{"id":82231,"date":"2024-05-07T15:05:02","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T19:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2024\/05\/07\/jean-deaux-sounds-off-on-new-nowhere-fast-ep-upcoming-tour-that-sticky-sir-situation\/"},"modified":"2024-05-07T15:05:02","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T19:05:02","slug":"jean-deaux-sounds-off-on-new-nowhere-fast-ep-upcoming-tour-that-sticky-sir-situation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2024\/05\/07\/jean-deaux-sounds-off-on-new-nowhere-fast-ep-upcoming-tour-that-sticky-sir-situation\/","title":{"rendered":"Jean Deaux Sounds Off on New \u2018Nowhere, Fast\u2019 EP, Upcoming Tour & That Sticky SiR\u00a0Situation\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tWith credits dating back to 2012 that include collaborations with Saba<\/a>, Smino<\/a> and Isaiah Rashad<\/a>, alluring Chicago R&B singer-songwriter Jean Deaux is no new kid on the block.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tWhich Musician Had Your Favorite Look at the 2024 Met Gala? Vote!\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tA multidimensional artist whose work traverses different mediums and scoffs at genre lines, Deaux is a shining light in the Black queer art space. Last month (April 12), she released her sixth overall project, Nowhere, Fast<\/em>, which also serves as her first release since parting ways with Empire Records.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was time for something new,\u201d Deaux says. \u201cWe were able to come to the agreement [that] if I wanted to leave,\u00a0they\u2019d let me go\u2026 I felt like I would step away from music for a little bit after I left Empire, but I started to fall in love with the music I was making and that\u2019s really how the EP came together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat transition period \u2013 while she was also recovering from a vocal injury and experiencing the general trials and tribulations of going through the back half of your 20s \u2013 birthed Nowhere, Fast<\/em>: an ethereal collection of odes to the turbulent road to maturity. Her voice weaves around soulful synths and forlorn guitars, cradling nuggets of poetry like, \u201cTime is of the essence\/ And like a science\/ Just in your presence\/ I feel it flying.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s an energy of newness around Jean Deaux right now \u2013 new label situation, new project, new tour. But she\u2019s also taking this moment to reclaim and stand in her truth, particularly as it relates to the questionable similarities between the album cover and title of her 2023 Heavy <\/em>EP and this year\u2019s LP of the same name, from Grammy-nominated R&B star SiR<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOn April 18, Deaux took to X (formerly Twitter) to comment<\/a> on the similarities between the two projects. Both Deaux and SiR\u2019s Heavys<\/em> feature album artwork that finds each artist shirtless, doused in red light and staring away from the camera. In her initial post, Deaux alleged that SiR reached out to her after people started commenting on the similarities between the projects when he debuted<\/a> his Heavy<\/em> artwork on March 4. According to her, he apologized profusely in private and pledged to make it right, yet refused to publicly atone for the situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking to Billboard<\/em>, Deaux reiterates everything in her original post, reading excerpts from text messages and DMs between the two. (Billboard<\/em> was able to review the messages Deaux refers to.) \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWith the capacity he reached out [in] and how emphatic he was, it felt so sincere [that]\u00a0he wanted to, in his words, \u2018Make it right,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cSo, if I\u2019m telling you what I expected, and you telling me that you want to go on tour [together], you want to start a relationship, and then\u00a0you make this post and we never talk about anything again? Ever?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDeaux says she started conceptualizing her Heavy<\/em> EP in 2021, with her uncle shooting the album cover at the beginning of 2022. \u201cThe red lighting was from a reference we used,\u201d she explains. \u201cI was leaning into this villain type of role, and that\u2019s what I wanted the music to feel like.\u201d Her project hit DSPs on April 14, 2023 \u2013 almost a full calendar year before SiR debuted the artwork for his Heavy<\/em> LP, with red-lit photoshoots appearing on his official Instagram feed<\/a> the month prior. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDeaux remembers first hearing about the similarities through a text that \u201csomebody who works on [her] team sent\u201d after SiR announced his album. \u201cWhen I seen it, I honestly didn\u2019t realize what was going on right away,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I finally\u00a0put two and two together, I thought it was strange, but I didn\u2019t know what to think.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe ascendant crooner claims that she never confronted SiR. In fact, as she tells it, the Inglewood-bred artist hit her DMs first. \u201cHe didn\u2019t DM me [until] a couple days after he announced his cover and said that he heard [my] project, he loved it, and he didn\u2019t know how this happened and he felt like we were pulling from the same creative pool,\u201d she recounts. \u201cHe mentioned that he dropped an EP the same week as somebody else [in the past], and it was similar.\u201d\u00a0Deaux also says that SiR also floated ideas like having Deaux join him on tour, or starting a working relationship with her. Ultimately, after Deaux says she asked that he publicly acknowledge her Heavy<\/em> and say the things he expressed in her DMs, SiR opted for a simple Instagram Story with the caption: \u201cJean Deaux has a \u2018Heavy\u2019 too.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSome weeks later, in an interview with Billboard<\/a><\/em> about his Heavy <\/em>LP (March 25), SiR name-checked Deaux saying, \u201cThere\u2019s another album that I just learned about recently, Heavy <\/em>by Jean Deaux, and didn\u2019t know it existed\u2026 There\u2019s a pool of creativity that we all pull from and sometimes we pull the same ideas [\u2026]\u201d A screenshot<\/a> of his answer recirculated on X following another quasi-viral post<\/a> drawing connections between the two projects, prompting Deaux to respond. (Representatives for SiR did not provide comment when asked by Billboard<\/em> about Deaux\u2019s recounting of events.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI tweeted that to set the record straight,\u201d she explains. \u201cI felt like if you\u2019re gonna make another statement in an interview and still not make it half of what you said privately then why speak on that at all?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an enlightening conversation with Billboard<\/em>, Jean Deaux breaks down her new Nowhere, Fast<\/em> EP, her upcoming tour, plans for new music and her side of the story as it relates to SiR and their Heavy<\/em> projects.<\/p>\n

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