Solange Wants to Release Tuba Music but Thinks Fans May Not Be Interested: ‘I Can Only Imagine the Eye Rolls’


Many artists are changing genres at the moment — André 3000 released a woodwinds album, Lil Jon dropped a guided meditation project and Beyoncé is in her country era. Will Solange Knowles follow suit?

In a new cover story interview with Harper’s Bazaar, the Grammy winner revealed she learned how to play the tuba and has been writing music for the instrument — but she’s not sure how fans would receive it.


Solange, 37, told the outlet the tuba is her current obsession. “I love it. I’ve started writing music for the tuba, and I am trying to talk myself into releasing it, but I can only imagine the eye rolls from people being like, ‘This bitch hasn’t made an album,’” explained the musician, whose last album When I Get Home was released in 2019.


Solange Knowles for Harper’s Bazaar.

Larissa Hofmann


The “Don’t Touch My Hair” performer also explained why she took up interest in the instrument. “It sounds like what the gut feels like to me,” she said. “There’s a way that it takes up space that you can’t deny, and it also just feels very Black to me.”


In the interim since Solange’s last full-length release, she’s toured the world, held a special performance at the 58th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale de Venezia and written the score for a 2022 New York City Ballet production, among other projects.


Solange Knowles for Harper’s Bazaar.

Larissa Hofmann


Last month, she performed a multi-medium, four-act performance exhibition titled “In Service to Whom” at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.


Over its four acts, “In Service to Whom” explored “everyday mundane gestures” that’ve played parts in expanding Solange’s creativity, per her Saint Heron website.


Encompassing “sonic meditations with performance-specific scenography and digital-visual archive projections,” the 84-minute show featured Solange performing original orchestral works inspired by “repetition, gospel vocal arrangements, minimalism, and the Black southern marching band music of football games” she attended in her Houston hometown.


Solange Knowles for Harper’s Bazaar.

Larissa Hofmann


Elsewhere in the Harper’s Bazaar interview, Solange opened up about how she remained nearly anonymous for some elements of the performance exhibition.


“There were moments I just stood there in silence,” she told the outlet. “When people entered the space, they didn’t notice that I was there. [When they did] they had to adjust to the uncomfortableness of me just existing, not entertaining or delivering or slaying.”


Solange also spoke about how her approach to performing has changed throughout her career. “I show up in performance as myself. Fifteen years ago, the idea was to show up in costumes,” she said.


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