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Unfazed by having to follow a landmark album that crowned the Billboard 200, went gold, and yielded a hit that took a Grammy, Solange leisurely detours with When I Get Home. Made in spots as remote as Los Angeles and Jamaica, the follow-up to A Seat at the Table was also recorded in New Orleans and Solange's native Houston. Most pertinent is the last location, referenced repeatedly in expressions of nostalgia, pride, and tranquility, as well as in titular geographic markers.
Certain tracks offer little more than riffing and moodscapes, yet all 19 are shaped into a concise flowing whole with subtle twists and turns. Relatively drastic is the switch from the chugging "all black everything" exultation "Almeda," also featuring Dream, into the aching and intimate "Time ." Separation of the two songs is nonetheless unimaginable. Just as skillfully latticed is the large assortment of artists honored through evocation, collaboration, and sampling.
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The artist wrote and produced the 19-track "When I Get Home," which clocks in just under 40 minutes. At under 40 minutes total, it’s a quick and breezy listen, which compliments its overall airy and chill feel. I didn’t realize it was done until I heard other Solange songs on my playlist. Which, by the way, I think midnight music album drops and the NBA Finals are the only times there’s Pacific Standard Time privilege.
Like her previous, groundbreaking album A Seat at the Table, Home is a rich tableau of collaboration, black history, and references to her Houston upbringing (the homeward destination implied by the collection’s title), but the album takes even more experimental risks with her sound. Among the mix of artists involved are Gucci Mane, Dev Hynes, Earl Sweatshirt, Cassie and … a viral Atlanta public-access sexpert? It’s already been two years since the release of Solange Knowles’ When I Get Home. To celebrate her fourth studio album’s debut, the Grammy award-winning visual artist has teamed up with the Criterion Channel to exclusively premiere a remastered director’s cut of its accompanying art film. As icing on the anniversary cake, a series of digital activations will go down this week on her Black Planet page and feature art installations created over the years, a digital collage of fan images and testimonial stories curated by Solo, along with special performances and screenings. Like A Seat at the Table, Solange gave us little time to prepare for When I Get Home, mostly because sharing her art makes her antsy; drawing out the process would only make it worse.
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Compared to A Seat at the Table, the balance of which processed anguish and anger, this is lighter and freer, above all else a luxuriant bliss-out. From the early moment where Solange makes like a group of harmonizing, sunlit Janet Jacksons, it sounds custom-made for a basking joy ride that tops out around 20 mph and slows just enough to accommodate get-ons and drop-offs for a variable group of companions including a lover. Some portions sound raw enough to have been generated on the spot, prioritizing feeling over "proper" songs.
It leads into a spoken-word essay from Solange on the layers of her identity. Contains a sample of the recording "I Hope You Really Love Me" performed by Family Circle, written by Charles Simmons, Jr; used courtesy of The Numero Group. "Binz"contains samples from "Didn't Want to Have to Do It" as performed by Rotary Connection, written by John Sebastian; used courtesy of Universal Music Enterprises. "We Deal with the Freak'n" contains samples from "Turn Me On" as performed by Rotary Connection, written by Sidney Barnes and Greg Perry; used courtesy of Universal Music Enterprises. Solange premiered the film in nine local venues for members of the Black Houston community including "her mother’s old hair salon; Unity National Bank, the only black owned Texas banking institution; and Emancipation Gym the only public park open to African Americans in the Jim Crow era." In a year-end essay for Slate, Ann Powers cited When I Get Home as proof that the format is not dead but rather undergoing a "metamorphosis", with artists such as Solange utilizing the concept album through the culturally-relevant autobiographical narratives.
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Tracks on the album such as “Stay Flo” and “Almeda” delivered the album’s hip-hop and trap elements. As we are whisked further into the record, Solange makes the listener more acquainted with her side of the world and how she feels about the people in it. The track “Dreams” gracefully follows an interlude with ethereal, nostalgic vocals “I grew up a little girl with/ Dreams, dreams, dreams, dreams, dreams…” Another standout track is the powerful “Almeda”. There is something noteworthy about a black woman’s resilience and the constant uphill battles she is made to endure; “Almeda” is an embodiment of all of this.
In addition to Solange’s genres variations within this album, she includes tracks such as “Way to the Show” and “Time ” that showcased her signature R&B and soul elements. The 19-track album not only serves as a way for Knowles to speak on her life experiences, but allows her to bring her listeners along with her on a journey of reflection and tribute. With the variation of musical stylings and song interpretations, listeners will either be in the mood to dance or self-reflect. If you could get past a busy signal, you could hear snippets of the not-yet-released songs. "The album is an exploration of origin," reads a news release announcing the album.
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The lyrics deal with strong feminist themes and a celebration of blackness. I will say, watching Solange evolve while still being the same girl her original fans fell in love with, is fascinating to watch. Because we know the Knowles family never does anything without intention, Solange announced she was dropping her album, When I Get Home at midnight on March 1. By calling the number, fans were able to hear song snippets in anticipation of the full serving.
Solange Releases New Album 'When I Get Home' With just two days of warning, Solange shares the surprise album When I Get Home. "Exit Scott" contains a sample from "Poem to Ann #2" as written and performed by Pat Parker; used courtesy of Sinister Wisdom and The Olivia Companies. "Dreams"contains a sample from "No" as written and performed by Duval Timothy; used courtesy of Carrying Colour.
The collaborators on the album, just like Solange, don't impose themselves on the music. Some tracks, such as "Almeda" ("Black skin, black braids/Black waves, black days/Black baes, black days/These are black-owned things") could easily become cruising anthems. In the following days, Solange continued to release clips on her IG, all tagged with her hometown of Houston, TX as the location, with references that her newer, younger, and more mainstream-leaning fans may not have picked up on. On Wednesday, she shouted out Devin the Dude, a Houston rapper signed to the storied Rap-a-Lot records. On Thursday morning, she posted a phone number instantly recognizable to fans who were old enough to cop their own, uncensored music in the mid-’00s. Jem Aswad at Variety wrote that "When I Get Home is a challenging and satisfying follow-up to A Seat at the Table, one that will probably baffle some fans but intrigue and engage even more".
On Solange's fourth full-length album since her 2002 debut, Solo Star, the artist takes listeners on an "exploration of origin" across 19 tracks and a film meshing together static R&B, funk, Zydeco and blues. To accompany the release, Solange announced nine "album events" in her hometown of Houston, all taking place on March 3. As if willed into existence by our collective despair, Solange surprise-released her fourth album, When I Get Home, last night right at the intersection of Black History Month ending and Women’s History Month beginning.
Solange has finally released her anticipated fourth album 'When I Get Home' today , which is stacked with big-name guest artists. Odd Future, the Los Angeles hip-hop collective known for their grisly sense of humor, transgressive aesthetic choices and strong communal spirit, has a strong presence on When I Get Home. Sweatshirt is a member, as is Tyler the Creator, who appears in dense murmurs and ad-libs on “Time and “My Skin My Logo.” Steve Lacy, the guitarist for the exploratory funk band The Internet — which is led by Odd Future member Syd — contributed to three songs.
The cleverest placement might be the sampled gospel group singing "Please take the wheel forever." In the context of When I Get Home, their devoted appeal takes on a literal meaning while losing none of its redemptive intent. There are people bound to shut the record off and demand to know where the traditional songs are. Hip-hop heads of a certain age will find it scratches the same itch Doom and Madlib’s Madvillainy did. Both albums are offbeat structures made from short, evocative song fragments. Fans of weirder stuff will hear shades of Todd Rundgren’s A Wizard, A True Star, itself a woozy, psychedelic tribute to the back end of the Beatles’ Abbey Road, where Lennon and McCartney bounced quick sketches off each other to brilliant effect. The seamless sequencing is also reminiscent of Solange’s Texas-soul elder, Erykah Badu, whose 2000 album Mama’s Gun unfurled as a playlist that didn’t really stop between tracks.
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