I was just fed up, so we had a talk and I left.” After spending the summer at a friend’s house in the suburbs, Daniel found a job as a dishwasher at an upscale restaurant in downtown Toronto. So I came home one day and all my shit was in garbage bags. “They weren’t going to let me go to the parties during grad week-they didn’t want me to do anything bad before school ended-and my dad had told me to clean up my room and I didn’t. It was a bunch of Christians worrying about a couple of grams”- after which he was homeschooled for a time. There was a minor weed scandal a year prior-“My parents told the school and I got kicked out. “It was an amalgamation of things,” he explains. When Daniel was 17, he left home after a falling out with his father the weekend of his high school graduation. “I don’t love where I’m from, but I can’t run away from the fact that I’m from here, you know?” he says. Daniel doesn’t have fond memories of the experience but as we walk around the neighborhood, stepping over puddles and piles of sawdust, he seems comfortable. As a teen, he and his classmates would work in the lumber yard every morning before class. His is one of the handful of black families that live in this clustered, mainly white community, which includes a religious bookstore, a ladder factory, a greenhouse, and multiple schools. Raised Seventh Day Adventist, Daniel attended a private Christian high school on the campus of his church.
My parents didn’t listen to anything other than black gospel. “We had some Stevie Wonder and Luther Vandross, but there’s a lot of hip-hop and other black music that I just never grew up on. “There was this girl named Bethany that I had a crush on and I wrote this song called ‘Shy That Way.’ Living out here in Oshawa, everyone was listening to John Mayer, Jason Mraz, that acoustic guitar stuff, so that’s what it sounded like.” At home, parental advisory-stickered albums were considered contraband. “The first song I ever wrote was in grade eight,” Daniel says. You can hear this practiced talent and the heady influence of gospel on his debut EP, 2014’s Praise Break, as well as last year’s Pilgrim’s Paradise EP (he’s released three EPs in total).
It’s potent and velvet, honed over years singing with his family at church. It’s just us, no label, so it makes it that much more special.While Toronto’s become known for a variant Auto-Tuned form of R&B, Daniel is, unintentionally, pushing back with a stripped-down approach to soul that’s all voice. It’s like I’m in therapy, but it’s on display. I’m more exposed than ever on this album. This body of work is about examining my most complex feelings and thoughts more directly.
I’ve never been as proud about anything I’ve created in my whole life. The announcement came after he the release of the joint music video for “We Find Love” and “Blessed,” directed by Sean Brown, Keavan Yazdani, and Daniel himself.Īfter the album’s release, Daniel penned a thank you to all of those who supported and contributed to his album. On August 3, 2017, Daniel announced on his Instagram that the project is set to be released the 25th of the same month. The album contains his hit song, “Get You” and noticably features H.E.R., Syd and Kali Uchis. It is the follow up to his highly acclaimed EP, Pilgrim Paradise. Freudian is the debut album of Canadian R&B-artist Daniel Caesar, released on August 25th, 2017 via Golden Child Recordings.