︎
︎ WORDS
︎ SOUNDS
︎ DESIGN
On his newly released EP Adojio, 22-year-old Oakland based singer-songwriter Elujay, emerges after a two-year artistic evolution with new vision and expanded sound.
In a compact seven tracks, that amount to 22 minutes in playtime, the artist stretches beyond the more heavily rap-driven style of his former release, 2016’s Jentrify, and creates new energy for himself that’s soulful, experimental, and most of all authentic.
From its opening strums, “Spaceships” launches listeners into a lush dreamscape of chords and keys, coupled with the silvery vocals of Elujay. Comfortably unique, “Spaceships” itself is an opening opus that tells the story of starcrossed lovers on a journey through the cosmos, human connection turned zeniths carefully intertwined. “I see through space and time in your eyes,” he floats away on the songs opening verse. “Come ride in my spaceship, I can show you different planets.”
A tone-setter, the opening track is only an epilogue for the many intricate layers and successful genre leaps to come throughout the EP. On other songs like “Leisure,” and “Champagne Galore,” Elujay settles into his strengths as an effective vocalist and lyricist, allowing new confidence to shine through airy and sunny-feeling compositions with reformed touch. Further, building a world around the listener has become habit for the singer-songwriter. Whether based on his background doing slam poetry or his love for Spike Lee joints, his favorite of which is the Denzel Washington classic, “Mo’ Better Blues,” storytelling is at the core of Elujay’s music. Because of this, Adojio comes together neatly and never loses focus throughout, despite being recorded tangentially.
Adojio’s early February release has allowed Elujay to recall the peculiar state of limbo between a project’s being shared with the world and the “what to do next” feeling that immediately follows. It’s one that post Jentrify, in some ways, helped to inspire a new sound direction for Adojio. “I kind of wanted to level up and try something new,” Elujay says, explaining his mindset at the time. “The idea was to stretch my vocals out a little bit more and use that as an instrument. I wanted to just dive into different lanes of music. I felt like I was too confined to a sound and I don’t want that.”
With that, Adojio in some capacity, is the product of artistic influence, patience and genuinely paced creation, and the time spent shows. The EP came together in phases over the course of a two-year ideation and recording process for the project. Fittingly so, the project’s title Adojio started out as an idea between the artist and his manager that later took on a more symbolic meaning for the EP’s creation; the word’s musical definition means “anything arranged in slow tempo.”
“The way that we looked at it, what Adojio meant for us is executing things slowly but accurately and I feel like that’s something that we accomplished.” he says. “It took a while to make, but the way that it came together and the way that it came out was pretty ideal and perfect in my eyes.”
The ominous artist’s Channel Orange follow-up, Blonde, specifically resonated with Elujay. He says that one of his favorite aspects of the project was its sonic distance from Channel Orange. Whereas both albums offered equally edgy and plush arrangements, the sounds are completely unique; a similar pivot he undertook in approaching the creation of Adojio.
Once he began to fall into these different rabbit holes of sound exploration, the resulting sounds started to connect and combine themselves, according to the artist. In turn, the EP is a collection of seven hand picked tracks that come from different points of the entire process. That way, instead of being true to one sound, the EP makes good use of many, and wraps them all into one with unique taste.
“It was super cool because some of the sounds just came together and mixed in with each other when I was going through these phases,” he says. “It’s kind of layered and they just keep building on top of each other and sometimes they overlap in the process.” He continues, saying “I definitely wanted it to be very free… It’s super cool how you can blend all these different genres, I think it’s beautiful.”
In talking, it’s evident that expanding and evolving is always on the artist’s mind. Considering, his affinity for the visual aspect of his work beyond just the music makes clear sense. More than just music videos, his visuals for songs like “Blu,” “Golden,” and “Little Thangs,” are immersive and creatively cinematic experiences that expand the dimensions of what’s already on wax. Not to mention, he writes many of the treatments for his videos and does his own photography on the side as well.
“When I make these songs, I have a narrative in my head when I’m thinking about lyrics,” he says. “I feel like music is a soundtrack for so many things, but when you have a visual to go with it it becomes a whole new experience. And why would you just box it into something that you can listen to everyday rather than telling a narrative or putting an aesthetic to it that most don’t really see on a day to day. I feel like that’s super important for people…” He wants to continue working alongside his friend and creative director, Khufu Najee, for more visuals in the future because of their aesthetic and visual chemistry. He hopes ultimately to work on a short film and eventually direct a film of his own.
Not even 24 hours after the EP’s release he laughs on our phone call, telling me that the weird post release feeling is back again. This time, however, he’s already thinking forward. “All this love I’m getting right now is overwhelming you know what I mean, it’s just too much,” he says, “But then again I gotta think like what is the next step, how can I expand this sound direction?”
In March, Elujay is headed across the country on his “Adojio” tour, with his live band. The tour will make stops in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago and Brooklyn.