Everything Solange Has Done Since A Seat at the Table

Posted on 20th Oct 2018, 21:55

Author: Craig

The singer-songwriter confirmed that her fourth full-length album is nearly finished and could arrive at any moment.

Rejoice, for a new Solange album is imminent. In a feature published this week by T Magazine, the singer-songwriter confirmed that her fourth full-length is nearly finished and could arrive at any moment. “There is a lot of jazz at the core,” Solange says of the new songs. “But with electronic and hip-hop drum and bass because I want it to bang and make your trunk rattle.” It’s been just two years since Solange released A Seat at the Table(Pitchfork’s No. 1 album of 2016), but the younger Knowles sister has used the time wisely and eclectically. She’s put together performance-art pieces and directed music videos, collaborated with IKEA and performed alongside her childhood heroes. While we await the surprise drop to come, let’s revisit the jam-packed months since ASATT. November 6, 2016: Solange graces the “SNL” stage for performances that bring her “Cranes in the Sky” and “Don’t Touch My Hair” videos to life. For the former she dons a custom halo hair piece, foreshadowing her 2018 Met Gala look (more on that later).

January 10, 2017: In a cover story for Interview, Solange talks with Beyoncé about the process behind ASATT, their childhood aspirations, their mom, and “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.” January 19, 2017: Solange performs in D.C. at the Peace Ball, a non-partisan alternative to Trump’s inauguration ball. She is introduced by the legendary activist Angela Davis, who offers some high praise: “Certainly in our resistance, we need art. We need music. We need poetry… Now, you are about to witness a performance by one who will help us to produce the anthems of our resistance.” January 26, 2017: At a Yale conference celebrating the legacies of David Bowie and Prince, Solange participates in a compelling keynote interview with scholar and writer Daphne A. Brooks about activism in pop music. February 9, 2017: Always one to pay respect to her idols and elders, Solange introduces Erykah Badu at Essence’s 2017 Black Women in Music event. “She is mother, she is sister, she is friend, she is auntie, she is chief, she is warrior of many tribes,” Solange says.

March 4, 2017: At Florida’s Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival, Solange duets with Michael McDonald on the Doobie Brothers classic “What a Fool Believes.” In a now-deleted Instagram post, Solange writes, “Anyone who knows me knows that the doobie brothers are my musical/harmonic/chord change hero’s.” April 15, 2017: One of the most pure things that Solange has shared on her Instagram account is a video of her and Moses Sumney riffing while Nina Simone’s “Where Can I Go Without You” plays in the background, going back and forth about whether or not Moses smokes weed. The clip has since been removed, but some kind stranger on the internet has archived this very important moment.

April 18, 2017: In a BBC Radio 4 documentary celebrating Zora Neale Hurston, Solange testifies to the Harlem Renaissance writer’s impact on her music. “As a black woman and as a black womanist and feminist, I felt incredibly empowered by Zora’s work,” she says. “One of the things that I find really interesting and empowered by in Zora’s work is this idea of breaking down and disassembling the angry black woman.” May 1, 2017: Solange attends the 2017 Met Gala wearing a full-length puffer jacket dress, including a train that could double as a sleeping bag. She writes on her Instagram that the look pays tribute to Missy Elliott’s iconic trash-bag jumpsuit in the video for “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly).”

May 15, 2017: Solange receives the Artist of the Year award at the 2017 Webbys; winners are allowed to use just five words to accept their awards. Quoting Oakland duo Luniz’s 1995 hit about splitting a dime bag of weed, Solange sings with a giggle, “I got five on it.” May 17, 2017: Solange pens a letter to her teenage self in Teen Vogue. Outlining the different phases of her young life, she describes one as the “Rasta vegan thrifter who is determined to marry Incubus singer Brandon Boyd.” Remember this for later. May 19, 2017: In the first of several fine-art collabs, Solange debuts her performance piece “An Ode To” at the Guggenheim. She plays reimaginations of ASATT songs in the center of the museum while 450 audience members, all dressed in white, watch from the Guggenheim’s winding ramps. August 2, 2017: Solange’s teenage dreams come true (sort of): She makes a surprise appearance at an Incubus show in New Orleans, singing a dreamy duet of “Aqueous Transmission” with Brandon Boyd.

August 16, 2017: In the days following the disturbing white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Solange is vocal on Twitter about her intolerance for the ongoing violence and racism on display. She deletes her Twitter after a final post about Takiyah Thompson, the college student who was arrested for pulling down a Confederate monument in Durham, North Carolina. August 24, 2017: Contrary to previous reports that she wouldn’t be touring behind ASATT, Solange announces a mini-run with big guests: Earl Sweatshirt, Flying Lotus, and the Sun Ra Arkestra. August 25, 2017: Solange debuts a new digital piece called “Seventy States” at the Tate Modern in London, as part of the exhibit Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power. Comprised of videos and images that explore black womanhood and identity, “Seventy States” is now available in an interactive online version. September 10, 2017: Solange gives an intimate “Musical Meditation” in Woodridge, New York, which involves three self-choreographed/arranged performances aiming “to build internal energy through music and fellowship.” September 24, 2017: During her show at the Hollywood Bowl, Solange takes a knee at the end of “Don’t Touch My Hair” to show solidarity with Colin Kaepernick and other football players kneeling during the National Anthem in racial protest. September 29, 2017: Despite the “racist ugly ass fuck bois” stinking up the joint, Solange returns to Twitter. October 8, 2017: Solange keeps on leveling up her fine art pieces with a performance called “Scales,” in which dancers make their way through the Marfa, Texas field where Donald Judd’s “15 Untitled Works in Concrete” is showcased. December 4, 2017: Solange releases two lines of astro-themed merchandise, dubbed “Cosmic Journey” and “Orion’s Rise.” Fittingly, they’re only available “during the reflection of the retrograde.” December 22, 2017: SZA shares the video for her sleeper Ctrl hit, “The Weekend,” directed by Solange. It features many of Solange’s visual trademarks: architectural elements, slow zooms, and strikingly fluid body movement.

December 27, 2017: Solange announces that her Afropunk Johannesburg set is canceled, due to health issues. Opening up in a since-deleted Instagram post, she writes: “The past five months I have been quietly treating, and working through an Autonomic Disorder. It’s been a journey that hasn't been easy on me... Sometimes I feel cool, and other times not so cool at all.” March 1, 2018: In a cover story for Billboard, Solange reveals that she’s working on new music and “jamming” with the Internet’s Steve Lacy. April 14, 2018: For her first art exhibition of 2018, Solange debuts a new dance and sculpture piece called “Metatronia” outside the Hammer Museum in L.A. April 15, 2018: Beyoncé takes the stage for her landmark performance at Coachella and invites Solange for a dance breakdown on “Get Me Bodied.” During the second weekend of the fest, Bey tries to pick up Solange, ends up dropping her, and they both fall on the ground laughing. April 19, 2018: Seems like Solange’s recording process has upgraded from just “jamming.” For Dazed, she writes a seven-part tribute to Jamaica, in which she hints that she is working on her new album. “The crickets and roosters are so loud here, they are seeping through the mics on the recordings,” she says. May 7, 2018: The theme of this year’s Met Gala is “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” so Solange strolls up with another halo headpiece, similar to the one she donned on “SNL.” This time, she pairs the halo with a durag and a bottle of Florida Water, a perfume used in spiritual cleansing rituals.

June 7, 2018: Solange announces that her Saint Heron creative agency is teaming up with IKEA for a new collection called “Objects, Space, Architecture,” which will focus on “architectural and design objects with multifunctional use.” Let’s hope the line will make our homes look as elegant as the “Cranes in the Sky” video (and on a budget, no less).

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