- An uplifting and engaging, if sometimes formulaic, tribute to love and the golden years of house music.
- Coming up in Chicago when the gospel of house music was being spread across her hometown, Honey Dijon was introduced to the sound at 12 years old. Her music today tells the story of nightlife's heyday—namely, that of Black, queer nightlife—across Chicago, New York, London, Detroit, Berlin and anywhere else the house veteran has DJ'ed and partied throughout her storied career. It's a subculture that Dijon wears on her designer sleeve, even as she's catapulted above underground circuits and onto international festival stages, the radars of esteemed fashion houses and the production credits of mega-pop star records like Beyoncé's Renaissance.
The history of dance music, a genre borne from Black creativity, safeguarded by queer youth and belted out by big-haired disco divas, is not a subject she treats lightly. House is now about 40 years old, and Dijon, who was around in its early stages, is concerned with the ways the style has been commercialised, whitewashed and steered far from its roots over the years. Each record she releases is an attempt to reground the genre in the communities that originally upheld it. Speaking to Boiler Room in 2018, she explained the role the education of this history plays in her practice: "I try to carry that information with me today because I feel like dance music has been so commodified and colonised."
Black Girl Magic is a record dedicated to love. "Love of music, community, but most of all the love of self," she explains in the press release. "Being true to who you are in spite of everything else and having the courage to love fearlessly." Sensuality steams up from Dijon's tracks on Black Girl Magic, which she co-produced with her studio partner Luke Solomon. The album is a love affair sculpted with well-earned confidence, an undying devotion to sound, Chicago and good, old-fashioned opulence—but it is also informed by less chipper concerns like heartbreak and the daily torrent of tragedies on the news. If the album was a person, it would have probably read bell hooks's All About Love or Audre Lorde's "Uses Of The Erotic."
When Dijon first set out to write this record, she was motivated by the house anthems of her youth, particularly Lil Louis's classic 1989 album From The Mind Of Lil Louis and Danny Tenaglia's Tourism LP, released in 1998. But when the pandemic happened, and shortly after, the George Floyd protests resounded through the streets of the United States, the album's lyrics began to take on a more introspective form. The first half of the record, smouldering and poetic, bears the most of these influences. On the victorious house of "Stand", crisp piano notes and skyward horns shoot up and retreat like fireworks, but underneath the fanfare it is also a track with political depth. "It's basically about standing up for your belief system," Dijon explained in a recent interview with The New York Times. "I didn't want it to be too heavy, but it was really about love and celebration."
Kameelah Waheed's opening beat poetry on "Love Is" has a similarly celebratory tone, but it's sparser, letting Waheed's warm, cinnamony voice break through a city soundscape to unearth reflections on various versions of love. Each track on Black Girl Magic has a featured vocalist, and these collaborations are generally spectacular. Dope Earth Alien's soulful vocals pair beautifully with the lush horns and staccato organ synths of a track about an ill-fated relationship with no end in sight—"It's Quiet Now"—reminiscent of 4Hero's R&B-swaddled triumph, Creating Patterns. Any experienced punter who laments the loss of diva vocals in contemporary house music need look no further than "Love Is A State Of Mind," where Ramona Renea sounds like she stepped fresh off the church chancel when she sings about love without a scarcity mindset: "Come correct, come correct / 'Cause there's room enough for everybody!"
There's a careful veneration of classic underground music within Black Girl Magic. The album is a tribute to the kind of music that stays with you for days, weeks even, after a sumptuous club night. Within the storyline of tracks like "In The Club," swinging limbs melt dance partners into a communal state of ecstasy on the dance floor. Over the jubilant, elastic beat of "Work," Cor.Ece likens sound itself to the sun: "Can't nothing take the place of real sound / You gotta let it on in, let it get on your skin." On the subsequent track, "C's Up," Mike Dunn lends his gravelly vocals to a glorious ode to Chicago, the birthplace of house. But it could be argued that it is this same focus on the successes of house music's past that weakens Black Girl Magic. On tracks like "C's Up", the album feels uncannily formulaic—the vocals are polished to a plastic sheen, the drums so tight and neatly programmed that they lose that indefinable swing that Dijon's 2017 album Best Of Both Worlds nailed. While the record is a joyous, uplifting listen, there are not many surprises. After hearing Dijon in full effect on her previous LP, it left me with residual disappointment about the album's untapped potential.
But there are still moments to be excited about on the album's B-side, where the lights dim, the environment grows foggy with condensation and there are likely illicit substances being tossed around like goodie bags in the green room. This is where the production turns knotty and angular, and the vocals, previously emphasising self-empowerment and profound tenderness, begin to pack more heat. On "Show Me Some Love," Sadie Walker alternates between moans, sprawling shouts and seductive instructions ("show me that you are op-u-lenttt") in a track that drips in luxury and in-your-face confidence. Vocalist Pablo Vittar sashays in gold and Versace on the "Everybody," a disco cut channelling the anthemic revelry of Marshall Jefferson's late '80s piano house classic, "Move Your Body."
Early into the pandemic, when Honey Dijon was contacted to work on Beyoncé's ballroom-inspired studio album, Renaissance, she forwarded the pop star an essential Black queer reading list. The suggested literature, sent alongside a handful of playlists, comprised works on Black queer theory, ballroom culture and voguing. "I felt like if this was going to be done correctly," she told V Magazine, "there needed to be the full spectrum of what she was getting into and what I was getting into."
Some veterans rise to fame and fall off course somewhere along the way, but the trait that has kept Dijon on the pulse of contemporary dance music is her endless, impassioned curiosity and unmatched knowledge about her scene. It's this wisdom that she infuses into the multihued extravaganza of Black Girl Magic that makes the album pleasantly nostalgic, bringing the glories of house music past into the here and now.
Tracklist01. Honey Dijon feat. Kameelah Waheed - Love Is
02. Honey Dijon feat. Ramona Renea - Love Is A State Of Mind
03. Honey Dijon feat. Dope Earth Alien - It's Quiet Now
04. Honey Dijon feat. Annette Bowen & Nikki-O - Downtown
05. Honey Dijon feat. Rimarkable & Dope Earth Alien – Drama
06. Honey Dijon feat. Cor.Ece - Stand
07. Honey Dijon feat. EVE - In The Club
08. Honey Dijon feat. Hadiya George - Not About You
09. Honey Dijon feat. Pabllo Vittar & Urias - Everybody
10. Honey Dijon feat. Hadiya George - Love Me Like You Care
11. Honey Dijon & Channel Tres feat. Sadie Walker - Show Me Some Love
12. Honey Dijon feat. LATÁSHA – Don't Be Afraid
13. Honey Dijon feat. Cor.Ece, Dave Giles & Mike Dunn - Work
14. Honey Dijon feat. Mike Dunn - C's Up
15. Honey Dijon feat. Josh Caffé - La Femme Fantastique