‘Old women being catty – that’s what we need!’ Durand Bernarr and Loverboy are excitedly discussing Sunday’s VERZUZ with Patti Vs Gladys, but as Durand rightfully points out, ‘I really wish it had been Patti Vs Aretha. That would have made more sense to me….’

Loverboy is talking to the singer/songwriter days before the release of his latest album DUR& (out now!). We discovered him and his voice back in April, providing Backing Vocals for Erykah Badu as part of her Quarantine Concert Series – something he’s been doing ever since his album, 8ight: The Stepson of Erykah Badu, caught her attention ten years ago.

Although he’s been steadily releasing music since then, it feels like everything has been leading up to the release of DUR& and so it’s only appropriate that we’re talking via Zoom with Durand at his parents’ home in Ohio where’s he’s ‘going through my whole-ass life.’

During our call, we meet his dog Audiaux, his Mom asks whats he wants for dinner and his Dad drops by just as we discuss Durand’s song ‘Prepared’ about his UPS aka his Usual Pipe Situation – ‘My Dad likes that song!’

As well as ‘Prepared’ the album includes production from Kaytranada, a duet with Ari Lennox and showcases Durand’s crazy vocal scale and the super-sharp wit we love him for…

Durand, congratulations on the release of DUR&. On the opening track, ‘Mixxed’ you sing, ‘Now I’m sick of you n*glets, asking me where’s the new music? You’ll get it when I release it!’ How long have you been working on it?
Oooh, this process has been a good two-plus years. I would say that I am about 88% happy with the whole project and I can deal with 88, it was the year I was born. A lot of these songs were in the hands of different engineers or there would be a track that I had to get re-produced. There was a lot of that going on. But I feel like it turned out pretty good!

Yeah, it’s not bad….haha. One of the many things I love about it is its cohesion – although it doesn’t sound like the process was so cohesive!!!
Thank you. I really appreciate that. I wasn’t trying to put this body of work together intentionally. I was just recording until I felt like I had a substantial amount of songs that made sense. I didn’t want any fillers – that’s something I am very anti. I feel like sometimes, we, as artists, will just put something on a project just to put it on there but what is the real specific need for it?

For some evil streaming strategy…
That! Absolutely.

Well, I don’t feel there is any filler here at all. One of my favourites is ‘Passport’…
Thank you. My Mom and my Dad love that song. ‘Passport’ is my favourite vocal performance because it’s unlike anything else on the album. I’m not animated. I’m on the bottom, Anna [Wise]’s on the top and we’re just riding that wave. I’m not doing my usual ‘For the Peanut Gallery’ ad-libs, I let the sax do all that. 

‘Volume’ is another one I love. I was screaming at those notes you pull out at the end.
Yes and that is Tyler, The Creator’s favourite song on the album. He was like, ‘Yeah and I like the way you flexed all the way at the end.’

We also need to discuss ‘Prepared’. I didn’t even write down a question for this one, I just thought I’d let you speak on it!
Haha…‘Prepared’ I wrote last year and this is literally a real life moment. I got out the shower and was all prepared for my UPS, which is my Usual Pipe Situation and I literally said, ‘Hey I have thoroughly prepared myself for you this evening and I hope that you are equally as prepared as well.’ But he started giggling. I was like, ‘Well, what’s so funny, because I wanna laugh too and this ain’t a laughing matter.’ But he was like, ‘Well, I….I…I’m not ready.’ So I told him, ‘Well go in the bathroom and get ready! You have everything you need to prepare…’ But he was like, ‘Well, I just ate…..a hotdog.’ I said, ‘That was 45 minutes ago, it has fully digested in your system, stop playing with me! You acting like I’m going to renovate everything! You know I’m not all that down there. Calm down.’ So he asked me, ‘Well, can I just get you in the morning?’ So I was like, ‘Fine. I’m already here.’ I woke up the next morning and he was already in the bathroom, getting ready! I was just so moved by him keeping his word that I felt I needed to talk about that. I also wanted to speak up for a group of people that have not been acknowledged.

And which group is that?
My first thought was women. But I think it’s just across the board. Big penis’ are celebrated and I’m like, ‘Well where are all the regular folks at?’ and ‘We need a Vers anthem!’ because he is not doing anything to me that I cannot do to him. Period! I actually played the song for someone who is in that group of regular folk and they were like, ‘I feel seen!’ I was so happy to get that kind of reaction and to feel like I am shining a light on something. I also think the transparency of it all is what helps people identify with it because I don’t talk about things that I don’t know about. Also I think just being honest about what you have to offer. When you own what it is you have – what else can people say?

There’s another song I wanted to discuss too, ‘Racket’ You sing, ‘Don’t want me to be better than you.’
Yes, there were people around that would bring my name up and be like, ‘Yo, Durand is dope, he can sing, but we don’t fuck with his music.’ I was wondering what was it about me that made me so unapproachable to have that kind of conversation. I was feeling a little kind of way. I was wondering if they didn’t say anything because they felt that if they did then I might surpass where they are. But I don’t look at music like a competition. I know that it is a business but for me it’s not because I’m doing me.

Right, that need for competition just stems from insecurity. You collaborated with Kaytranada on DUR&, who I also love. How did you guys meet?
Teedra Moses was having a session and was like, ‘Yo, I want you to come meet somebody.’ It was funny because I felt like she was trying to play matchmaker.

That would have been no bad thing!
I know! I know! But we all just vibed, bonded through music and made up choreography to the song we were doing. It was really fun. After that he and I stayed in touch. He sent me a bunch of tracks, some of which were pretty much his Bubba album, I recorded four songs and ‘Volume’ was one of them. He told me that ‘Volume’ wasn’t going in the direction of the way that Bubba was, so I was like, ‘Well, shoot, can I have the song for my album then?’
I ended up doing ‘Freefall’ too. I sent him a version, with just one verse, and he was like, ‘Yo! Can you please do a second verse!’ I didn’t know it was going to make the album and I also didn’t think that it would get as much attention as it did because you have all these other popular acts on there like SIR, Tinashe, Pharrell Williams but that’s not how it went and we’re almost at five million streams on Spotify.

I’ve heard several LGBT male vocalists say, ‘I mostly listen to female vocalists’ and then they feel more comfortable singing high themselves. You have the range to go high and low and you seem equally comfortable in both registers.
For me, I also like to listen to female vocalists because they tend to use their voice like an instrument. There are tones, dynamics, nuances, but then I just had to dig into some other things, because when I started singing background for Erykah, I was doing alto and a little bit of fourth. And then the soprano left and I ended up singing the top for two years. And then they brought another soprano in and I ended up singing tenor where I was supposed to be.
Then for the longest, because I would listen to Erykah and Erykah has a high range and listens to Chaka who sings in the rafters, so I would always emulate that. But now, especially with recording, I try not to do anything on the record that I could not do every single night. So, singing in my natural voice and then going into my deeper register, that’s something I could do every night. It just adds texture to it.

I wanted to talk to you about Little Richard too. I only really discovered how major he was after he passed. I know you are a huge fan…
Little Richard is the architect of Rock’n’Roll. I feel like there is strength in a man that is comfortable to express himself in any kind of way that he likes. He can have a beat face and still take down bitches that ain’t as beat as you. Little Richard is animated enough that he doesn’t even need to sing. The main thing I like about Little Richard is that I don’t feel sad when I listen to him or when I watch him. The only time I’ve felt sad is that very last interview that he did where he was talking about reforming himself and saying, ‘God doesn’t want me to do this.’ I wept for that, because for him to have opened so many doors for a lot of us to just be ourselves, I feel like he deserved so much better than that. I call myself the version of Little Richard that religion did not get to!

Talking about opening doors, you’ve said that people get in touch and say ‘Durand, thank you, you’ve helped me come out to my family’ or ‘You’ve really made me think…’
And that is an overwhelming statement to share with someone. When you’re going through something, it’s really about you. But when you come out of it, it can definitely be used for other people. I definitely don’t mind being transparent.
There have been plenty of gay men that have told me I helped them come out to their parents. Even one of my closest friends who for the longest time has identified as heterosexual, he hit me up and said, ‘I was sitting in the car and I was looking up the term Queer, and I feel like I might be that. You just being yourself and embracing me helped me discover more of myself.’ That’s the main thing, getting people to a space where they are not feeling shame.

It’s your dedication to a crop top!
Oh yes! Listen, I had one on last night because I went skating. The shirt I was wearing actually said, ‘VERS’ but then the funny thing is that my boo stole my skates and painted them. He painted a seahorse on one, because I have a seahorse tattoo. But then he painted ‘TOP’ on one and ‘BOTTOM’ on the other. I was like, ‘You are stupid.’

Finally we are named after the biggest selling single of 2001, so we always ask, what is your favourite Mariah track?
My mother loves ‘Always Be My Baby’ but for me, ‘Can’t Let Go’ just gets me. The lyrics. How she attacks everything. The lushness of the harmonies. ‘Do you even realise the sorrow I feel insiiiiiiiiiiide?’’ The nuances that’s what the fuck I’m talking about!

DUR& is out now 
www.durandbernarr.com
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