While most of us are aware that the whole spectrum of dance music comes from Black origins, over the years there has been an intentional erasure of its ground-breaking roots and classic creators. Black artists have too-often been borrowed from without credit, resulting in a white-washing of the culture. But now artists such as Aluna are reclaiming this space by actively shedding light on a forgotten history and a still-thriving contemporary scene.

The Wales-born artist (full name Aluna Francis) originally found fame a decade ago as one half of the electronic duo AlunaGeorge and later stepped out as a solo artist in 2020 with the blistering album ‘Renaissance’. This year she dropped ‘Nowhere To Hide’ featuring Nigerian alté star Prettyboy D-O and South African producer Kooldrink, who built the song’s sultry amapiano backdrop. And she connected with Swedish house producer Kornél Kovács for the mellow, garage-influenced track ‘Follow You’. Her latest ‘Kiss It Better’ is another reminder of her exhilarating versatility. The song unfolds with four-to-the-floor rhythms and acidic instrumentation, courtesy of legendary Detroit house producer MK. Now based in Los Angeles, I sat down with Aluna in London to discuss the evolution and advocacy of her sound.

Many of us grew up with AlunaGeorge. As the landscape of dance music evolves, how have you maintained your vision?

The honest answer is that making music is the least of my worries; it’s basically the only thing that I find really easy to do. It’s not like I’m a genius or anything like that but where the challenge comes in is the industry and the way that I’m treated as a Black woman in dance music. My creative process is my safe space, it’s a place where I feel at home.

You’ve always made music with people from so many different genres and parts of the world. How do you select your collaborators?

Back in the day, most of my collaborators were people I had met at festivals so I would get a little window into how our connection ran. One of the main criteria is getting a sense that they’re going to be able to remove their ego and insecurities from the room so that the song is able to have the space to manifest. I don’t necessarily think that we as artists invent everything from the deepest recesses of our souls, minds and hearts. We are a conduit for the songs that people need to hear. The higher the skillset, the better you are at allowing the song to develop without getting in the way.

Is the process of song-writing something you have had to work at?

Initially I thought it was supposed to come from within and so I struggled to articulate in that way. I was much more poetic and mysterious but it didn’t convey anything so in the end I just learnt how to write songs in a traditional way so that I had the tools to tell the story that needed to be told. One of my early AlunaGeorge songs ‘Attracting Flies’ came from me listening to my neighbour talk about her experience then putting that conversation down in song. Now I’m always sourcing from my personal stories of empathy.

How did your creative process work with MK for ‘Kiss It Better’?

I sent a top line to him that had demo music but the idea was always to replace that with different production so he was able to dive deep into it straightaway. My voice can be quite sugary and it was an obvious contrast to come with this really driving, techno beat. He knows I respect him for his contribution to the development of dance music in the 90s and that I wanted the hard stuff. I’m a huge backseat-driver when it comes to production but I didn’t need to do that with MK.

You’re very vocal about your research into the Black history of dance music. At this point of your career, why was it important for you to return to the genre’s roots?

I wanted to see what would happen if we had never had the entire genre taken away from us. How would we have developed the sound? When you’re coming into dance music as a Black person now, you’re hearing a euro-centric sound of how dance music was made. Since we created the genre, there’s no reason why we can’t make changes to the sound but in order to do that, we need a connection to where we left off.

How has that research remoulded the way you make your own music?

Looking into the birth of house and techno has directly changed the way that I work in the studio. One of my producer collaborators from ‘Renaissance’ was Rufio, the drummer from TV On The Radio, and even though he hadn’t worked in dance music, we tried something together. I told him to think about how when house music was created, they were at that point of the death of disco. There was new technology available with the 808s and the 909s making it cheaper to make music without live instrumentation, big studios and big money. These producers were trying to make disco but just with electronic equipment. So, we got in the studio with analogue instruments and it’s the most fun I’ve ever had.

How would you describe the sound evolution since ‘Renaissance’?

I broke a lot of rules of dance music for ‘Renaissance’ and really amazing things have come out of that like the collaboration with MK. Then ‘Follow You’ is a whole other route of dance music; garage is so different from techno and we’re much less focused on the boundaries of genres. When I dropped ‘Renaissance’ there were no live shows due to lockdown but now I go out and I play some of my old and new stuff and I feel that I can go anywhere as long as I connect the dots.

How has taking the album live been for you?

There was such a big gap between releasing the album and actually touring it that I wasn’t even sure how people would react. But my understanding of how to craft a live show and how to get people dancing is so well-tuned, I wouldn’t even know if they knew the tunes or not because they’re having a good time regardless…. My music is tapping into what connects it all as sounds from the African diaspora. So, as long as I’ve preserved the nature of that music then I know it will click.

Since ‘Renaissance’ came out, and artists such as Beyoncé and Drake have also released bodies of work centred around house and club-culture, how has the cultural renaissance evolved?

The conversation has moved on from whether or not dance music is Black. If at this point, there are people who still don’t know the history, then I’m inclined to think it’s active ignorance. That can be whether you’re Black or white. So now it’s not about education. It’s more about changing the system around how Black dance music is received, shared and invested in. There needs to be much more Black ownership, support and development across the board because the audience is there but they’re not being served correctly. The audience that I’m talking about is a combination of the Black community who are looking to reclaim and break out of boundaries that we’ve been set in, genre-wise, and white people who are looking to be active, anti-racist allies and party with other people with the same mindset.

Having made such a defiant statement with this album, do you feel pressure to continue on with this tone or just go where the music takes you?

I feel like I’ve done my job as a spokesperson. I still focus on moving the needle for Black women in dance music because the culture of exploiting Black women’s voices without celebrating their Blackness and investing in Black women as artists in their own right, has been the slowest thing to change. So now that I feel like I’ve been released from having to state the obvious to people, I’m much more in my creative bag and not really interested in distracting myself from that.

Could you paint a picture of the future of dance music?

I think that technology is going to be really pivotal in the deconstruction of the status quo and the reconstruction of the new way of connecting small communities across the world. A lot of Black endeavours have been built on top of somebody else’s ownership which means that they’re able to tear down whatever we’ve built at the snap of a finger. Having experienced a smaller form of that myself, what will be powerful is for us to interconnect instead of trying to appeal to the larger powers in the industry for handouts, money and places to build within their world. Musically, we’re on the brink of the most massive genre-bending style. Once we’ve invested in young Black producers and artists, giving them the permission to tap into the wider African diaspora without rules, we’re going to hear music that we’ve never heard before.

Where do you see yourself within this evolution?

I’m here to break down the boundaries, to be a trailblazer and to present new ideas in a harmonious way. It inspires individuals who are looking for new music and gives artists permission to start experimenting. My own personal brand of activism is to start building infrastructures supporting others to come in behind me and keep developing what I started. I’m seeing a lot of the Black community working together in this symbiotic way.

Finally, what are you currently working on?

My next album is a concept album that isn't just about the music, it’s about how that music can affect the space around it as well. I’m very interested in how that happens in nature, how cell networks communicate through invisible, magical forces even though it’s just biology.

‘Kiss It Better’ by Aluna with MK is out now. Discover it here.