2. Blood Orange (Guyana)
From Guyana by way of London, Blood Orange a.k.a. Devonte Hynes has become one of most sought-after producers in the increasingly competitive world of alt-R&B, and a star artist in his own right. Though he’d been active for years already, Hynes first got his big break when another alt R&B star with Caribbean roots, Theophilus London, invited him into the studio to collaborate with Solange: He ended up producing all of her 2012 EP True, including the single “Losing You.”
His trademark 80s pop inflected sound, somewhere slightly left of radio-friendly, has led him to collaborations with artists as diverse as Sky Ferreira and Kylie Minogue. As Blood Orange, his releases Coastal Grooves and Cupid Deluxe have both been released to critical acclaim, and find Hynes incorporating some elements of his Caribbean (and African—his father is from Sierra Leone) heritage into his music. Below, in the video for Cupid’s “Chamakay” (a Guyanese slang term meaning “young mischievous girl”), Hynes visits his mother’s hometown of Georgetown, Guyana, and meets his extended family for the first time (look out for Hynes on the steel pans):