Blood Orange

Devonté Hynes was born David Joseph Michael Hynes in Ilford, east London, in December 1985, to a Guyanese mother and a Sierra Leone Creole father. He moved to New York City in 2007, where he has been based since, working under his own name as well as under Blood Orange.

Hynes first appeared in the mid-2000s as a member of the dance-punk band Test Icicles, playing guitar and synth and occasionally singing. The group released a single album, For Screening Purposes Only, in 2005 before splitting the following year.

He then recorded folk-leaning material as Lightspeed Champion, a name he took from comic strips he had drawn in his school maths books. The first album, Falling Off the Lavender Bridge, was recorded in Omaha with Saddle Creek producer Mike Mogis and featured musicians from Cursive, the Faint and Tilly and the Wall.

Under the Blood Orange name he makes music built from soft synthesizers, clean guitar lines, funk and soul rhythms, and vocals that rarely rise above a murmur. The records often include spoken passages and guest voices, addressing race, identity and belonging alongside more personal material. He has released five albums as Blood Orange to date.

Hynes has also written or produced for other artists, including Solange Knowles, FKA Twigs, Carly Rae Jepsen, Blondie and Mariah Carey, and has composed for film and dance. Across his own records he plays most of the instruments himself, moving between guitar, keyboards and bass in the studio.