Jayda G announces “Blue Lights”, from her forthcoming album 'Guy', out on June 9th via Ninja Tune.
Jayda G, the Grammy-nominated writer, producer, DJ, environmental toxicologist, campaigner and broadcaster, returns with new single "Blue Lights". It’s the latest glimpse of her forthcoming album ‘Guy’— out June 9th on NinjaTune — a record co-produced with JackPeñate (who has previously worked with the likes of SAULT, David Byrne and Adele), with contributions from Lisa-Kaindé Diaz (of Ibeyi), Ed Thomas (Stormzy, Nia Archives, Jorja Smith) and more.
Over “Blue Lights” upbeat disco-inflected groove, Jayda’s lyrics draw on “an insane story of my father's” which saw him inadvertently swept up in the Washington Race Riots of 1968, following an all-night shift as a local radio DJ. In recorded tapes which form the backbone of the album’s narrative, the eponymous William Richard Guy recalls seeing thousands of rioters and police moving up the street towards him, only to realize that he had locked himself out of his apartment: “So, when the riot caught up with me, I just went with it. No use standing around. You ain't going to tell those guys that you're just locked outside your house!”.
“I think it was very much a turning point for him,”
says Jayda.
“I think it was a turning point for everyone at that time. You know, you have the Vietnam War, people don't know why they're sending people over there, and at home you have all these horrible things happening in the Black community and people are just fucking tired of it. What’s interesting is that while I was writing this album, the BLM movement was also happening, and people were again thinking around the issues of being Black, being male, being in poverty, dealing with racism, dealing with police, and police brutality in our society and I remember thinking that, yeah, it hasn't changed in a lot of ways.”
‘Guy’ brings Jayda’s own voice and words more prominently into focus than ever before, across 13 tracks that draw on her House, Disco, RnB and Soul roots while emphasizing her pop songwriting sensibilities, interspersed with archival recordings of her late father.
