On DAVÓNE TINES & THE TRUTH’s new work ROBESON, Tines’ solo recording debut, the musician grapples with the legacy of a hero. Exploding the musical repertoire of Paul Robeson, Tines and his band the Truth—pianist John Bitoy and sound artist Khari Lucas—take listeners on a trip from the stage of Carnegie Hall to the floor of a Moscow hotel room in an attempt to understand an icon not through aspiring to his monumentality, but through connecting to his vulnerability. “Like his predecessor [Paul Robeson], Mr. Tines has always been more than just a performer," says the Wall Street Journal, "using his richly expressive, wide-ranging instrument and theatrical skill to excavate his own stories, dark side and all.”
DAVÓNE TINES & THE TRUTH’s new work ROBESON, which premiered last month at New York City’s Little Island, is available September 13, 2024, on Nonesuch Records. In ROBESON, Tines’ solo recording debut, the musician grapples with the legacy of a hero. Exploding the musical repertoire of Paul Robeson, Tines and his band the Truth—pianist John Bitoy and sound artist Khari Lucas—take listeners on a trip from the stage of Carnegie Hall to the floor of a Moscow hotel room in an attempt to understand an icon not through aspiring to his monumentality, but through connecting to his vulnerability. The album track “THE HOUSE I LIVE IN,” along with a video directed by Tines, is available today here; “LET IT SHINE” was released earlier this spring.
Tines says of ROBESON, which he co-created with director Zack Winokur, “This album is my most personal artistic statement to date. I’ve endeavored to compare and contrast my journey as an artist with that of my artistic ancestor and hero, Paul Robeson, the unparalleled singer, actor, and activist. Standing on his beliefs of egality for the disenfranchised led to governmental and public attacks that almost ended his life. This album is the fever dream of the universal journey to battle internal and external persecution in order to find one’s self and decide what you need to say the most now that you’ve survived.”
He continues, “I’m deeply happy to share the song and music video for ‘THE HOUSE I LIVE IN.’ It’s an updated version of a song Paul Robeson sang from the 1940s that still has a lot to say about the hopes, fears, and reckoning of America.”
“Like his predecessor [Paul Robeson], Mr. Tines has always been more than just a performer," says the Wall Street Journal, "using his richly expressive, wide-ranging instrument and theatrical skill to excavate his own stories, dark side and all.”
Heralded as a “singer of immense power and fervor” and “[one] of the most powerful voices of our time” (Los Angeles Times), the “immensely gifted American bass-baritone Davóne Tines has won acclaim, and advanced the field of classical music.” (New York Times) This “next generation leader” (Time) is a path-breaking artist at the intersection of many histories, cultures, and aesthetics, his work blends opera, spirituals, gospel, and anthems, as a means to tell a deeply personal story of perseverance and human connection.
Tines recently made his Metropolitan Opera in John Adams’ oratorio El Niño, for which the New York Times praised his “singing with warm, auburn shades and a beguiling elasticity” and the Wall Street Journal noted he “supplied male ferocity [as] God in ‘Shake the Heavens’ ... and a raging, venomous Herod.” Tines also is featured on the new Nonesuch recording of Adams’ opera Girls of the Golden West. He was nominated for a Grammy Award for the 2022 recording of Anthony Davis’ X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, in which he sang the title role.
