[Portrait to be found in the spring issue of the têtu· magazine, available at your newsstands or by subscription.]
Dancing, candid and blazing. That is how one would describe Love on Digital, the American singer Destin Conrad’s very first album, released in April 2025. Nominated this year at the Grammy Awards in the Best Progressive R&B Album category, this fifteen-track set serves as an invitation to let loose, dancing close to the sexy sounds. “For me, the R&B is the music of love”, the artist says when we speak in a video call, as he is about to wrap up his international tour. It is a very upfront musical genre, demanding a certain audacity in writing, and that is precisely what inspires me.
For a long time, R&B was dominated by heterosexual narratives, but it is now taking an increasingly queer turn thanks to artists like Kehlani, Serpentwithfeet, or even Lil Nas X… Is it a happy coincidence that we can spot them all in his tracks? “Certainly not”, Destin replies with a smile. “I mainly wanted to collaborate with friends, and it turns out that most of my friends are queer.”
Cela n’a pas toujours été le cas. In his native Florida, the boy grew up without gay representation around him and accompanied his evangelical aunt to church to sing in the parish choir. When he was 10, his family moved to California. A radical change: “It’s a region with crazy openness!” In middle school, I had friends who owned up to their homosexuality. There was already a very strong self-determination; I couldn’t believe it. I thought: ‘What? But you have the right to say that?’ [Laughter] I think it would have been harder for me to come out if I had stayed in Tampa.
Adolescent, like many in his generation, he encountered social media at a fairly early age. “At 12, I was posting humorous videos on Vine”, he recalls, referring to the predecessor of TikTok. “I came across things I probably shouldn’t have seen at that age, but I think it hardened my skin.” Still, having developed a healthy sense of perspective about these platforms, he continually encourages kindness among his fans. The singer allowed himself a rebuke to those who compared him to Khalid, another openly gay figure in the American R&B scene, in order to pit them against each other and demean them. “It’s important that artists speak up to ‘recalibrate’ members of their community when their behavior is borderline. We have a lot more control than we think.”
Côté carrière aussi, Destin Conrad jouit pleinement de son contrôle en tant qu’artiste indépendant. Une liberté qui lui permet d’imaginer un horizon sans bornes, où tous les genres musicaux seraient à portée de main. Quelques mois après Love on Digital, il s’aventure ainsi en terres jazzy avec un deuxième album, le très convaincant Whimsy. “I will always do whatever I want to do,” annonce-t-il, bravache. “If I wanted to record a rock album, I would. I have no one to answer to; it’s one of the advantages of not having signed with a label.” Et pourquoi pas un disque 100 % gospel, le défie-t-on ? “It’s true that it’s a genre without queer representation… So I want to tell you ‘let’s go!’
