Solange’s When I Get Home is her most experimental work yet

Solange Knowles’ 2016 full-length album, A Seat At the Table (ASATT), was a critically acclaimed meditation on black womanhood, fame, and belonging. It was also her first number one album in the US. Since releasing one of the best albums of 2016, to say that expectations for the sequel were high would be an understatement. And given that Solange provided little information about the album until the eve of its release. Her fanbase didn’t know what to expect. Will this be another ASATT? Or something completely different?

While similarities with its predecessor, such as its unapologetic celebration of blackness, are apparent on the first listen. When I Get Home (WIGH) is both less accessible and less hard-hitting. There’s less to hold on to. It is dreamy, hazy, jazzy, and interlude-heavy, clocking it at 33 minutes despite being 19 tracks long. There’s also a lot of lyrical repetition, with opening track ‘Things I Imagined’ consisting primarily of varying inflexions of the title. But it’s more soothing than irritating.

If ASATT was a purging of anger, WIGH is the calm after the storm. For many listeners, the former album will be the only Solange record they’ve listened to. So it may be confusing to some that this isn’t a protest album, at least not overtly in the way a Seat at the Table was. Contrary to the views of some detractors, WIGH is not meaningless, either. The ‘home’ referred to in its title is her hometown: Houston, Texas. Released as Black History Month became Women’s History Month, WIGH is about being a black woman who calls Texas home.

The creative energies of the artists blend together to create something hypnotic and beautiful

By opening the album with “Things I Imagined’, Solange appears to be acknowledging that she is engaging in the work of constructing a different South. The South that Solange sees in her mind’s eye may not be yours, but she saw it. For example, standout track ‘Almeda’, a song named after an area in Houston, pays homage to blackness: “Black skin, black braids/ black waves, black days/ black baes, black things/these are black-owned things”. As with ASATT, there’s a sense of reclamation, with Solange asserting that black culture still belongs to black people.

The album features an impressive roster of collaborators. It includes Tyler the Creator and Steve Lacy, but importantly, Solange is centre-stage. In fact, while it should be no surprise to anyone familiar with the contemporary R&B scene to find such artists listed in the album credits. It would, however, be easy to listen to the album and barely notice many of the featured artists. That isn’t to say that the featured artists don’t contribute anything important. The whole thing feels seamless, with the creative energies of the artists blending together to create something hypnotic and beautiful.

Her most experimental work yet, it seems unlikely that WIGH will achieve the commercial success of its predecessor. However, it’s evident that Solange doesn’t make her music to top the charts. Saying that there is nothing underground about this. She is quite clearly an artist with a vision of her own, and she realises it well.