Zachary Harrell Jones
Speaking to The FADER in 2022, Dijon revealed what he described as his “philosophy” on making music. “I'm not much of a refiner,” he said. “I don't believe in it. I think that it's just not my thing and it's not my specialty.” What might sound a little self-deprecating is, in fact, an apt description of the raw and immediate sound that has become his signature. Part Prince-style R&B idol, part homespun indie folk songwriter, Dijon favors rough edges over smooth surfaces in his music. This abrasiveness isn’t designed to push listeners away, but rather act as an edge to grab on to and make a home on.
As he releases his second studio album, Baby, Dijon’s influence continues to grow. In 2025, he played a pivotal role in two major records, Bon Iver’s Sable, Fable, and Justin Bieber’s SWAG. And alongside his regular collaborator Mk.Gee, he’s carving a niche that is impacting both the mainstream and underground in equal measure. Ahead, find The FADER's definitive guide to Dijon and the music that brought him to where he is today.
Abhi//Dijon: The high school duo
Some of the earliest music you can find online from Dijon was made with high school friend Abhi (Abhirath Raju). The duo began releasing music together around 2013 under the moniker Abhi//Dijon while Dijon was studying literature at University of Maryland. The music would be a rough prototype of the sound Dijon would end up honing in the coming years: slick, emotional R&B, with a sturdy, soulful core. The FADER’s Matthew Trammell likened the early stuff to Donnell Jones, if he “spent two weeks in a dusty, mildewed basement with Jai Paul.” Their short-lived partnership, which would end in 2016, birthed two EPs, stay up, and Montana. —Steffanee Wang
The solo era begins
Starting in 2017, Dijon kicked off his solo era with a string of loosies like “Stranger” and “Skin.” While they leaned R&B, his tinkering eventually began pulling him toward more folkier, earth-trodden sounds that still bumped up against his Black music influences. “[I’m] fascinated [with] really unironically and genuinely appropriating these symbols, ideas, and mythologies that aren’t necessarily associated with minority music,” Dijon told The FADER in 2017 about being a person of color making Americana-influenced music and the kind of cultural dissonance he was grappling with.
It became a blossoming creative period for Dijon who, off the back of well-received singles like “Nico’s Red Truck,” and two EPs, 2019’s Sci Fi 1 and 2020’s How Do You Feel About Getting Married?, began rising in the Los Angeles music scene, collaborating with Brockhampton on Saturation II, and writing for Charli xcx’s “pink diamond” on her 2020 lockdown record, how i’m feeling now. —SW
The debut album
Dijon took the sounds he was experimenting with on his first two EPs and used them as a platform to build on with his 2022 full-length debut, Absolutely: a scrappy but impassioned introduction.
Absolutely was recorded with a loose collection of collaborators in sessions held at Dijon’s home and in upstate New York. A video released around that time, with Dijon, guitarist Mk.gee, and other friends jamming around a cluttered dining table, was an attempt at capturing both the look and the vibe of those sessions. But despite the spontaneous feel, Dijon told The FADER that the record’s songwriting process was actually the opposite. “I don't do demos or anything like that,” he said. “I just sit there and I just think about music for as long as I possibly can. So the [Absolutely] writing process, if you can call it that, internally was pretty long. I'd say it's over two years. But the actual recording of it was instant. Once we started making music, I started off with the second song on the record scratching.”
A big name collaborator
In addition to his own solo material, Dijon is a keen collaborator. His most high-profile work came earlier this year when he appeared across Justin Bieber’s latest album, SWAG. In advance of its release much had been made of Mk.Gee’s input on SWAG but it is Dijon that feels like a guiding hand on Bieber’s most unencumbered album, contributing to songs including “Daisies” and “Yukon,” as well as providing vocals on “Devotion.”
Any conversation about Dijon inevitably leads to his most regular collaborator, Mk.Gee. The duo first began working together when Mk.gee contributed to Absolutely and joined Dijon on tour. He then helped produce Mk.gee’s 2024 full-length debut, Two Star & the Dream Police, including album opener “New Low” and “DNM.”
Speaking about Mk.Gee in a New York Times profile of the guitarist, Dijon said “I think we both shared a frustration with the lack of anger that people had at the state of young people making music.” He went on to state his belief that they are “both trying to just find a new wheel to invent, separately, and kind of questioning why nobody else was as feverishly, or embarrassingly, reaching.”
Earlier in 2025 Dijon made a cameo on Bon Iver’s SABLE fABLE, popping up on “Day One.” The collaboration came about after Dijon (alongside Mk.Gee) toured with Bon Iver and, according to Justin Vernon, “reignited” something in him creatively.
As for other collaborations, Dijon's name has showed on credits on songs by Charli xcx, John C. Reilly, Tobias Jesso Jr., and more.
The Americana obsessive that made those early EPs shows up on Absolutely, with “Rodeo Clown” telling the story of someone in pursuit of a champion bull rider; Friday night football and “honky tonk bars” are namechecked in “Noah’s Highlight Reel,” made with Noah Le Gros, then just a friend and now guitarist in Zach Bryan’s band. But it’s on the songs depicting relationships where Absolutely flies. That could be the bickering couple trading barbs over a throwback playlist on “Talk Down” or “The Dress,” that finds tenderness in the aftermath of a messy break-up. With well over 100 million streams, the sumptuous R&B ballad has become Dijon’s biggest song to date.
Absolutely also marked the beginning of Dijon’s most pivotal creative partnership yet with Mk.gee, whom he met that year. “He has a language and a vocabulary that I just don't have. And suddenly, the confidence that I felt exploring myself, vocally became a little bit more obvious,” Dijon told The FADER.
New album Baby
That brings us to Dijon’s latest album, Baby. The album charts a major shift for Dijon, who became a father for the first time while working on the project. Offering up a window into his domestic life, Baby is a patchwork of reverb-laden R&B that pushes both his sound and narrative simultaneously. See the 6 songs that stood out to The FADER's staff.
