Dev Hynes, the artist and producer behind the “Blood Orange” act, released Freetown Sound less than three weeks after the Orlando shooting. In a post on Instagram, he dedicated it to the marginalized, writing, “My album is for everyone told they’re not black enough, too black, too queer, not queer the right way.” Hynes weaves their stories into his own unflinching self-portrait, delivered across 17 masterful tracks that glide from synth-pop to new-wave funk to electronica R&B.

Hynes’s voice is prominent in vision and craft, but he takes the backseat on vocals, letting female artists dominate his songs. Co-writer Lorely Rodriquez takes charge on the breakout single “Best to You,” singing, “I feel my bones crack in your arms,” from the perspective of a girl whose toxic relationship makes her feel like an disposable object. Hynes layers Rodriquez’s crystalline voice over a dance-inducing beat; the song represents his trademark melancholy party pop at its finest. Drag queen icon Venus Xtravaganza is sampled in “Desirée,” a chillwave funk groove relating the transactional life of the ostracized sex worker to that of a suburban housewife. Freetown Sound’s diverse list of collaborators also includes Nelly Furtado, Carly Rae Jepsen, and Debbie Harry. Hynes directs an ocean of voices: where a lesser artist would falter into cacophony, he locates an ethereal harmony.

The result is a rich tapestry illustrating life as a minority individual in a society that fears and threatens you. “Love Ya,” a cover of Eddy Grant’s eighties jam “Come On Let Me Love You,” transitions from galactic electronica to a jazz-house trumpet solo to vocals backed only by piano chords, spanning over a century of music defined by black voices. Hynes’ version ends with an interview sample of Ta-Nehisi Coates recounting how he, as a young black boy walking to school, agonized over his grip on a baseball bat. The cover of a Guyanese British musician’s song is interwoven with West African and reggae influences—Bob Marley’s granddaughter Zuri is even featured on vocals. The song, interspersed with diverting interludes, never culminates in an apex, and Coates’ excerpt itself is abruptly cut off. Hynes paints the journey of black existence, but it’s far from finished.

For the cover of Freetown Sound, Hynes chose Deana Lawson’s 2009 photograph “Binky and Tony Forever.” It’s an image of a man and a woman intimately intertwined, with the man seated on a bed and the woman standing, her face turned to stare defiantly at the viewer. A Michael Jackson poster hangs on an otherwise bare wall; the presence of the icon calls attention to Hynes’s own barrier-breaking work. The photo is polished, provocative, and lush, infused with raw emotion. In other words, it’s the perfect preface to Freetown Sound.