Dawn Richard: Second Line review – joy and mess from a musical eccentric

Dawn Richard has a buoyant track, Bussifame, on her sixth solo album, Second Line, which explains that the album’s title refers to a New Orleans funeral parade in which passersby are invited to join in and celebrate the dead person’s legacy.

The tongue-in-cheek interpretation is that Richard is playing her own funeral, revelling in her own unusual path in music. She was first seen on the Diddy-fronted talent show Making the Band as a part of the five-piece girl group Danity Kane; after he disbanded the group, she became part of another short-lived ensemble that the rapper seared his name on to, Diddy – Dirty Money (who had hits such Coming Home and Hello Good Morning). But while she’s had some impressive highs, she recently told the New York Times she had been “rejected by everybody” in the music business.

On some tracks, it’s hard to imagine why. Jacuzzi is a sunny radio-ready hit that celebrates “Creole girls”, and she harks back to her R&B sensibilities on the slow and sexy Mornin, which deviates from higher tempos elsewhere on the record. Through her own production and synths, plus her mother’s narration, she pays homage on Second Line to house and footwork, bringing Black women’s perspectives to the forefront of the whitewashed electronic music scene. Overall, though, this is a concept album, and boldly displays an eccentricity that the industry perhaps hasn’t known how to handle: Le Petit Morte has her overlaying Auto-Tuned vocals over Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, which is ambitious if a little chaotic. There are a lot of ideas, textures and moods that show she’s exploring her own artistry, but while the joy, freedom and fun are palpable, the result feels a bit messy.