Diana Gordon
⤏ IN CONVERSATION WITH, PHOTOS, AND STYLING BY YASI SALEK
⤏ ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED DECEMBER 2018
Diana Gordon has lived many lives in her 33 years. In each, she’s been an artist. The Queens-born singer and songwriter left home and started making music at 17, embarking on a path that has been anything but straight and narrow. But through all of her story’s many chapters, the relentlessly curious and sonically diverse artist has never stopped challenging herself creatively, and she’s not about to start now. Not right when Gordon’s page-turner is about to get really good. For 12 years she released music under the stage name Wynter Gordon, briefly becoming an accidentally EDM artist (she scored a cult dance hit with her 2011 track “Dirty Talk”). She’s also had an impressive career as a songwriter for people like Mary J. Blige, J.Lo, and — maybe most famously — for Beyoncé on her album Lemonade. An incredible success story for many, but Gordon has always wanted more — she has something to say, and she wants to say it through her own music. In May of 2018, two years after she took back her birth name, Diana Gordon put out Pure, a deeply personal distillation of her experiences (good, bad, and in between) and influences (they run the gamut from gospel to country to classic R&B). It’s both an ode to her family and an exercise in understanding herself, as an artist, as Diana, for the first time. And it’s excellent. I could write pages and pages about my admiration for Gordon (and at least five paragraphs about her absurdly perfect skin), but I thought it would be better to let Diana speak for herself. She’s been waiting long enough, after all.
On how High School changed her life:
I went to LaGuardia High School, and my senior year there I entered a contest. It was the BMI scholarship for songwriting, and I won $30,000 for college. That’s when I was like, I could be good at this, so let me continue to write. I learned very early on, when I won that scholarship, what I’m good at in life. And I needed something to hold onto, to survive.
I was always singing as a child. I came from the south side of Jamaica, Queens. I didn’t know anything. Manhattan was some place my mom worked, and we would pick her up at night. I didn’t know outside of Jamaica Ave what life was. So when I went to LaGuardia, it opened up a whole new world. I had never met trans people, and then my classmates were trans. We were across the street from the Lincoln Center, and we went to ballets. I had a South African music teacher, Hugh Masakayla. I did a performance with him and Paul Simon at Carnegie Hall. He taught me songs in click tongue and all these different things. And then after school I would walk around, and I discovered Central Park. I lived in New York my entire life, born and raised, but I didn’t know anything but the hood, and what that entails. LaGuardia really did change the way I looked at life.
On her latest record, Pure:
Pure is really an experiment, in talking about my family, and also in finding a sound for myself. I wrote everything on the album. I didn’t think Pure was going to be the music breakthrough that I was trying to have. I don’t think that has come yet. I think it’s just supposed to be a conversation starter. Because I feel like when people are interested in artists, they can love the songs, but do they love you? Do they know you? Do they see you? I don’t want to be just a song. Just a song is whatever. It fades. For me, this album was like — I’m a real person, I have a story to tell. I’m going to tell it one way or another.
On her current project:
Right now I’m just working on my next project, every single day. I have tunnel vision. I feel like Pure opened up a door and allowed people to see me, see that I was still here. I accomplished that. A lot of people I respect artistically, they showed me a lot of love on Pure. And so I was just like okay, gotta get back in the studio and work on something that’s not so deep. I kind of just want to have fun with this project. I’ve been working a lot with my friend SAINt JHN, and just finding new rhythms, finding new patterns. It’s been interesting because I’ve been in this space of making like, folky 90s emo music and now it’s like, kind of Tracy Chapman trap music. I am twerking a lot in the studio nowadays. It’s a process. Hopefully I’ll have something out early in the new year. That’s the dream. 2019.
On songwriting:
I’ve written for a lot of artists. I kind of don’t want to write for anyone ever again, except for Rihanna. If I’m going to do it again in my life, I would love to collaborate with her on a song for one of us.
On an artist she admires:
I’m completely obsessed with [Spanish singer] Rosalía. I’ve been listening a lot to her first album [Los Angeles, which came out last year]. In 2017, I DMed her, and I was just like, “Girl, this is amazing.” What I love about Rosalía is that she uses her voice in such a tribal way…it’s so pure, without beats, without anything. Just a guitar and her voice. It gives you tingles up your arm. I love that, and I love that she’s able to transition that into very youthful, flamenco hip hop. I love to see an artist with versatility in that way. I feel like when I perform live and do my shows stripped down, or when I sing my song “Stimela” live, that’s very much like my spirit. I think it’s great when you can go into an audience that’s full of 65 year olds and really fuck it up, and they’ll be telling their grandkids about it, and then you can also go to the show with the grandkids, and they’ll be like, “Dude we just saw the most amazing thing.”
On artistic security:
I’ve always felt secure in my voice. My voice is the one thing I’ve always been secure about. But maybe until you get to like, Whitney status, where you just know that you’re the shit…I think Whitney probably woke up every morning like “No one can sing better than me.” I don’t think until you get to that point you stop wanting to prove to yourself — and to the world — that you’re amazing. I don’t think that will ever stop for me. I don’t WANT it to stop, actually, because when I get complacent and I feel like there’s nothing else to do or learn, then it’s not exciting anymore. I always feel like I have something to prove. Being that I am secure, and I think that I am very talented, I still have a lot to prove, and a lot to achieve. Until I get that Grammy, I can’t stop. I’ll be 95, and I’ll still be all about getting that Grammy.
On the future:
I’m making a vision board as a template for the things I want in my life. I feel like I want to get married. I want to have kids, but not in the next four or five years. There’s a lot I want to do first. I want to win a Grammy, because I know I’m good. My music is good. It’s just those things you dream of all of your life. And I’ve been working really hard, and I can see it happening. I want to travel. Buy a home. See my siblings do well. I’m seeing my life more vividly now, like a little bit past music I guess.
On the one question she never wants to be asked again:
Can you play "Dirty Talk?”
⤏ BUY THE PRINT EDITION OF JR HI THE MAGAZINE | ISSUE 004 AND A LIMITED EDITION DIANA GORDON TRADING CARD HERE.
⤏ YASI SALEK (SHE/HER) IS A WRITER AND PROMINENT INFLUENCER IN THE NUTRITIONAL YEAST SPACE.