Dean Blunt is the performing name of Roy Nnawuchi, a British musician, singer-songwriter, record producer and conceptual artist from Hackney, East London. His work spans experimental music, lo-fi, avant-garde, dub and art pop, and he is known for a practice that crosses solo recordings, collaborative projects and conceptual art.

Career

Blunt begins his solo career in 2011 and releases a run of albums, EPs and singles. His solo studio albums include The Narcissist II (2012), The Redeemer (2013) and Black Metal (2014), which draw attention from music publications.

Collaborations and projects

He is also associated with partnership-based projects. Hype Williams includes Blunt and Inga Copeland, while Babyfather is a hip-hop project featuring Blunt, DJ Escrow — the alias of poet James Massiah — and Gassman D. He is the co-founder of the London rock band Graffiti Island.

Art and public image

Blunt also hosts conceptual art exhibitions. One example is a minimalist installation made up of a building-site hoarding wall accompanied by a crowd dispersal alarm. He is described as a prolific, category-rejecting artist and as an art-pop provocateur, and he is known for playfulness and obfuscation.

Recognition and incidents

In 2015, he sends a bodyguard to accept his Philip Hall Radar Award at the NME Awards. In 2016, he lists a toy Foxtons estate agents Mini Cooper filled with marijuana on eBay. At a concert in New York in March 2016, media guests are asked to check in under aliases received with their ticket confirmations.