This summer Hip Hop, soul and electronic musician Pierce Freelon releases his debut family album, D.a.D. a dynamic and genuine collection inspired by his journey through fatherhood. The eclectic recording is a family journal chronicling the life and times of a Black millennial father living in the South. 

As a skilled beat maker, Freelon thrives in sampling sounds from his environment and incorporating it into his music. He used this technique to assemble D.a.D like a quilt, stitching it together by voice memo recordings of himself and his children along with melodies and beats that he enhanced with soulful arrangements and honest and playful lyrics. His messages and themes are relatable and universal but are delivered in a style unique to the artist and his diverse creative circle.

Freelon passionately and proudly shares his life experiences has a Black man and as a loving, caring, nurturing father. In addition to the robust songs, the album is also interspersed with 4 voice memos of him playing with and parenting his children over the course of 10-years, through meals, boo-boos and clean up time, giving the listener an intimate glimpse into his home life. A very special presence on the album included in these sound bites is the voice of Pierce’s father, the late Phil Freelon, who remains a strong and positive influence on him. Phil expresses to his family the importance of the role of an artist in using their gifts to bring joy and beauty to the world for others to enjoy. As much as D.a.D is about Pierce’s life as young father, it is also an expression of his inheritance, the wonderful fatherly values that his dad passed on to him.

“Tuck Me In” kicks off the album with an electronic jazz and Afro-Caribbean inspired duet between Pierce and his daughter Stella, exploring the challenges of negotiating bedtime with lyrics inspired by real conversations about monsters in the closet and favorite bedtime stories. “Daddy Daughter Day" is an adorably hard-hitting Hip Hop anthem, featuring fellow rapper and father J Gunn on where the two fathers treat their daughters to a day of self-care, fun and exploration. “My Body” co-written and performed with vocalist Rissi Palmer, has a soul-and-jazz vibe and addresses creating consent culture by teaching children that they have autonomy over their bodies and “Bubble”, a dance song with a beat you can tap your foot to, is all about creating boundaries and self-care.

Stella Freelon takes the lead on “Tooth Bruh” where she plays the role of the tooth fairy’s distant cousin in this danceable dentist-approved mash-up of rhythmic beats, electronic synths and playful-prose. On “Swirly Cup” listeners take an instrumental journey through Stella’s quirky imagination featuring digital synths, a neck bopping baseline and an improvised solo by feature musician Malik Raii. Joseph Parry’s 1897 poem is adapted on “Make New Friends” about the value of friendship, re-imagined in the genre of contemporary R&B and electronic soul. The Hip Hop and rock mash-up "Gather Your Clothes” offers a bilingual instruction manual for children to clean up after themselves and features a verse from KronoZ Time, a Durham-based Spanish-speaking-and-rapping father of a 12-year old daughter. “Movies and Popcorn and Video Games” is a fast-paced ode to gamers, movie-lovers and fangirls while “Space Jam” joins a vulnerable, cosmic love letter from father to daughter. Closing out the album is “Ascend”, dedicated to Pierce’s late father. In many ways Phil’s transition became an inspiration for Pierce to finally compile the hundreds of voice memos he had been collecting into this album, celebrating fatherhood. Ascend is about becoming a phoenix and being fearless and resilient in the face of change.

D.a.D was written, recorded and produced by Pierce Freelon and was mastered by Gold and Platinum record mastering engineer Donald "XL" Robertson of XLP Mastering, LLC. The album will be available July 31 streaming on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon Music and anywhere families are searching for great music. Visit piercefreelon.com for music, videos and more information.

ABOUT PIERCE FREELON

Pierce Freelon is an accomplished Hip Hop/soul/electronic musician and Emmy-award winning producer, director and professor from Durham, NC. For over 15 years Pierce has traveled the world teaching Hip Hop and music production to youth in community centers. He is the co-founder of Beat Making Lab, an Emmy Award winning PBS web-series, has taught in the departments of music and African American Studies at the University of NC at Chapel Hill and is the writer, composer and co-director of an animated series called History of White People in America, an official selection of the Tribeca Film Festival, which will premiere on PBS World this July. Pierce is also the founder of Blackspace, a digital maker space where he has mentored dozens of youth, teaching digital storytelling through music and film. For over a decade, he has been the frontman of critically acclaimed Jazz/Hip Hop quartet The Beast and has toured internationally and released a series of albums, EPs, and mixtapes. He is the son of famed Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist Nnenna Freelon, and the late preeminent architect of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Phil Freelon. Pierce lives in Durham with his wife and their two young children. 

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D.a.D. TRACKLISTING 

1. Tuck Me In
2. Daddy Daughter Day (feat. J Gunn)
3. My Body (feat. Rissi Palmer)
4. Bubble 
5. Voice Memo — Oatmeal
6. Tooth Bruh 
7. Swirly Cup 
8. Make New Friends (feat. Carlitta Durand)
9. Voice Memo — Gather Your Clothes
10. Gather Your Clothes (feat. KronoZ Time)
11. Movies and Popcorn and Video Games 
12. Voice Memo — Get Well Soon
13. Space Jam
14. Voice Memo — Phil Freelon
15. Ascend (feat. Ami Kim)

For more information, contact Stephanie Mayers at Mayers Consulting 

(347)735-0736, mayersconsulting@gmail.com