Dawn Richard Says Massive Attack Birthed a Generation of Alt-Black Kids—Including Her

Music That Rewired My Brain is an interview series in which artists we like tell us all about the songs and albums that made them think about music in an entirely different way.

Part of engaging with Dawn Richard is realizing her imagination and taste are boundless. Listening to the ebullient artist’s music is like taking a trip through an extremely well-manicured playlist of influences: R&B standards and somber folk; brassy second-line celebrations and swelling orchestral film scores; crunchy guitar music and pulsing electronica. Whether she’s putting a sci-fi spin on her hometown of New Orleans or dipping into her singer-songwriter bag, her choices are always as intentional as they are unpredictable.

Perhaps her most startling left turn comes with her work alongside Massachusetts producer and multi-instrumentalist Spencer Zahn: If your only experience with Dawn revolves around the girl group Danity Kane or her collaborative singles with producers like Kaytranada, then 2022’s Pigments and this month’s Quiet in a World Full of Noise are intense pivots. On Quiet, Dawn’s songwriting manifests as diaristic stories of trauma and uplift that echo through Zahn’s pianos and orchestral flourishes. Her voice cuts through the minimalism like a Maglite through the shadows in the corners of her mind, trembling with power and hope to make it past failure and regret. 

When I spoke with Dawn on a recent rainy afternoon, she came at her myriad influences in terms both technical and silly; she described the work of film composer Hans Zimmer as both “spatial” and “yummy.” Dawn approaches music with deep reverence and a sense of wonder undamped by the bleak and beautiful world she and Zahn have created together.

Here are eight songs and albums that have rewired Dawn Richard’s brain.

Rufus Wainwright: “Natasha” (2003)

Dawn Richard: He’s one of the great writers—especially with this song. I’m speaking on storytelling, because I really believe my album with Spencer is my best writing. The storytelling is leading more than anything else, and that’s new for me. And Rufus does that impeccably.

“Natasha” is interesting because Rufus is speaking about a woman as a gay man; she was a memory he had before he understood his sexuality. I love the candidness of “Natasha,” and his fearlessness to write about his sexuality. It’s a time in his life that resonated so clearly with him that we feel it. And it’s such a timeless melody, oh my God. It reminds me of Elton John in his prime, when he wrote those songs that just resonated—so timeless they could just be forever.

Hans Zimmer: “Time” (2010)

I’ve always been a Hans Zimmer fan, but the Inception score was different for me because of the harshness and the way he used brass. But the best part of it was the quietness and the spatial experience of “Time,” especially the way it ends. It’s almost like a whisper. Sound design-wise, it’s quieter than the rest of the score, and I find that to be yummy—that’s not a technical term, it’s just yummy to me. It rewired my understanding of scoring, and it also spoke to one of the things I love the most: There’s no walls with storytelling. He chose to have a quietness in this score that had an emphasis on heavy brass sounds—because time was bent so much in the storytelling of Inception, it was bent in the scoring, too.

John Williams: “Sayuri’s Theme” (2005)

We can’t talk about Hans and not talk about John, y’know? Memoirs of a Geisha is one of my top four films of all time. The love story of what that was? The actress in it! Michelle Yeoh, who’s finally getting the love, for Everything Everywhere All at Once, that she should’ve gotten long before then. To me, had Memoirs of a Geisha come out with what other Asian films and TV shows like Shogun are doing now, it would’ve gotten the Oscars—not just the lead actors, but all of it. 

But to me, the biggest part was the music, and it was slept on. Specifically, “Sayuri’s Theme” played often throughout the film, and every time I hear it, I see the faces, I see the culture, the respect, the love story. It is breathtaking, it is romance, it is pain, it’s everything the film embodies.

Massive Attack: Mezzanine (1998)

This shifted the culture—a lotta Black people noticed this album. Like, a lot. Culturally, there are certain bands within the alternative space for Black people that mark the moment where they’re like, OK, I see more than just the sounds I grew up in. I think Mezzanine was so popular within the culture of that time when you were really seeing alt-Black really punch out in the ’90s and take its rightful place. If you were in college, or if you had friends that were in a space that understood what electronic and alternative music was, Mezzanine was on your playlist, Portishead was on your playlist, the Prodigy was on your playlist. Mezzanine was a shift in understanding for me and for a lot of Black kids who expanded their minds musically at the time. It was chaotic electronic, it was industrial, it was Black. They were coloring outside the lines.

Olafur Arnalds: Re:visions (Live) (2018)

I have this fascination with Icelandic artists. I’m a huge Björk fan. I also love Jónsi, from Sigur Rós. And here we go with Olafur, another composer who scores some of the most beautiful experiences. These artists create music the way Iceland looks. It’s chilling, it’s icy, with sharp edges and clean lines. I can see it, and Olafur creates that for me in an electronic way. When you talk about a lot of what Spencer and I have been able to do together, Olafur fits beautifully within that space—similarly to a Pharoah Sanders, where you’ve got this beautiful blend of electronic and neo-classical jazz tones that fit into this posh ambient music space.

Enya: Watermark (1988)

Enya’s Watermark opened up New Age music to the world. She uses other cultures to color and paint, which is the difference between her and an artist like Björk, who puts herself within the record. I feel like Enya leans in with choruses and choirs, and goes into these other worlds to paint these pictures—which is why, to me, she even named the album Watermark. As someone who speaks on pushing boundaries and leaning into different genres, I feel like we didn’t understand New Age until Enya existed. No one else could really tap into what she’d done and helped mainstream.

Pure Moods was a CD compilation series you could get that had all these eccentric ambient and New Age songs, and Enya would be on every single one of those compilations. At the time, Black kids from New Orleans didn’t even understand what that was, so the fact I was able to find this artist with no social media or technology spoke to how large her name was.

The Chemical Brothers: Hanna Soundtrack (2011)

Shit, if you don’t know what they did for the ’90s and 2000s, as far as the electronic music? The reason they changed me is because, not only were they already innovating the culture of electronic music, but then they went into films and scored [the 2011 thriller] Hanna, and… man, oh man. That goes down as one of the best, as well as Daft Punk and their score for Tron: Legacy. But the Chemical Brothers were a little ahead because of what they did with Hanna. The energy behind that score… phew.

Danny Keane: In Isolation EP (2021)

[The multi-instrumentalist and composer] Danny Keane is a private, personal favorite that I don’t tell many people about. But the way he told his story on this EP, and specifically in isolation? There’s this loneliness I was really going for [with Quiet in a World Full of Noise] that I wasn’t targeting, it was just what I felt. And he exemplifies loneliness with the piano in a way I relate to and understand. Some projects are meant to be experienced in their totality, and that’s what this EP is.