INTERVIEW; Sudan Archives releases second album 'Natural Brown Prom Queen': "The biggest motive of the album, to make it homemade and to make everything in-house."

Interview: Jett Tattersall
Image: Edwig Henson

Cincinnati native Brittney Parks, who performs under the name Sudan Archives, came to music through her love of the violin, which she taught herself to play when she was a child. At 16 she started producing her own music on an iPad and was soon investing all the money she earned from her job at McDonald’s in musical equipment.

In 2017, she released her first, self-titled EP, written and produced by herself. It received critical acclaim and streams in the tens of millions. A mix of funk, R&B, electronica and West African rhythms, all linked by Parks’ ever-present violin, it was followed in 2018 by her second EP Sink. In 2019, she released her debut album Athena which introduced a more pop sound into her music. It was another critical and commercial success, with The New York Times ranking it number 4 on their best albums of 2019 list.

Today she releases her second album Natural Brown Prom Queen. It is arguably her most ambitious work to date, eighteen tracks long and taking everything back to the very foundation of who she is – a celebration of home and of family and relationships, all through the eyes of ‘Britts’, the character she inhabits for the album.

Again, Parks creates a wide range of sounds on the album. There is a R&B foundation to much of the album, but there are also plenty of intriguing sonic twists and turns. ‘Home Maker’ is a funky, disco infused track that conjures up the 1970s music scene, while ‘Selfish Soul’ is a booming track that brings together rap, pop, R&B and violin in one euphoric track. ‘Homesick (Gorgeous & Arrogant)’ is an intimate ballad, while latest single ‘OMG BRITT’ is a sultry, sensual hip-hop track. ‘NBPQ (Topless)’ barrels along with a pulsing beat that morphs into a electronic experimental track with Parks switching between rapid fire rapping and beautifully sweet vocals before ending on classical violin. The raw lyrics discuss Parks’ life long struggle with racism: “Sometimes I think that if I was light-skinned / Then I would get into all the parties,” she sings.

Natural Brown Prom Queen is personal, candid and raw, confronting difficult issues including race, self-worth and gender inequality, but also the joy and love embedded in family, friends and where we come from. It is quite possibly Parks’ greatest work to date and an album to savour from beginning to end as a complete body of work. We recently caught up with Sudan Archives to chat more about the creation of the album.

Hi Brittany, it is an absolute joy to grab some time with you today. How are things in your very talented musical world?
They are pretty good. I’ve just been performing the new songs at all of these festivals and that's been fun and new. It's just nice doing some new stuff. I feel like I was playing my older stuff for like years! It makes touring way more fun being like, ‘oh, what new song am I gonna play today?’

Absolutely. I'm imagining the crowd is completely eating it up. How has the reaction been from the crowd?They're dancing, which is what I want!

Beautiful. Your new album Natural Brown Prom Queen is such an incredible album. You make joyful music but at the same time you talk about such incredibly important issues. What was your motive going in to Natural Brown Prom Queen?
I don't really know what the motive was, but I made everything in my basement, which I've never done before. I usually would have to record in my bedroom or in other people's studios, but because COVID happened, I made the studio. I was able to finally come down here and figure out how to make it liveable. I feel like that was like the biggest motive of the album, to make it homemade and to make everything in-house.

You're such a multi talented taskmaster when it comes to creating music anyway. Did you feel that making it in house it increased your confidence as an artist, to be able to go ‘do you know what? I can do all of this.’
I always knew I could do all of it, but for some reason I feel like my writing levelled up. Probably because since my first EP I always have been feeling very rushed to put out more material. But COVID slowed everything down and made me realise that I don't really need as many hands on the project, but I just need time.

It's such a different album to Athena. How did you balance your desire to still be experimental alongside what I imagine is the pressure to create something just as good?
Well, I kept this area [in the basement] as the experimental zone and kept an open mind. I let other people collaborate remotely, so it didn't interfere with what I was doing down here. That's the biggest difference, because before I was taking what I was doing here, putting it on my computer, and taking it to other studios, and then having to like build it with them in person. And I don't really think I work best that way. It worked out better just to keep everything here, stay here and never leave and always be in the experimental zone. And then just checking my email for people's contributions and being like, ‘I like that, I don't like that’, or ‘Oh, I like both of those things, let's make that the verse and make that the hook’. I was doing a lot of things I would have never even done before if I was in the studio with each person separately. Instead of working with one person on one song, three people would do something to one song. That's kind of how I feel like I've beat what I did previously, because the more people you have, that are talented, working on one thing, the better.

Natural Brown Prom Queen is such a joyous, feminine, fun confident album. Music is a platform of politics, whether the musician likes it or not, in today's day and age artists are who we turn to for encouragement and support. In your music you do talk about a lot of pressing subjects that you've experienced, is it a conscious decision for you to wield your voice? Or are you just always singing just for you?
I feel like I'm always just journaling. People that are good writers, they talk about their actual life, and that influenced my writing style. It's always about me looking through my journal and just singing within the journal. It kind of makes you be more vulnerable than you want to be, because what you write in your journal is what you don't want other people to see, you know?

What do you feel is the most vulnerable song on the album?
Probably 'Homesick', and then 'NBPQ (Topless)'. The first line is ‘sometimes I think that if I was light skin, then I would get into all the parties’ and I start ranting about what favours I would get more of if I looked more ethnically ambiguous and then I go into how I feel since I'm not ethnically ambiguous. I feel like I need to get ass plants and a boob job to stand out more and be something that I'm not in that way. That's like the only path for me to get that type of attention.

This glorious, glorious album is out now, you're singing all these beautiful songs. Tell me what else is coming up for you?
What's coming up for me is basically I'm focused on live performance and I'm trying to figure out what's the most interesting way to perform these new songs. That's the main goal because I really wanted to bring something different than what I've been bringing before. Usually I just have gear and I plug it in, but now everything's going through this programme called Ableton, which might help me use more of the experimentalness that I do in the studio live. I'm excited about that and I'm excited about just travelling and being better with adulting and stuff. Like waking up at the same time and working out!

Natural Brown Prom Queen is out now via Stones Throw Records. You can buy and stream here.

To keep up with all things Sudan Archives you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.