Dawn Richard is the latest act to grace the cover of Stuff Fly People Like’s digital issue. The former Danity Kane singer — who released her debut solo album, GoldenHeart, on Jan. 15 – can be found on SFPL’s January 2013 issue. In her cover story, Richard talks about being an independent artist, her GoldenHeart album, and more.
Check out excerpts from her cover story below.
On being an independent artist:
“We don’t have anything against major labels at all…We just chose to do what was best business wise for our company. A lot of times artists aren’t offered the distribution deal unless they already have an album and numbers are coming in and there’s a support system behind it. It just so happened that the movement is so massive that we were able to get an offer that it’s great to have a label look at us, but a distribution deal was even better because the revenue and everything that we do comes straight to us. It’s just when you get cards you’re dealt you just play with the cards you get. You don’t complain about what you don’t have, just play your hand. It just so happens we’ve been dealt a really good hand. It may not be a conventional hand, but we’re in a time where the idea of an artist and a label are changing.”
On what influenced her new album:
I feel like now we’re in a time where we are very divided, angry, and we hate a lot. I think with my music what I am trying to do is build an army of people who fight for something together instead of against each other. With that inspiration I wanted you to have the “Armor On” to guard yourself and prepare for the battle. What goes on in the album is that we actually stand together and fight for one another on the front line and we’re not fighting against each other, we’re fighting with each other for the people who don’t believe that we’re beautiful enough, great enough, brown enough, or white enough.
Read the full cover story on SFPL
