DAWN feat. PJ Morton – Vines [New Music]

DAWN (formerly Dawn Richard) has released another track from her forthcoming Redemption album.

The song is called “Vines” and features PJ Morton.

“I don’t mean to talk about my personal business,” sings DAWN. “But I’ma have to put it out there / You’ve been putting me in boxes and I don’t really feel comfortable for you to do me like this / I feel stifled / I feel like a seed that can’t grow.”

With the premiere of the song, DAWN spoke to W Magazine about the inspiration behind it.

“I felt stifled coming out of the Black era,” Richard said, speaking over the phone from Los Angeles. She was in the midst of some home renovations in the lead-up to the release of her new album Redemption. “Vines” is the second single ahead of the record, which is out November 18. “I felt like I was being put in boxes, and I didn’t feel comfortable being typed,” she added. The result was “Vines,” an ode to growth and nourishment, using the metaphor of a sprouting tree. It’s a vivid image, full of Richard’s sensual lyricism and a really funky bass line.

“I had read The Odyssey, I had read The Iliad. I had seen the great things that could come from the power of words and the power of storytelling,” Richard explained, “I just didn’t know how I was going to fund it.” (Now, the consummate self-made woman is studying up, reading Nicole Lapin’s Rich Bitch.)

She recruited musician PJ Morton, lately of Maroon 5, a keyboardist and producer who attended high school back in New Orleans with her brother: “I called and I said, ‘PJ, I need your magic,’” she said. He accepted immediately, drawn, as Richard told it, by the track’s uncommon blend of electronica energy and southern-inspired soul — “bayou synth” or “sultry voodooism,” Richard called it.

Redemption is thematically divided into two movements: The energetic, electronic first half, represented by its lead single “Renegades,” is vintage D?WN, while the second, of which “Vines” is the first cut, takes it down a notch, expressing more self-assurance (and in particular, acceptance of her own sexuality) than Richard had previously addressed.

“As a woman, you reach a place where you’re comfortable in your own skin. You’re fearless in what you talk about,” she said. “As a woman, you shouldn’t have to apologize for speaking on sexuality.“

Amen. Get into “Vines” below.