Jean Dawson just put out an expanded version of his acclaimed 2024 album, Glimmer of God. On Rock A Bye Baby, Glimmer of God, the genre-defying artist stretches the vision even further with eight new tracks that tap into some funky and soulful influences.

In a conversation with The Current’s midday host Zach McCormick, Dawson shares more about the recording process, where his voice comes from, and gives props to departed heroes Prince and D’Angelo.

Zach McCormick: Zach McCormick, joined by Jean Dawson today on The Current. We are talking about his new expanded album Rock A Bye Baby, Glimmer of God, which arrived on November 14. Jean, thank you so much for joining us today on The Current.

Jean Dawson: Thank you for having me, family.

Zach McCormick: I love the music that you make so much because you are an artist who makes me work a little harder as a DJ. You mix genres and styles so effortlessly, you defy easy categorization. When you're deciding how you want to track to sound, what is your process for deciding which flavors to season this song with? Are these more intuitive decisions, where you're letting the song tell you where it wants to go, or more intentional decisions?

Jean Dawson: It's a mixture of both for pretty much every song. All of the people that I've idealized and idolized have had this weird combination of character that allows their music to exist in different places without being manhandled by the vessel that is the artist. I'm in the wind of whatever's feels right and feels intentional, but more than that, intrinsic. The song is telling me itself. It's like, "This is what I want from you." If I can't achieve that, then I'm not doing the right song.

Zach McCormick: So you are trying to tap into this ephemeral, creative spark, whatever it is, and then let that kind of guide you where you want the song to go. I love that.

Jean Dawson: We have this idea of control perspective for ourselves as artists, where it's like, "I want to be seen as this, and I want to be." I don't care. I don't put no credence in how the world's going to digest it. I still come from a frame of reference that it's an honor for somebody to care enough to listen. But I'm also no slave to nobody else's ear but my own.

Zach McCormick: Let's talk about Prince, because you have been very vocal over the years about your love of Prince. One of the things that I love about Glimmer of God is that it feels like you're showcasing different aspects of that influence. A song like "Black Sugar" reminds me, in places of Controversy, that digital funk sound. Something like "200 Cigarettes" feels more like a Prince ballad. Was there a reason that you found yourself leaning into this Prince influence, maybe even more so on Glimmer of God than on previous releases that you've done?

Jean Dawson: Yeah, for sure, it stems from my mom. I'm born in '95. What I said when I started the record was that I wanted to steal nostalgia from a time that I didn't exist. Not just make something that feels like repositioning of a sound that existed, but honoring it. Part of what I do, it has to honor the musicians that came before me in a way that isn't compromising of their footprint or their fingerprint. Rather, looking at it in a way where whatever the diaspora has currently, I can add to that by informing the past. There's kids that are born in the year 2005 that may have had their chance to listen to Prince and digest it. But for me, if I celebrate it, it's like, "Yeah, if you like this song, go listen to what it comes from." And for whatever reason, it translates to the Minnesota sound.

Prince, everybody can say everything about the man, the myth, the God. One of the most interesting parts of that man is that he had 100 different artists inside of him, and they were always fighting. You have all these side projects and you have all these extra producer names. You didn't always use the name Prince for for the work. Something like that made me feel more comfortable within my own process of making stuff. So the influence of Prince was like an influence of attitude, and obviously the soundboard of the music, for sure. I wasn't born in the '80s, but there's something so special about making everything from scratch. That's why I call it ghetto pop. So my responsibility is to preserve, and then to mutate.

Zach McCormick: I love that. You're taking a personal piece of responsibility of carrying on a musical legacy of a guy whose music you really admire. But also elements of, like you said, his identity and what he was interested in expressing in his music. I think that's awesome. And I also hear some resemblance to another guy who was a Prince disciple in D'Angelo on your song, "Darlin'" that opens up your record. We've all been mourning D'Angelo's passing lately. Was D'Angelo a guy whose music you ever connected to, given that shared Prince lineage?

Jean Dawson: Absolutely. Anybody that picks up any instrument, if you didn't study the D'Angelo, it's kind of like being a philosopher, and not talking about Plato or Socrates. It's like, if you're an astrophysicist, yeah, you're gonna know about Neil deGrasse Tyson. D'Angelo, rest in peace, has no business being not alive. It's really cool to see that the world has all come together and just been like, "Wow, this is an immense loss, not only for music, but just mankind." The music that was coming out that D'Angelo was able to make with all the other legends, they were doing the greatest music. I think more people are aware of it, and therefore that ripple effect will have consequences on the future, and in a very positive way for music. One thing D'Angelo was doing was making you wait. There's a payoff for that. Just wait. Without D'Angelo, there's a lot of things that would not have happened. There's a lot of music that wouldn't have been made. Same thing for Prince. Those are archetypes. And without those archetypes, then we have a very stark music world.

Zach McCormick: I'm talking to Jean Dawson right now about his expanded album Rock A Bye Baby, Glimmer of God on The Current. Zach McCormick here with you. One of the things that I wanted to ask you about Jean, is that one of the members of your team, a guy named Jesse Schuster, has roots in the Minnesota music scene. He played in some indie rock and jazz bands around here. I was just curious, what does he bring to your records and your live show as a member of your team. 

Jean Dawson: Oh my God, man. Jesse is one of my favorite people on Earth. Period. To my life, period, he brings a lot of joy and a lot of understanding. He's a big brother figure for me. He's also my music director for my live show. So he's somebody that I value more than water itself. Even when I was first doing some of the stuff that has the Minnesota sound, I played it for Jesse first. I was like, "Jesse, Am I doing it? Am I honoring it?" Right? And Jesse goes, "Heck yeah, bud." Like, all right, cool. I'll take it. So Jesse is a light amongst a bunch of other things. He has a solo project called Safe Jazz. He's an amazing artist. The things that he brings to my music in my life are invaluable. He's one of the purest souls I know, and I give him a lot of credit for making me a better human being, period. So I think it's the Minnesota in a man. I think it's like, every time I'm out there, it's like, "Wow, I want to stay here."

Zach McCormick: Let's talk a little bit about how you're coming to town too, because you're about to go on tour with Miguel. You'll be coming through Minnesota on March 2. I think it's a really cool fit given that kind of R&B mode that you've been in lately. It sounds like you really leveled up your singing for Glimmer of God and this new extended edition of the record. You were always a great singer, but it sounds like you really spent time on your vocals. What work went into that?

Jean Dawson: Honestly, I figured out that I wanted him to score my mom's life, right? So my father is from Long Beach, California, and then my mom is from Tijuana, Mexico, and then the rest of my family is from Sinaloa [Mexico]. My mom grew up like a proto-punk rocker, and then a hair-metal girl. So before starting Glimmer of God, I locked myself in my house, and I was like, "All right, now you have to sing." Fortunately, brother, I'm Black. So with being Black, it's kind of hard not to be able to sing. It's embedded in you just how other stereotypes are. There's very little Black people I've met that can't hold a note. I took it upon myself where I'm like, "If I'm going to be doing stuff that requires me to be really, really technical about what my voice is able to do, I have to spend a lot of time on it." So I locked myself in my house and started singing. I did that for a whole season.

By the time I came out, I was working at a studio that Earth Wind and Fire used to use, and also Prince used to use in Los Angeles. We used to say there's like a spirit running around in the studio. If you let it catch you, like the Holy Ghost, something really cool can happen. But you have to be open to it. Not on some hokey stuff. But this was the running joke within the players who would come and play for me. As soon as I sat in front of the mic, I have my friends behind me. I'm doing "Darlin'," and they'll look at me, and they're like, "What the f? Where did that come from?" And I'm like, "I don't know. It's just what the song is asking me for." Everybody I work with knows that I'm a slave to the song. And then every single time, all the homies, every time I was doing something that was so foreign to them coming out of my voice, they'd be like, "Wait, what? How? What is this?" And for me, was just like, "I'm just doing what the song is asking me to do." So if it requires me to do this, then I have to do that. And if I don't have the ability to do that, then I have no requirement to do that song. If my ability won't match it, or I got to work to meet that ability mark.

Zach McCormick: Man, the work really paying off on a song like “Rock A Bye Baby,” which has connected so much with The Current's audience here. It's got that incredible hook to it. You're growling a little bit. There's a little [Michael Jackson] as well as a little Prince, too. How did this song come together? What's the next phase here with this Rock A Bye Baby extended edition of Glimmer of God. What can you share with us about what these two new songs, "White Lighter" and "Rock A Bye Baby," are signaling about where you're going to take this extended edition of this record?

Jean Dawson: Those two songs that you mentioned were meant to be made for Glimmer of God, but they weren't because I didn't know what I needed to do until I was done. But the other records are precursors to the albums that I've already put out. So they're songs that feel like my second record, Pixel Bath. There's songs that feel like my third record, Chaos Now. So it's providing a little extra like context to the changes in the way that I've progressed. I've grown up in music now, and it's kind of funny to think, but people start listening to my music when I'm like 19. Now I've been making music for a decade, and I'm still considered a new artist. Which just gives credence to it takes 100,000 hours. It does take everything that you have for it to come back to you, like in a rubber band. So this extended edition, really, what it is, is a bookend before the next album. The next album, I've arrived. This Glimmer of God was like the bridge to that.

I just wanted to provide a little bit of extra context before I shift. The shift will come, and the lessons that I learned from each album I take over to the next one to make the next one better. So, taking those lessons that these albums have taught me and now pushing them into another place. So making something like Rock A Bye Baby was super, super important to me. All of Glimmer of God, that was a song I was trying to make, but I didn't have the skill set to do that until I already had finished Glimmer of God proper. Now it's a good head nod to be like, "Okay, we got there."

Zach McCormick: Jean Dawson, we can't wait to hear those new tunes for that next era, but we are enjoying this one right now. Rock A Bye Baby, Glimmer of God is the new extended edition of your record. You're welcome in town anytime with all of this love that you have for the Twin Cities. We love you back. Thank you so much for sharing your time with The Current today.

Jean Dawson: Thank you for having me. It's an honor.