Dawn Richard
Creole Culture
MERGE
There’s a great line in the song “Unlicensed Guidance Counselor” by the post-hardcore band Drug Church which declares that “Life is process, not product.” It’s a bit spiritual, this reminder that in life, the journey is the destination—if there even is one at all. R&B musician Dawn Richard is a great example of this philosophy through a creative lens. Her journey to the imaginative space she currently occupies has seen her pack enough in for several lifetimes: She was featured on MTV’s Making the Band 3 two decades ago—resulting in the formation of Danity Kane—before working on various projects with a certain Bad Boy Records founder, only to leave that label and reinvent herself in the mid-2010s as an alt-pop auteur.
Richard’s oeuvre has only gotten progressively more eclectic—she’s surely the only artist to have featured on both a Drake and a Dirty Projectors track. Her work over the past five years (including a pair of collaborative albums with avant-folk musician Spencer Zahn) has been particularly outré. With her first solo album in half a decade, Creole Culture, she’s found herself in a sweet spot: a compelling blend of innovative ambition with accessible, charismatic R&B-pop. Production-wise, these 11 songs are a pleasure to get lost in. Every track possesses its own energy and spark, with several heavier, harder cuts making for gripping album highlights. From the moody, bass-heavy “Groove City” (a cover of a track by New Orleans funk act Chocolate Milk, featuring the band’s vocalist and Richard’s father) to the kinetic breakbeats of “Only Fans,” these tracks are all giddy momentum, nocturnal thrills that feel like speeding around a city after dark.
Then there’s the album’s sonic versatility. As the title suggests, Creole Culture is Richard’s homage to the vibrancy of New Orleans’ musical culture. It’s a rich, heady portrait, an intoxicating blend of club music: the layered future-funk of “L V R,” the Latin-inspired epic “Fiesta,” the resplendently jazzy R&B of “Enough.” As with any great city, the album’s mood is similarly rich in possibilities. That latter track is open-hearted and fit to burst with love and desire, while “Chuuuuurch” sees her channel optimism and hope in the face of strife. Richard’s musical and emotional world is a vibrant, stirring place—a Southern pop fantasia you’ll want to visit over and over again.
