daniel daley’s
coat. Neil Barrett x Alpha Industries
top. James Perse
trousers. Purple brand
shoes. Y-3
rings. BP Jewelry
nineteen85’s
jacket. Moncler
trousers. Fetti
shoes. Rakoh
dvsn are arguably the most prominent R&B duo of the moment. The Toronto natives first caught the eyes of many in 2015 with the release of singles With Me and The Line. Through their mood-altering slow jams and pure R&B sound, vocalist Daniel Daley and Grammy nominated producer Nineteen85 built a fanatical following of fans including fellow Canadian Drake. The pair later signed to Drake’s OVO label, leading to a feature on Drake’s 2016 album Views. It’s a collaboration that made sense considering Nineteen85 produced some of the album’s biggest hits: Hotline Bling and One Dance.
It wasn’t until dvsn released their toxic anthem If I Get Caught that they were subject to heated online criticism for their provocative lyrics on cheaters. “If I get caught cheating, that don’t mean I don’t love you” and “you wouldn’t want me if you thought I never had hoes” are just some lyrics that left a mark on critics. Even Jay-Z – whose song Cry was sampled on the track – had some words. “I didn’t think one could make a song more toxic than [the] song Cry,” he wrote in a text message to rapper Jermaine Dupri shared on dvsn’s Instagram in July. “I just want a disclaimer that says that I said this song is wrong!” he joked.
dvsn’s music has also sparked conversations online about today’s R&B scene. Their fourth studio album Working On My Karma is a nostalgic throwback to the traditional R&B love songs that have been missing from the genre. The duo sat down with Schön! to discuss their musical journey since signing with OVO, their new album and the current state of R&B.
top. Sandro
vest. Moose Knuckles
trousers. Bode
shoes. Rakoh
eyewear. Illesteva
Daniel Daley, you’re a singer and Nineteen85, you’re a producer. What made you guys come together and become a two-person collective?
Nineteen85: I think it just happened. We’ve been working together, writing and producing for ourselves and others for a while. And actually, we sent out a few of the songs for other people. The response was always I love the record, but I just don’t see anybody being able to do this record apart from Daniel.
Daley: We never came into this assuming we would end up as an R&B duo. You know, that kind of concept didn’t even exist before. For R&B, a duo might be an entirely new concept.
How much does Black Canadian culture influence your daily career as an artist?
Daley: I mean, that’s all we know. We’re from Toronto and both of our mums are Jamaican. What we eat, the music we listen to and the culture in the crib, it influences our day-to-day, our music and our personal life.
Nineteen85: I agree. It influences everything and then also just Toronto being such a uniquely diverse place. Whether it’s the music you hear, the food or the different cultures you’re interacting with. Our experiences with women are unique to the girls we grew up meeting, their families and their influences. None of us realised that until we left. Once you leave Toronto, you start to realise [that] the things that are normal to us aren’t necessarily expected in other places.
You’re soon going on your next headline tour with over 13 shows overseas. How has your sound and culture allowed you to transcend into new places and connect with audiences abroad?
Daley: The music that we make is a representation of many things. It represents Toronto, a super mixed culture that embodies this generation’s experiences with love, relationships [and] just experiences with other humans. And then what dvsn stands for: people divided from the rest who are separated from the pack. Many people worldwide relate to and find a piece of themselves in what dvsn represents. We’ve been blessed and lucky to have people in different countries, cities and continents who see themselves [through] the same perspective.
nineteen85’s
jacket. Moncler
top. R13
trousers. Fetti NY
shoes. Rakoh
eyewear. Illesteva
necklace + rings. Versani
daniel daley’s
coat. Neil Barrett x Alpha Industries
top. James Perse
trousers. Purple brand
shoes. Y-3
rings. BP Jewelry
What made you want to sign to Drake’s OVO sound record label?
Daley: It was the trust factor that we had and our relationship with producer 40 which goes back to before Drake even fully blew up. 40 being like, ‘yo, I know these guys from Toronto.’ He was constantly checking in on us and ensuring we were good even when we were in the explosion part of our career. 40 supported us and our direction and gave us the option for him to help us sign with whatever label we wanted, or we could just stay and rock with OVO records. At the time, we didn’t know anybody else in the industry and we refrained from trusting anybody because of the stories we’d heard. We stayed with the one dude that we knew could be trusted.
What was the creative direction for your latest album Working On My Karma?
Nineteen85: This is our most traditional R&B album. The traditional 90s and 2000s R&B that people gravitate towards whenever they say, oh, [this] feeling is different or missing in R&B. That’s a lot of the inspiration behind where we went sonically.
Daley: The idea of keeping the fundamentals and the structure of the things that were in the 90s or 2000s, but then trying to keep the conversation geared around what we’re experiencing right now in relationships, love and dating. Every dvsn album is a new chapter.
Would you say your music blurs the lines between new and nostalgic R&B?
Daley: dvsn helped create what everyone’s doing now. A group of us were coming out of SoundCloud and popping up on the internet. We set the tone for the new generation and that’s why we felt okay, we’re the people that can get away with trying to present a new direction.
Nineteen85: We’ve always been part of the newer sound of R&B and the new wave of people taking this different approach, but we’ve also only been given comparisons to what R&B felt like and the nostalgia of it all.
nineteen85’s
coat. Christian Wijnants
trousers. Purple Brand
necklaces. Versani
rings. Versani + Cartier
daniel daley’s
coat + hoodie. Boss
trousers. Purple Brand
shoes. Timberland
eyewear. James Oro
One of your songs that has stirred some debate online is If I Get Caught. What inspired you to create the song?
Daley: Real life conversations that we had inspired the song. This whole album is in story form so we had to give different points in the story. The song highlights the mentalities that can sometimes lead to problems [in] relationships. Everyone thought it was a song boasting about cheating but it’s not. The chorus started this conversation and got everybody to put their opinions on the table about whether they’d stay through someone cheating, whether their relationship is strong enough, how would they get through it, and will they try and cheat back? We saw interesting conversations happening every time we played it to people so why not just put this out in the world?
Many people criticised the song as a cheating anthem, with Jay-Z insinuating that it’s the most toxic song he’s heard. Reflecting on that moment, what do you guys think about the criticism now?
Daley: A week after it came out, everything changed because people started taking back what they were saying like, ‘oh, I understand what they’re saying now that I heard an interview.’ So in the beginning, yeah, it was a shock. I was like, oh, my God, they want to kill us. And then, as the days went on, we saw many of the same accounts online changing their tone. Then we noticed that it was the shock factor of what was said in the song. We didn’t know that it would do numbers and start trending.
Do you acknowledge and understand where the criticism is coming from?
Daley: We will acknowledge that if you take the song from a particular perspective, you could call it toxic. But if you take time to understand what’s being said and listen through it, that’s different from what it was. If you have any idea of who we are, you would know that’s not us. We’re not these guys out here trying to destroy relationships, that’s never been our motto. We’ve always talked about love, relationships, and situations from different angles. If it’s real, we’re talking about it, and one thing people can’t say is that this isn’t real.
What do you think the current state of R&B is?
Nineteen85: This is the most divided R&B because there are so many different sub-genres. In the 90s, everybody was doing whatever we now consider traditional or neo-soul and sometimes they were the same thing. But now you can do ten different versions of stuff that all fit in the R&B category.
How do you think dvsn contributes to the current state of R&B?
Nineteen85: We were part of the early wave of people pushing the sound further away from whatever it had been for the past ten years or so and we are also some of the most respected for how much we appreciate and reference more nostalgic sounds. We’ve tried to incorporate different styles into our music so we’re a little bit of everything that new R&B offers.
nineteen85’s
coat. Christian Wijnants
trousers. Purple Brand
necklaces. Versani
rings. Versani + Cartier
daniel daley’s
coat + sweater. Christian Wijnants
top. Helmut Lang
pants. Hudson
shoes. Sandro
bracelet. Versani
rings + choker. BP Jewelry
dvsn‘s world tour “Working On My Karma” will start from January 2023, tickets are out now.
This Schön! online exclusive has been brought to you by
photography. Luke Dickey
fashion. Anthony Pedraza
talent. dvsn
grooming. Stacy Gray
fashion assistant. Brian Christopher Kelly
words. Emmanuel Onapa
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