“King Creole” was the name of a mythic Cajun guitarist known for his command of various styles of rock and roll, made famous by the 1958 film named after him…
From Dijon and Figmore to Mereba and Cleo Sol, the best R&B albums of the year were born out of reshaped perspectives in the face of the post-pandemic facade we're now calling reality.
From Dijon and Figmore to Mereba and Cleo Sol, the best R&B albums of the year were born out of reshaped perspectives in the face of the post-pandemic facade we're now calling reality.
For the bravest, most unique voices working in R&B, it's clear that priorities have shifted. In 2021, Mereba and Cleo Sol journaled their way
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Been a While to her singing competition days on
Making the Band 3, Dawn Richard has been making music for almost 20 years. After her pop group Danity Kaneâs dissolution in 2009, she was the only member not let go from her contract with Bad Boy, where all five members had been originally signed. That same year, she joined Diddy-Dirty Money alongside the groupâs namesake and singer/songwriter Kalenna Harper. In less than two years, they recorded an album,
Last Train to Paris, plus two mixtapes before going the route of DK and disbanding in 2012. Since then, Richardâs trajectory as an independent artist has involved balancing artistic freedom alongside financial restraints. Her sixth album
Rolling Stone Dawn Richard’s Long Journey Culminates in the Bountiful Grooves of ‘Second Line’
The adventurous R&B artist takes her sound to bold new places, while creating a New Orleans funk utopia all her own
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Dawn Richard has taken a winding path through her nearly 20-year career. In the early 2000s, an audition for season three of the Diddy-helmed reality show
Making the Band helped lead to stints in the R&B groups Danity Kane and Dirty Money; she’s also been an animator for Adult Swim, a vegan food truck proprietor, a New Orleans Hornets cheerleader, and an solo artist with five albums. That long arc has included moments of commercial success and periods of rejection in the fickle music industry. Now, she finds herself on the North Carolina indie-rock label Merge with her sixth LP,
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28 · 04 · 2021
With a resume that includes cheerleader, Adult Swim animator, vegan pop-up food vendor and martial arts expert, it’s perhaps no surprise that Dawn Richard gets restless playing in one genre. Subtitled ‘An Electro Revival’, Richard’s sixth album is nonetheless a sprawling affair; R&B, house and trap jostle alongside curios such as ‘Le Petit Morte (a lude)’ [sic], a break-up jam unexpectedly belted out over Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’.
Sonically, ‘Second Lines’ arguably divides into three suites: a salvo of club-friendly opening tracks, an uneven middle section that appears to be mainly interludes, and a late rally of emotional electronic pop. On first listen, it’s the bookends that provide the moments of real glory on the record, not least the spellbinding emotional vulnerability of ‘The Potter’ (“Are you proud? Who will hold me now?”) and ‘Perfect Storm’.