A contemporary legend of house music, Honey Dijon has released her long-awaited second full-length album, a history of the genre, collaborator-stacked offering, Black Girl Magic.
The album comes via Defected offshoot Classic Music Company. It saw Honey Dijon work closely with label co-founder (alongside Derrick Carter) Luke Solomon, seeing the recent Beyonce collaborator at her most party-starting, soulful, and eclectic, perfectly resembling her own multi-hyphenate DJ-Producer-Activist-Fashionista persona.
Honey Dijon's house music pedigree is indisputable. Born in Chicago and cutting her teeth in New York City over the past 15 years, she has been integral in redefining what it is to be a DJ in the era of multi-platform necessity, where one's social consciousness is as critical as their musical talent. In this way, Honey Dijon comes without a peer in her spotlight shining on queer and people of color across the contemporary art world. We see this across the collaborator list on Black Girl Magic, where the likes of Compton royalty Channel Tres, Chicago House legend Mike Dunn, and hip hop star Eve (whose Deep House In The Club comes as album highlight) feature on a list that also includes Philadelphia Ballroom queen Kameelah Waheed, storytelling hip-hop inspired Dope Earth Alien, silky smooth R&b upstart Hadiya George, and many more (including 3D sculptor Jam Sutton, responsible for the album's rendered visuals). But the genius of Black Girl Magic is also in its influences.
House Music as a genre relies on its roots, musical, social, political, revolutionary, or otherwise. Moreover, it is a genre born in the black and queer communities of the United States, where its various incarnations have found their respective fanbases worldwide. Such is the case with Derrick Carter, whose own freedom-yearning vocal-drenched House is felt across the release, as is the more piano-led approach of Mark Farina. Across 15 tracks, Black Girl Magic is something of a seminar in the history of House. A collaborative experience traversing everything from Disco to Ballroom, New Jack Swing to Acid and beyond, peppered throughout with tempting build-ups, driving percussion, and an overall hands-in-the-air celebratory feel - Take Love is a State of Mind as the perfect example of this, or the more Disco-flavoured ode to Brazilian Ballroom, Everybody. But, despite the celebration, Honey Dijon's own identity as a Black Trans Woman of Color sees its own empowering narrative expressed throughout, including the Hadiya-George featured Not About You and its "It's not about you, it's not about me: it's about us" proclamation, or the virtuous ode to queer clubbing Work a la jackin' throwback. There are also moments of introspection in Black Girl Magic, with the spoken intro meditation on all its's forms, Love Is (featuring Kameelah Waheed), or the simmering-under-the-surface It's Quiet Now.
With a much more energetic offering over the deeper terrain of her 2017 debut, The Best of Both Worlds, Black Girl Magic sees Honey Dijon at her most inclusive, colorful, and distinctly dancefloor oriented.
