Speaking with Hynes about the album at ManhattanвЂ™s sleek Roxy Hotel, he seems at ease if a little tired, sporting a dark blue Kangol beret and rose-pink sunglasses.

вЂњIt made me be maybe a little bit more direct in what IвЂ™m saying,вЂќ he explains. The awareness inspired a sense of being called upon. With Negro Swan, the stream-of-consciousness approach continues, but his perspective has shifted.Д®ven though Hynes is an acclaimed multi-hyphenate solo star who has also worked with stars like Solange, A$AP Rocky, and Carly Rae Jepsen, he says Negro Swan marks the first time heвЂ™s ever realized how far-reaching his voice has grown, as well as how large his audience has become. The results can scan more as sound collages than traditional, song-oriented LPs, brimming with HynesвЂ™ thoughts on blackness, religion, queerness, and history. Following 2016вЂ™s politically minded Freetown Sound, the new album finds Hynes once again translating the diffuse way his mind works into pop-R&B thatвЂ™s alternately slick and gritty, filled with carefully selected guests, samples, and seamless transitions.

It is also his most hopeful record to date. Where HynesвЂ™ previous Blood Orange albums have stepped back from such sharply autobiographical touches, Negro Swan is peppered with them. Before long, a bassline kicks in, and HynesвЂ™ voice enters, singing tenderly about how, after being bullied as a kid back in Essex, England, his вЂњfirst kiss was the floor.вЂќ The effect is instant, a contrast of easygoing familiarity with blunt pain that testifies to the depth of his music. ItвЂ™s the type of intimate, scene-setting detail that will be familiar to those who have followed Dev Hynes вЂ™ Blood Orange project the last few years. N egro Swan opens with the everyday din of a New York City street-honking cars and chatter from passersby-a snippet of his adopted city rendered in found sound.

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