simultaneously amusement and disdain for the grafting and sanitization of black culture (yes, Beyoncé is an exemplar of this). Explaining his intent to one of the ultimate institutions promoting of these types of musicians, Pitchfork, Hynes explained, “It’s about white people who have got their cred by flirting with rap culture, and now they’re gonna show their country roots. I thought it was kind of a funny trend. It was almost like, as PC culture was rising, white people were suddenly like, ‘Oh shit, maybe I shouldn’t be on this Migos track.'”
One person who is always willing to get on the whitest girl you know’s (Lana Del Rey) track, on the other hand, is A$AP Rocky, who makes an appearance on “Chewing Gum.” As one of the tracks with the most noticeably aggravated backing beats, it makes sense, then, that Hynes’ should choose to use “this really insane metaphor” of oral sex for the near pointlessness of getting riled up all the time over the state of things. Of “basing yourself, and racing yourself in the name of truth.” A siren-y flourish inserted toward A$AP’s part is an undercutting nod to the police being a congenital part of this black outrage. And even the cover of the album, which features Kai the Black Angel on it, evokes that all too common image of the black person being pinned to a car with their back outward-facing to a cop. Except, in this case, like so much else Blood Orange has reinvented on this record, the image is instead a peaceful and serene one, with the added touch of actual angel wings making him look too pure for this world.
And on the note of purity, “Holy Will” featuring Ian Isiah is arguably Blood Orange’s most spiritual cut to date, with Hynes interweaving it onto Negro Swan as a means to remind people that hope is hope, no matter how you find it–or no matter how it can so often, to others, come across as self-delusion more than anything else.
His most 1980s-spirited in auditory tone (he wanted “to have this Cocteau Twins feel to it”) Hynes once again goes back to the days of being bullied on “Dagenham Dream.” Recalling one of his more brutal beatings after which he finally felt compelled to cut his hair, stop painting his nails and, in short, act the part of heteronormative male, there is a bittersweetness throughout. Again, to lend layers to the melancholy is Janet Mock at the end. Sounding at her most Winnie Holzman in terms of giving us dialogue that sounds that it could come out of the mouth of a My So-Called Life character, she states, “I think that through my life I’ve always been hyperconscious and aware of not going into spaces and seeking too much attention. Um, because part of survival is, like, being able to just fit in. To be seen as normal and to, like, quote-unquote belong. But I think that so often in society in order to belong means that we have to, like, shrink parts of ourselves.”
Michael Jackson, who himself knew quite a bit about this phenomenon, practically possesses the vocal cords of Blood Orange as he persists in embarking on the past on “Nappy Wonder.” With skateboarding being one of the few sources of solace for Hynes as a youth, he name checks the street where he would “bust it up,” Ilford Lane, in addition to referencing the Barking neighborhood in Essex, the very place that caused him so much pain, and yet, at the same time, so much inspiration. Chanting, “Feelings never had no ethics/Feelings never have been ethical,” it’s almost as though Hynes is unwittingly trying to apologize for those racists and fearers of “otherness” by explaining that they themselves can’t even explain why they hate.
A strong confirmation that no matter how dark one’s times and internal emotions are, it can always be similarly contrasted by light, there is “Runnin’.” To provide that light on this particular song is Georgia Anne Muldrow, who comforts Blood Orange’s declaration that “there’s nowhere to go/And it’s harder to be on your own/And it’s hard when the night owns your soul,” with the jubilant and triumphant assurance, “You and your soul are never not one I said, you and your soul are never not one/Whoa, rise and shine, rise and shine/’Cause you and your soul are never not one/Hold on, yes/You gonna be okay, you gonna be okay/Everybody goes through it/You’re gonna be alright/Just hold on to your mighty way of being.” Arguably the entire crux of the message behind Negro Swan, Muldrow’s urging to hold tight, stay the course is half the battle in this life.
Back to an 80s sensibility on “Out of Your League” featuring Steve Lacy, Blood Orange offers us another “be true to yourself” anthem as he encourages what, in your mind, might seem like failed potential with, “Maybe a thing that you wanted is all that you need/Don’t have to fill no expectation that aren’t the thoughts that you conceive.” Unfortunately, sometimes, our cruelest critics can be our own damn selves (on that note, do not ever enter this head should you be bequeathed with the opportunity to do so by some strange Being John Malkovich turn of fate).
Showing, once more, his undying devotion to his honorary home of NYC, “Minetta Creek” is named in homage to the aboveground body of water that once ran through Washington Square Park to the Hudson River, and whose current only trace remains a street and lane named in its memory in Greenwich Village. Once again, while not expressly “queer,” per se (he’s been dating the same Serbian bia/prodigy of a furniture designer, Ana Kraš, for years), Blood Orange speaks to the black queer “other” with the lyric, “Choose your sex to find a relief/Nothing is forgiven, black skin and my rhythm/And you know that it’s all at a cost.” The cost, that is, of surrendering by “subscribing” to one classification is, in the end, turning your back on the identity that is genuinely yours, something that might not necessarily be attributable to a single word. So yeah, thank baby J, Solange Knowles gunned for Blood Orange to keep working on the track until he felt it was worthy of making it onto the record. To further enhance the track, it also unwittingly reminds its listeners that Minetta Creek existed at a time when that part of New York was being dubbed “Little Africa” as it was a specific patch where the Dutch settlers “allowed” partially freed slaves to reside. Algonquin Native Americans had previously called the area Mannette, meaning demon or spirit water. How telling, then, that the black people should be relegated there by the whites.
One would like to believe we’ve come a long way since that time, though (even if it’s not always effortlessly distinguishable from one time period to another with regard to racism in America). Thus, the self-loving, life-affirming “Smoke” is fittingly what serves as Negro Swan‘s coda. Giving us Tracy Chapman on guitar vibes, Blood Orange underscores and synthesizes his long time coming belief that if you don’t betray who you are, you will eventually believe the credo: “I’m pretty as fuck, ay, ay/Choosing what you wear and getting this far.” And don’t ever for one second forget that you have, indeed, gotten this far. And so you can keep going.
Will it ever pay off to, in order to stay true to your own values and character, remain an ugly duckling in the eyes of society? Who can say? Maybe the only reward is perhaps knowing yourself that you are a swan on the basis of never caving to their idea of how you should be in order to be “right,” “acceptable.” In other words, to the abstraction that is society, we say, “You’ll never be Negro Swan.”
