Dawn Richard Announces New Album Creole Culture: Hear “Enough”
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R&B artist Dawn Richard has announced her new album Creole Culture, out 9 October on Merge Records, continuing the exploration of her Black and Native American New Orleans heritage that has defined earlier records such as 2019's New Breed and 2021's Second Line. The announcement matters as the culmination of a loose trilogy in which Richard, adopting an alter-ego called King Creole, says this instalment finally tells her own side of a family story previously told through her father and mother, framing New Orleans culture as something that can be progressive and global rather than confined to the past.
The album was made with the Los Angeles collective Katalyst and features Big Freedia, Anjelika "Jelly" Joseph, Tarriona "Tank" Ball, Durand Bernarr and Richard's father Frank Richard of the funk band Chocolate Milk, across an 11-track list. Alongside the announcement, Richard released the single "Enough", which samples Sister Nancy's dancehall classic "Bam Bam", and confirmed a run of live dates from August through November, including shows in Chicago, her hometown of New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC.
- Dawn Richard announces album Creole Culture, out 9 October on Merge
- New single "Enough" samples Sister Nancy's "Bam Bam"
- Features Big Freedia, her father Frank Richard; tour dates confirmed
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Dawn Richard is an R&B and experimental artist from New Orleans, known for blending traditional soul and funk influences with more electronic, boundary-pushing production. She has previously made records that draw on her mixed Black and Native American heritage and her upbringing in New Orleans, and this new project continues that thread.
The album, Creole Culture, is a collaboration with the Los Angeles production team Katalyst, and brings in guest contributions from Big Freedia, a well-known figure in New Orleans bounce music, and Richard's own father, Frank Richard, who played in the New Orleans funk group Chocolate Milk. This mix of family and local musical history ties the record closely to the city's cultural traditions.
The project matters to fans of R&B and New Orleans music because it represents an artist using her own background to bridge older regional musical styles with newer pop and dance influences, at a time when questions about heritage, authenticity and evolution in music are widely discussed.
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