Photo by Scott Dudelson/WireImage
Devonté Hynes is known for his writing and production work with diverse acts such as Solange, FKA twigs, Carly Rae Jepsen, Tinashe, and A$AP Rocky. The London native also performs as Blood Orange, and today he released Negro Swan, his fourth album under the moniker. It features a few surprising guest appearances, including Puff Daddy, who contributed a spoken word part to the fourth track “Hope.”
In a track-by-track breakdown with Pitchfork, Hynes revealed how he was able to land the Bad Boy founder’s vocals. Explaining that he started doing “fake Puff vocals” while working on the song, Hynes said he decided to shoot his shot by sending the Harlem mogul a text.
“He sent back his vocals, like, 20 hours later. And he also sent an outro that he did on his own—I guess he just heard the rough version of it and felt like going in. It was actually way longer,” Hynes recalled. “I had to edit it, it was wild. I don’t know if I caught him on a good day with texting or whatever, but yeah, I feel pretty blessed for that one.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Hynes explained how he linked up with A$AP Rocky and Project Pat on “Chewing Gum,” the most “hip-hop track” on the album. “For a large chunk of time, I was living at Rocky’s house in L.A. So he was around, and he fucked with [the song], which is kind of how that happened,” he said. “With Pat, I felt like I needed someone actually from Memphis to touch it—if I was gonna honor that [sound], I needed an O.G. to be there.”
Hynes also shared an anecdote about working with an unreliable drum machine while recording “Out of Your League” with The Internet’s Steve Lacy. “I was in L.A. and I went to his mum’s house in Compton and brought this drum machine—it’s funny, because it broke two days after, so that’s the last track it was ever on,” he said. “That song is cool because if you heard that me and him were doing a song, you’d probably think I’d be on keys and he’d be on bass, but he’s playing keyboards and I’m doing all the bass.”
Negro Swan also includes features from Tei Shi, Janet Mock, Ian Isiah, and Georgia Anne Muldrow. In the interview, Hynes described it 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.”
Read the full interview at Pitchfork and check out all the lyrics to Blood Orange’s Negro Swan on Genius now.
