July 2015, at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, British singer/composer Dev Hynes released “Do You See My Skin Through the Flames?”, an 11-minute assessment of race and self-worth at a time of intense struggle between blacks and law enforcement. “This is not from my forthcoming album,” Hynes asserted, “just some things on my mind.” The cover art depicted an elegant black figure—his back straight, his fingers clutched deep into his own flesh. The image showed strength; on the song, Hynes unpacked the yin and yang of everyday life as a black person: “I’m proud of my name, I’m proud of my dad, I’m proud of my family, but it’s very strange to have to carry that… we all carry that, every black person carries that.” To live black is to live conflicted. There’s the urge to live freely and be accepted, even if the world at large is still uncomfortable with people of color. We feel an innate sense to protect our own kind and hold each other close. We are prisoners of perception; our culture pillaged, our style and vernacular mocked and imitated, only to be told we’re not good enough to be equal. Freetown Sound, Hynes’ third album as Blood Orange, arrives days after Baltimore police officer Caesar Goodson Jr., who drove the van in which 25-year-old Freddie Gray was fatally injured, was found not guilty on all charges against him. That same day, a grand jury in Collin County, Texas, decided there wasn’t enough evidence to indict former McKinney police officer Eric Casebol