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Last year, Miley Cyrus earned heaps of negative press for distancing herself from the hip-hop sound that made her 2013 album Bangerz the biggest success of her career. Saying that lyrical vulgarity “pushed me out of the hip-hop scene a little,” she instead opted to release the country album Younger Now to lukewarm reception. On his new album Negro Swan, Blood Orange (a.k.a. Devonté Hynes) seems to take her to task for her flippant treatment of black culture.
In a recent interview with Pitchfork, Hynes explained how “Vulture Baby” was inspired by a certain white pop star who went back to country music. He doesn’t mention her by name, but his critique parallels Miley’s career:
I don’t think anyone can hear the lyrics I’m saying on this song. I’m basically talking about an artist—who shall not be disclosed. But I read an interview with them talking about how they were done with hip-hop culture and wanted to go back to… actually, you know what, this could be applicable to a lot of artists last year, now that I think of it. 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.’
The “Vulture Baby” lyrics address abandonment by a woman:
Give it some time
See how it goes
She’ll change her mind
This is hardly the first time that Hynes has spoken about cultural interlopers. In an annotation on his 2015 song “Sandra’s Smiles,” he expressed frustration about the way white celebrities use black culture for personal gain but don’t reciprocate when the black community needs them:
It seems things haven’t improved since then from his perspective.
Listen to the song above and read all the lyrics to Blood Orange’s “Vulture Baby” on Genius now.
