Last night Dev Hynes surprise dropped his new Blood Orange album Freetown Sound which had a prior release date of July 1. This afternoon he chatted with Zane Lowe on Beats 1 radio on Apple Music about the powerful new record. The two discussed many facets of the album getting to its release date including it's inherent NYC-ism, inspirations, collaborators, and how current events shaped it.
Lowe asked Hynes about the found sounds that are featured on the record, just Hynes recording with his phone, if he felt guilty about using them. Hynes chuckled and said "I would if I didn't live in New York. I feel like using those recordings I'm just adding to the tapestry."
Lowe and Hynes have both lived in the U.K. and their conversation naturally touched about Brexit and the vote for Britain to leave the European Union. Lowe wanted to know how Hynes felt about that as an artist. Hynes related it back to his friends in America.
"It's heartbreaking to see what's happening. In New York, I'm talking to friends and trying to explain the situation and I've been noticing people realize they can't be too complacent. I hate that my homeland was this guinea pig but there's this bubble of being young and living in advanced cities. It's like, no one I know is voting for Trump. We're not necessarily the majority. There's a whole world out there."
Hynes and Lowe get in to a number of other topics related to the record. Hynes said Empress Of and Debbie Harry were two main components of him getting the record finished. "They were there to encourage me when I was up all night working on stuff. They were the spark." He also told Lowe how he framed the paper that Debbie Harry wrote her lyrics down on. Listen to Beats 1 here.
'It’s straight hip hop, it’s jazz, classical. To me they’re the genres that fine tune that. And Miles Davis' - @devhynes on 'Freetown Sound'
— Zane Lowe (@zanelowe) June 28, 2016
