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GRAMMYs

Dev Hynes

Photo: Michael Ostuni/Getty Images

News
How Collaboration Made Blood Orange's 'Negro Swan' how-collaboration-and-little-magic-made-blood-oranges-negro-swan

How Collaboration And A Little Magic Made Blood Orange's 'Negro Swan'

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Dev Hynes reveals how he was able to creatively weave his personal stories with so many distinct voices on his new project
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Sep 6, 2018 - 11:11 am

The musician and producer Dev Hynes, best-known for his indie electro R&B project, Blood Orange, released Negro Swan on Aug. 24, his fourth LP under that moniker. Not unlike his music career, the album brings together an unexpected group of collaborators which together showcase Hynes' creative vision and unique voice in an organic way.

The third single from the album, "Saint" highlights Hynes' masterful collaboration skills. The song features the voices of four other artists, including the indie-rock band Porches, all of which were recorded in different studios at different times. The music video, like many of his, including for "Jewelry," was directed by the multi-talented (yet impossible to label) artist himself.

Thanks to circumstances even Hynes himself may never know, with perhaps an almost magic text message, Hynes was able to get a dream collaboration on "Hope." The track fits its title, with the one and only Puff Daddy offering hopeful spoken-word messages throughout the song.

"What is it going to take for me not to be afraid to be loved the way, like, I really wanna be loved?…You give me that hope that maybe one day I’ll get over my fears and I’ll receive,” Puff says on the track.

In an interview with Pitchfork, Hynes shares how the collab came together rather serendipitously. "While working on that song, I started doing fake Puff vocals, because I thought it sounded like that to me. And then I was like, 'It’d be kind of cool if it actually was Puff.' So I sent him a text, like, 'I did this track, do you want to do this vocal part?' And he replied, 'Send it.' He sent back his vocals, like, 20 hours later," he shared, almost in awe himself of how it came together.

The second single from the album, "Jewelry," feels like an organic stream of consciousness with distinct parts, a distillation of the album's themes and perhaps the artist's life experiences as a whole. Hynes' said that his label had been on him to get album art, but he had a gut feeling that the right image to represent the album would come from the shoot, and indeed it did. He wanted to work with Kai the Black Angel in the video, and a stunning image of him from the video shoot, wearing angel wings through the streets of New York, became the Negro Swan cover art.

Clearly the artist knows when to trust his intuition and let the art flow naturally. If more evidence of this was needed, one could point to him featuring writer/director/activist Janet Mock as the narrator on the album, offering her insights on the albums themes across many of the tracks. Her voice and perspective offers a deeper cohesion to album, yet Hynes shares that her words were taken from a conversation they had one day in his studio when their paths crossed in New York; he shared his Negro Swan inspiration notebook with her and recorded her thoughts on it.

While Negro Swan has recently created a lot of buzz around Hynes, and for good reason, he is no stranger to the music industry, having spent a lot of time behind-the-scenes writing and producing for a wide range of artists across genres, including GRAMMY winners Kylie Minogue, Solange, Basement Jaxx, and Chemical Brothers on "All Rights Reserved" from their GRAMMY-winning We Are The Night. There must be more than a little magic and a whole lot of creative vision behind what he makes feel almost effortlessly natural.

Frank Ocean takes home 2013 GRAMMY for 'Channel Orange'

Blood Orange

Dev Hynes / Blood Orange

Photo: Julia Reinhart/Redferns/Getty Images

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Blood Orange Reveals 2020 Tour With Tei Shi blood-orange-announces-2020-tour-dates-tei-shi-including-radio-city-show

Blood Orange Announces 2020 Tour Dates With Tei Shi, Including A Radio City Show

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The Brooklyn-based multi-hyphenate will be making his headline debut at New York City's iconic Radio City Music Hall on March 20, 2020
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Dec 10, 2019 - 1:41 pm

From scoring the critically acclaimed film "Queen & Slim," slaying Coachella, touring with Tyler, The Creator and releasing the Angel's Pulse mixtape, Devonte Hynes, a.k.a. Blood Orange, has had a triumphant 2019.

Given his tour announcement today, which includes a debut headline show on March 20, at New York City's legendary Radio City Music Hall, it looks like 2020 will be another great year for the "Hope" singer.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B55d0KvhUbj/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

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Before the Brooklyn-based artist takes over Radio City, he will begin his trek on March 7 at Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival in Okeechobee, Fla., followed by two nights in Atlanta on March 9 and 10 and a show at Chicago's historic The Vic Theatre on March 13. He will also perform in Detroit, Toronto and Washington, D.C. before closing things out with a bang back home in New York.

Related: How Collaboration And A Little Magic Made Blood Orange's 'Negro Swan'

Other than the festival set, all dates are Blood Orange headline shows. His friend and collaborator Tei Shi (they've collabed on his 2018 single "Hope," her 2019 one "Even If It Hurts") will support all of his headline dates. As noted by Brooklyn Vegan, the March show will not be the first time Hynes has played Radio City—he opened for Florence & The Machine there way back in 2012.

In his Instagram post this morning announcing the big news, he noted there are "more dates 2 come." In the words of the late, great Zapp founder Roger Troutman, on behalf of other West Coast Blood Orange fans, don't forget; "California knows how to party." 

Tickets for all Blood Orange headline dates go on sale this Friday, Dec. 13 at 11 a.m.—visit his website for more info.

Tei Shi Has Found Her Happy Place

Apple Music

Photo: studioEAST/Getty Images

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Apple Music Removes Connect Sharing Function apple-music-removes-app-social-sharing-function

Apple Music Removes In-App Social Sharing Function

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The streaming platform notified musicians they are taking away the Connect feed, launched in 2015 for artists to share content with fans
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Dec 13, 2018 - 6:16 pm

Apple Music has reportedly sent artists an email to notify them that the Connect social sharing feed is being phased out and they would no longer be able to use it to share content with fans. Instead, streamlined artist pages on the platform will feature new design and functionality.

As reported by Variety, Apple initially unveiled the Connect function with the launch of Apple Music (its debut into music streaming) in 2015 as a way for artists to share content directly with fans in the platform, yet "saw less traction from artists than Apple had anticipated."

As 9to5Mac, the Apple-centric site who shared the message sent to artists, pointed out, Connect was popular with artists upon Apple Music's launch, but its popularity quickly dropped off. They highlighted that many artists only have posts from several years back, consequentially pushing Apple to shift focus away from it, moving it from its own visible tab within the app to a more hidden location below music recommendations and playlists.

9to5Mac shared the content of Apple Music's email, which included the following: "We're always looking for ways to enhance our focus on artists and help them better connect to fans. So we've given Artist Pages an all-new design and added new, personalized Artist Radio."

While Connect was originally billed as a way for artists to share special content with their fans, the popularity of other preexisting social platforms like Twitter and Instagram likely had an impact on its popularity.

It sounds like Apple Music, which has recently made major moves on its main competitor Spotify, is helping perfect the craft of music discovery and artist-fan connection in the music-streaming arena.

Apple To Expand Austin Presence With $1 Billion Campus

Apple

Photo: Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP/Getty Images

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Apple To Expand Austin Presence With New Campus apple-expand-austin-presence-1-billion-campus

Apple To Expand Austin Presence With $1 Billion Campus

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The tech company announced plans to build a new office in the Texas capital that will add 5,000 jobs, as well as new, smaller offices in other U.S. cities
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Dec 13, 2018 - 2:48 pm

This morning, on Dec. 13, Apple announced plans to expand its already large presence in Austin, Texas with a new 133-acre campus less than a mile from its existing 6,200-person campus.

The new office will allow the tech company to employ 5,000 more people, "with the capacity to grow to 15,000," in the music-centric city that is already home to its biggest employee base outside of its Cupertino, Calif. headquarters.

https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/1073210372541243392

Apple ❤️ Austin! Proud to announce our newest campus there, along with plans for new sites in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City, CA as Apple expands operations and creates thousands of jobs across the US.https://t.co/f2UwlXW2Hk

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) December 13, 2018

In addition to increasing its employment capacity in Austin, Apple also is planning to create more jobs across the U.S. over the next three years, with new 1,000-person offices in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City, Calif., a doubling of its Miami office, plus hundreds of additional jobs in other cities.

The company also noted that the Austin expansion is projected to make them "the largest private employer" in the capital city of Texas. The city's mayor commented on the positive relationship between Austin and Apple, highlighting the "creative spark" both share.

"Apple has been a vital part of the Austin community for a quarter century, and we are thrilled that they are deepening their investment in our people and the city we love," said Austin Mayor Steve Adler. "Apple and Austin share a creative spark and a commitment to getting big things done. We share their commitment to diversity and inclusion."

A partnership between a creative city like Austin, the self-appointed music capital of the U.S., and a company like Apple, whose innovation and influence doesn't limit itself to just the tech arena, sounds perfect. Each spring, Austin invites rising stars and established greats in tech, film and music to South By Southwest, whose festivals, including the world-renowned SXSW Music Festival, take over the town for well over a week.

Apple Music, since its growth and genesis from iTunes, which changed the music-listening game when it originally launched in Jan. 2001, has always been a friend of—and power-player in—the music industry. For music fans, iTunes allowed its users to create and share all the playlists their hearts desired, and now, with Apple Music, fans' access to specially curated playlists is next level.

You can listen below to our very special 61st GRAMMY Nominee Apple Music playlist, which features artists nominated for Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year and Best New Artist, including Cardi B, Drake, Lady Gaga, Childish Gambino and more.

SXSW Adds Second Round Of Global Artists For March 2019 Festival

John Billings

John Billings

Photo: Jesse Grant/WireImage/Getty Images

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Meet The GRAMMY Man: How GRAMMYs Are Made meet-grammy-man-how-golden-gramophones-are-made

Meet The GRAMMY Man: How The Golden Gramophones Are Made

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Here's how John Billings and his Colorado-based company became the go-to team for crafting music's most prestigious trophy
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Dec 11, 2018 - 4:45 pm

Meet John Billings, aka the "GRAMMY Man." He and his small but mighty team at Billings Artworks in the tiny mountain town of Ridgway, Colo. make all of the GRAMMY trophies that winning artists at the GRAMMYs and Latin GRAMMYs proudly take home every year. Watch the video below to hear from Billings himself on the joy he finds in his craft.

Meet The GRAMMY Man

Before Billings became the "GRAMMY Man," he was a dental student in Southern California in the '80s, and went to learn casting under the original GRAMMY maker, Bob Graves.

Unfortunately Graves was terminally ill, and shortly before his death asked Billings to keep the tradition going. So Billings moved to Colorado to start Billings Artworks and keep the hand-crafted, American-made tradition alive for the GRAMMY trophies.

"Each GRAMMY we make, in our minds, it's going to a superstar, you know it's going to somebody who's given to us, to our lives, and now we're giving back to them." Billings said. "We're a small company in a dusty little shop, in a tiny little town in the mountains, but our work is recognized around the world and goes around the world."

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Some of the content on this site expresses viewpoints and opinions that are not those of the Recording Academy. Responsibility for the accuracy of information provided in stories not written by or specifically prepared for the Academy lies with the story's original source or writer. Content on this site does not reflect an endorsement or recommendation of any artist or music by the Recording Academy.