DAVÓNE TINES & THE TRUTH’s new work ROBESON, which premiered this summer at New York City’s Little Island, is out now on Nonesuch Records; you can get it and hear it here. 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.

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.”

“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 will perform from ROBESON at Zipper Hall in Los Angeles on September 27, the Harris Theater in Chicago on October 1, Bozar in Brussels on February 8, and Barbican Hall in London on February 15. For details and tickets, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.

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.