London singer Aluna Francis is one half of the electronic R&B-pop duo AlunaGeorge alongside producer George Reid. (Timely fun fact: AlunaGeorge headlined the first-ever Minecraft concert back in 2016.) And now, she’s stepping out on her own, signing to Diplo’s Mad Decent label and releasing the first track from her upcoming debut solo album.
“Having enjoyed being the main ingredient to many successful dance records, I started wanting to create the whole dish,” Aluna says in a statement. “In the past when performing on the stages of my white male peers, I always felt like a visitor being one of the few Black women I could see, so it never fully occurred to me to claim dance music as my music, as an artist, even though it was at the heart of my connection to music.”
“Then I looked at the history of dance music and saw how, for example, Chicago House, known as the invention of house music, was pioneered in the Black and Latino LGTBQ+ communities,” she continues, “which gave me inspiration to stake my flag in the ground as a Black woman in dance music by taking control of production and songwriting with my own vibe.” While AlunaGeorge’s debut album was called Body Music, Aluna’s debut single is titled “Body Pump.” Listen to it below.
