New York's Dakota Jones first got our ears pricked up with their single 'I Did It To Myself', and they're back with a stunning new album Black Light. Frontwoman Tristan Carter-Jones says

“I’m a black, queer woman expressing myself through love and music. Some folks still find that to be a transgressive act in and of itself. I work to fight that idea. I write a lot about my sexuality and the ways in which I express it. Songs about sex and love bounce back and forth between songs about heartache, hangovers and self-medication, and the pleasure and pain of truly finding yourself. I don’t think we get to hear these things from a woman’s mouth as often as we should.”

We asked Tristan to take our 5 question interview ...


1. What’s the Dakota Jones band manifesto?
If you’re gonna sing, sing with all your might.


2. What’s the BEST song on the new album?

‘We Playin Bad Games’. It’s both my favorite song on the record, and the song that I think captures the soul and sexiness of the record the best, and it came together so seamlessly. That’s my favorite part of creating and collaborating – when it’s all so effortless that you know you’re purely being guided by the muse, by something bigger.


3. What song do you wish you’d written?

‘Plastic’ by Moses Sumney. It’s exactly my type of love song: tentative, deeply vulnerable, simple, short, and sweet.


4. Pass the mic – who are the top 3 contemporary artists you’d like us be listening to right now? 

Moses Sumney, Jazmine Sullivan, and Kimbra. They’re so deeply underrated but, to me, deserve all of the hype in the world.


5. Draw us a picture.

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