This is gonna be Serpentwithfeet’s year!
Back in February, the R&B singer announced that he had a new album on the way. And now, it’s here. Deacon released on March 26 via the label Secretly Canadian. This album is the second LP from the artist after his 2018 debut Soil.
This time, the album and its music are heavily influenced by Serpentwithfeet’s Christian upbringing. He tried to connect with and evolve the R&B sounds that come from the black church environment. That said, he also wanted to explore softer sounds and messages.
“I hope that people are encouraged to be soft, and to be gentle as they can be,” he recently told the GRAMMYS. “I think that that’s all I can really wish for, is that people listen to this work, and maybe it will give them some encouragement to be gentle.”
He later added, “So much of my previous work was about bittersweetness. The bittersweetness of grief, because grief means that you have loved, grief means that you have cared and you’ve been cared for. What I was talking about on [my 2018 album] soil, my grief was a response to having such a wonderful love experience.”
“But this time around, I didn’t want that bittersweetness,” the singer continued. “I wanted to talk about maintaining and celebrating the love that I have in my life. And you know, I was very intentional about editing lyrics for a long, long time to make sure that there was no angst or bitterness. That took a lot of time, actually, to make sure that it actually felt joyous, and not fake joyous or half-joy.”
It seems this could be an important year for Serpentwithfeet. The R&B artist has not only dropped this EP, but he recently was featured in an LGBTQ+ fueled campaign for Orbitz.
The campaign, titled “Travel As You Are,” was created by queer photographer and director Cass Bird. The campaign attempts to document “uninhibited young LGBTQ+ travelers at their freeist.” To go with the campaign, which will have a video drop on April 6th, serpentwithfeet will cover queer singer Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me.” The song will then play behind the video’s visuals.
“Having Serpent redo that song is so magical because it’s such a transcendent voice,” Bird said. “Having a man sing to that storyline felt really irreverent, and also so transcendent to how culturally men are allowed to express themselves.”
We look forward to seeing the Orbitz campaign video. In the meantime, you can listen to serpentwithfeet’s new album on all music streaming platforms.
Source: GRAMMYS,
