Dawn Richard — Music’s Best Kept Secret?
Dawn Angeliqué Richard, known as the logistically unpronounceable D∆WN or just simply as Dawn Richard, is an American singer-songwriter with multi platinum albums under her belt. Dirty Money spawned success with Last Train to Paris, a gold single with Hello Good Morning, and a three time platinum single — Coming Home. Dawn Richard has performed with YouTube on the platform’s first ever 360-degree live performance and even created a 3D virtual reality universe for one of her music videos. These achievements act as trophies to a career still often described as “underground.” Despite the semantics, the question I must present; do you remember her?
How rude. Right? Or maybe not. How can an artist with three solo albums — or four if you count the invisible Been A While — various EP’s, competed for a record deal on national television, holds a joint platinum album with the Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs and three album’s with a girl group spanning nine years not have greater acclaim? The latter of which is incredibly problematic for the star, as the five-member girl group Danity Kane raucously dwindled down to three then… nothing.
Perfect, yet a crazed strategy, Dawn Richard unleashed her full potential solo resulting in a departure from Bad Boy Records in 2011. Who on earth would leave a deal which not only thrust you straight from your home into the living room television-sets of the globe but, backed by one of the richest in entertainment? In a 2012 interview with Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club, Richard touched on this by saying:
“Puff was done. He decided to be done, so I was like alright, what are we going to do next? Puff got a lot of ventures going on, so he didn’t really go into it. We did our tour and we were having a good time. Maybe it was sales, I don’t really know what it was.”
Since, Dawn Richard has continued to release a blaze of experimental electronically-fused R&B, meshed with audacious pop and bold synthesized sounds. We have truly been gifted with a release of solo projects Armor On EP, and Whiteout EP, including a trio of peculiar sonic spectacles: Goldenheart, Blackheart and Redemption.
The album Goldenheart in paricular has spawned an array of experimental storytelling with the likes of Break Of Dawn, Warfare and Ode To You; the album also features loud, hard-hitting dance-infused tracks such as Riot, Gleaux and In Your Eyes. Goldenheart acts as the first in a strategic trilogy of albums about love, loss, and redemption. Perhaps, doomed for overzealous and unwavering escapism, as the album was produced by Fisticuffs (Miguel — Gravity, Jhene Aiko — The Pressure, Yuna — Mannequin) and Andrew ‘Druski’ Scott.
In an effort to exemplify the artistic greatness enclosed within the crevice of the 2013 release, is single 86.
Judgement’s welcome, but 86features as one of the decades top 50 greatest songs. Disclaimer, this is my own distinction — yet factually represented none-the-less. Of course I am no music editor or Shoreditch-bopping appropriating culture connoisseur however, what I am able to recognise is lyric, rhythm and feeling.
Produced by creative partner Andrew ‘Druski’ Scott, 86 acts as one of her most popular songs ever on iTunes. The 80s-inspired synth-led track offers something that much mainstream music is unable provide — a truly honest ballad. In an interview with Rap-Up, the 34 year-old explained that:
“The song’s about ridding yourself of all those barriers so that you can be free and fight for love. That’s what everything I do now is about. The fight for love — what I love, and that’s the music.”
Skip forward to 2016. The Redemption album provides an onslaught of experimental, electronically-powered and complicated records such as LA, Vines (Interlude), Renegade and Sands. The latter of which offers a combative force against what can be argued to be one of Richard’s strongest creations to date- let alone on the album. Further exemplifying the quiet, obscure talents of Dawn Richard, is the collaboration with Adult Swim which began in the summer of that year as a content creator.
Although, beginning her grind in her late teens and opening up for for Anthony Hamilton in New Orleans way-back-when as a complete unknown, the artiste continues to push genre norms. This singer has yet to tackle a mainstream audience and escape the shadows of the underground; or perhaps her ability to create her own lane has already given her mainstream feats in all provokes an unanswerable question.
But what can be presented is the ideal that this extremely talented genre-bending artiste maintains the ability to deliver good music. Albeit, not to everyone’s taste, I would assume that not only does Dawn Richard know this herself but, has laid down the backdrop to an independent career set to break the rules of whatever it means to be ‘mainstream.’ Surely, we have slid into an era of which both societal formalities and musical boundaries have been dented with the mighty force of the consumer? Regardless, whatever we perceive or whether we choose to keep Dawn Richard a secret, it resides in the artiste’s inability to conform.
Only time will tell. For now, check out the fantastic Caribbean-infused Stopwatch here.
