For an interview with Pitchfork in which he spoke about each song on Negro Swan, Dev Hynes provided insight into “Charcoal baby”:

Pitchfork: Though you’re a great guitar player, you’ve sometimes backgrounded that skill on Blood Orange records. But this song features a pretty prominent guitar part. What was the thinking behind that choice?.

Dev Hynes: The only reason there wasn’t really guitar on the last couple of records—I mean, there is, but it’s very sparse—is because I didn’t have one. It was never, like, “I’m not gonna use guitar.” At the end of Freetown Sound, when it goes into this acoustic thing, it’s because I’d moved into the studio that was on St. Mark’s, which used to be my lawyer’s room, and he’d left his acoustic guitar there. So I used it.

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 “Charcoal Baby” was one of the first songs that I did with that guitar because I actually had one. [laughs] And I did a lot of crazy shit to that guitar sound. I put two different vinyl effects on it, warping at different speeds, so the guitar is, like, completely out of tune on the whole song, but the bass kind of keeps it locked in. Then, for the vocals, I wanted something that felt a bit more joyous for, quite simply, a celebration of black skin.