29 For capturing the moment

Dev Hynes (aka Blood Orange) PRODUCER, SINGER-SONGWRITER

Dev Hynes, who performs as Blood Orange, pushes with his words, music, and indeterminate identity against rigid definitions of race, sexuality, and culture. His unstructured aesthetic is his one consistency, whether he’s producing tracks for Solange Knowles, FKA Twigs, ASAP Rocky, or himself. His acclaimed 2018 album, Negro Swan, which has been streamed 40 million times, could be the soundtrack for today’s anxious, fractured, gender-fluid times— insider music for every outsider. There’s a quote attributed to you that’s hard to shake. You said that you’re always surprised when you meet someone who hasn’t been punched in the face. Growing up [in East London], there were some severe bullying moments. Negro Swan is a response to that. I tried to evoke [it] sonically. I’ve always felt when I meet people that I can tell—i don’t wish for people to be punched in the face, but it does something, it changes you. Your music blurs so many boundaries. How do you get it to hang together? There’s a lot of study and research, but within that, it’s loose. For example, I knew the title would be Negro Swan, [and] I started piecing together visually and moodwise what that was evoking for me. It was a lot of neoclassical, romanticstyle things mixed with early images of successful black men in pop culture back in 2000, when I was 14. Paintings by Carava io mixed with Lil Wayne. [Laughs] What I’m reading plays a role in the language I use. Do you think definitions of race, gender, and culture will ever dissolve? It could get there. I don’t know if I’ll be alive for it. [Laughs] I do think entertainment helps to dissolve those boundaries. If another person is different from me but can pick up a sense of being themselves from what I’ve done, that’s great. It’s the one thing I hope people get from my music. That and a cool drum sound.