When it comes to Dev Hynes, there’s a feeling that he can do absolutely anything he puts his mind to. The singer, songwriter and producer has had such a long and varied career in music, from partaking in the turbo-indie Camden years to writing music for some of the best pop stars out there, while previously putting out music as Lightspeed Champion and now working under the moniker of Blood Orange.
For his contributions to Solange's 2012 True EP alone, on which he shares co-writing and co-producing credits with the singer, he deserves the title of our forever VBF, but the 32-year-old has continued to evolve as an artist in his own right, taking on a role as an activist in his solo material. His 2018 album Negro Swan is a gorgeous slice of R&B, filled with insights into queerness, blackness and otherness in a world that seems to be caving in on itself. As the year comes to a close, Hynes is our VBF for playing such a huge role in the music landscape this year.
Pop music has many purposes. It’s an escape, filled with fantasies and sugar-coated good times; or it’s an education, teaching us how to understand complicated emotions or opening up a door to an entirely new world. Steering away from the candy land of pop music, Hynes’s songwriting style unravels the complexities of loneliness, love, heartache, equality and discrimination while giving a voice to the marginalised.
Even though he first came to our attention as part of the noise-punk band Test Icicles, who found their footing alongside the flurry of indie acts to gain success through the NME's then-constant coverage of any musician even coughing in Camden Town, his work as Lightspeed Champion set him aside from the rest in 2007. While his peers still leaned towards making music fit for playing in Urban Outfitters, Lightspeed Champion took on social issues in songs like Tell Me What it's Worth, where he shares his experiences of racism in London. Shelving this moniker in 2010, Hynes then moved to New York to release music as Blood Orange and to create some pop magic.
Sophisticated
Losing You by Solange and Everything is Embarrassing by Ferreira are two of the most sophisticated pop songs to be released in the last 10 years. Using mid-tempo melodies, echoing synths, hypnotic rhythms and tales of desperation, Hynes found his trademark sound. Instead of coming in big and brashy, he lures the listener in with honest, emotional pleas and a beat that builds you up from a sway to a body-hugging bop, something he'd experiment even further with as Blood Orange. While his first two albums, Coastal Grooves (2011) and Cupid Deluxe (2013), achieved critical acclaim, 2016's Freetown Sound found Hynes cranking it up a notch. Featuring collaborations with Nelly Furtado, Debbie Harry and Carly Rae Jepsen, Freetown Sound also features the poem For Coloured Girls (The Missy Elliott Poem) by Ashlee Haze, a poem that opens the doors of possibility for black women.
Even though he came to loggerheads with Solange when he described her as his "vocal muse", rather than placing their artistry on the same level, his later work allows space for unknown artists. Continuing with this theme, this year's Negro Swan focuses on black depression and the anxieties of queer people, reaching out to those who need a lifeline.
Hynes is forever growing in his music and his relationships with other artists; his next instalment is an instrumental collaboration with the composer Philip Glass and Third Coast Percussion. What he does after that . . . well, it’s safe to say it will be significantly beautiful.
