THEY.
‘Straight Up / Diamonds & Pearls’
(Drink Sum WTR)
Two tracks taken from the forthcoming LP ‘Love Jones’.
R&B duo THEY. — songwriter Drew Love and producer Dante Jones — have developed a smooth, future-facing sound for nearly a decade. In the early days, it was simple; two artists aligning on an appreciation for ’90s R&B, new jack swing, and the height of soul-sampling hip-hop. Jones making beats and Love on the lines, a basic, balanced, and open-ended setup, free from major label expectations (which they’d feel on their 2017 breakout Nü Religion: Hyena) and high-profile collaborations (explored on 2018’s Fireside, 2020’s The Amanda Tape, and 2023’s Nü Moon). They’re proud of every stop along their story, while hindsight and a fresh perspective after signing to Secretly-affiliate label drink sum wtr have afforded them some distance to reflect on where THEY. goes next. The answer is LOVE.JONES. Here the duo exudes a whole new energy by reasserting their artistry in its most potent and pure form, just Love and Jones, making straight-fire, love-making music indebted to the golden neo-soul era that gave us the namesake 1997 film. “Forget the features, forget bringing in the big producers and writers. It’s really just a return to our original dynamic,” says Jones. Refined and reinvented, THEY. have arrived at their boldest work, a stacked, high-energy collection celebrating Black art, culture, and “the intense feelings of Black love.”
Love Jones, among other films, was a regular presence in the studio as the duo started shaping their next project. “I just keep movies on while we’re working and Love Jones kind of sparked something and had me thinking about our very, very early days,” says Jones, who grew up in Denver but spent a lot of time in Chicago with his family in the early to mid-2000s, around the same time Love moved from El Paso, Texas, to DC. “I think there’s this weird parallel that was kind of happening in both of our lives around that period where we’re both being immersed in completely different cultures from where we came from, like, real soulful black culture, cities that had a really rich black history. We didn’t know each other, we’re on opposite ends of the country, but we were both kind of going through these transformative times.” They both realised the Chicago-set film, released during the zenith of Black romances in cinema and pop culture, encompassed a vibe and aesthetic that became instructive for new material (and, of course, the title also merges their surnames; for years they’d considered it for a band name).
Thinking back to the soul-spliced sound emanating from Chicago in the 2000s, Jones revamped his production process, experimenting with new systems and tools to create a palette of original samples and loops. THEY. also took cues from the fan response after a run of live shows, bringing more active energy into recording, a grittier style of R&B in the lineage of 112, Jagged Edge, Jodeci, and The Dream. “We really just wanted it to feel like from the moment that you press play like you’re entering into something new,” says Jones. “When Drew gets on stage, he’s pouring his heart out. It’s not just trying to be cool or whatever, he’s like ‘I want everybody to feel me. I want people to feel the music,’ and that’s how we did it in the studio. You can feel it from the jump.”
Early standout “Diamonds And Pearls” rides on shimmering keys, a grooving bassline, and an instantly memorable vocal hook. It sets the tone for a formidable front-half run; first comes the bumping single “Straight Up,” one of their all-time favourites, “a bedroom banger, well tested,” laughs Love. “This one is the best embodiment of the way the entire album feels to me personally.” Lyrically, it scorches and flexes (“You ain’t see nobody take control like me… got you feenin’ like Jodeci.”)
“Choosin” keeps it moving; “caught up in the fast life,” Love sings across the beat-driven, call-and-response backdrop, flipping between the verses into a sly flow. “This one’s something you can bump in the car,” says Love. It was one of the first songs they tracked, a key that unlocked the rest, and re-established mutual trust and honesty during sessions. “The watershed moment for us creatively,” adds Jones. “It was kind of that brotherly dynamic, that push and pull, of us going back and forth on the joint to get it right. It had really been in a minute. You know, I’m lucky. I get to work with one of one of the best vocalists out there and an amazing writer.”
To record the pitched-up “5 Star,” first they made their own smooth jazz song with a friend, then resampled it and started building a beat around it. “Something about the bounce of the beat that we were making just had this f* you energy to it, like a middle finger to the exes,” says Jones. “Wild to start in smooth jazz and land there.” Another highlight, “Rotation”, is a late-night burner. “We’re out here trying to raise some birthrates.” — Jones is half-serious, but the truth is this music is unapologetically sensual. With LOVE.JONES, THEY. renews a mission; to fill a void in the contemporary R&B landscape, to bring this sound, with its rich cultural history, back into the mix, vibrant and modernized.
