Toronto-based singer-songwriter Daniel Caesar finally dropped his highly anticipated debut album Freudian. The 10-track project features Syd, H.E.R., Kali Uchis, and Charlotte Day Wilson. The 22-year-old initially broke out with his impressive Pilgrim Paradise EP in 2015. This month, the R&B singer-songwriter became the first Canadian artist to be featured on Apple Music’s Up Next series about emerging talent in the music industry. He also recently performed on The Late Late Show with James Corden.
In an interview with The FADER, Caesar explained how music for him is purely self-expression:
I sing to myself more than anything. I’m always chastising myself, telling myself to be better, or comforting myself… A lot of young men come up to me and I think they feel me because we’re all just trying to be good in a world that’s socially engineered to [make us feel] like we’re not.
Th album’s lead single “Get You” featuring Kali Uchis has already gained 27 million plays on Spotify and 422,200 pageviews on Genius since it was released in 2016. The official music video has also been watched around six million times. In a series of verified annotations for the track, Caesar told Genius that the song came from a state of self-reflection and the Bible was a major influence. “It was like in a religious song, where it’s pleading and thanking God for whatever he’s done for you,” he said. “It’s that same sort of thing, just being thankful.”
