PREMIERE | Adjenai, "Make Me Feel"

The voice and vocal pop volition of Adjenai; press photos via Facebook.

Currently making waves in the Los Angeles scenes and pop industries, Adjenai presents the visual debut of the title track “Make Me Feel” from the EP of the same name. A release that finds the artist reckoning with their identity as a queer Black woman, Adjenai presents a bright vision of holistic, real, organic and untreated vocals and production that resonates in an immediate and present sense. The artist's polychromatic creative luster can be witnessed on the sophisticated brilliance of the rainbow grey "Blur & Fade", testaments to toxic situations and dodgy people in the stripped down funk suave of "Get Out", to the slow burning slow jam waltz "Fear is a Liar" that moves out of negative headspaces, that brings us to the debut of the title track.

“Make Me Feel” serves as the centerpiece of the EP, an homage to the ghosts of others that permeate our lives. The EP explores the specters of those that grace our own spirits and consciousness beyond the physical realm alone. Adjenai unpacks how all the externalities of the world impact us on internalized levels — unhealthy relationships, discriminatory violence, hate, police brutality, civic, personal and social upheavals — into the catharsis of song. “Feel” illustrates how these people from our past manifest themselves in immaterial ways, exhibiting an imagined continuation of an ended bond through ways both sentimental, sensational and sincere that borders on the ecstatic. The visuals feature Adjenai enjoying popcorn and a home movie date with bespectacled guitar wielding specters that embody all that could have been in an alternate universe imagined after the afterglow.

Adjenai shared the following candid insights on the Make Me Feel EP and much more in the following correspondences:

Insights on the roads of discovery that lead you to hone your own voice.

To say that this process was linear or even planned would be wildly inaccurate. I have sat firmly in the idea that I didn’t want to put out an artist project for years. Despite being a songwriter for years, I wasn’t sure that I had a voice of my own that felt cohesive, but some songs stick and there’s usually a reason for that. The village of people I had supporting me and pushing me made this record possible. They believed in me, they believed in the vision even when I couldn’t even see it, and I definitely wouldn’t have these songs without the community I’m lucky enough to be part of.

When I first moved to LA I was playing shows pretty frequently, but I moved away for a few months and when I returned I had to start from scratch. I knew it would take time to find a band, but I wanted organic sounds. I love real drums and the feeling of a band in a live room, so I didn’t want to compromise that. At the top of 2019, I had a group to collaborate with and we were in the studio working through pre-production and trying to find the shape. We worked for a few months but during this time, I had some heavy ups and downs both personally and musically, so we paused on the project for a while. It’s so hard to tie your identity to a creative project because when it’s going well, it’s great and when it’s not, that really affects your mental health. I was struggling with producing out the raw live band takes when then Covid hit. We couldn’t get back into a studio setting so there was a lot of time to sit and think about these tracks. I worked at home with my partner to add textures and tones and layers to everything and that really shaped the sound. We ended up with this blend of organic live band-in-a-room energy, rich guitars and vocal layers and some fun electronic synths and ear candy moments.

The whole process taught me patience. I’m a perfectionist, I like to have the right answers and I value efficiency, but there are some things you can’t force. Good things take time, finding yourself takes time. It’s also a process that never ends so I think we all need to get more comfortable living in the gray area and learn to give each other the space to figure ourselves out.

Notes and feelings that guided the writing and recording processes behind the Make Me Feel EP.

Each one of these songs has layers of meaning to me and what I love about music is that songs take on a new life and meaning to everyone. These are songs that mean a lot to me and I hope they mean a lot to someone else, but I don’t need to control what it means to them. To me, the Make Me Feel EP is a reminder to let the emotions in — even when they’re hard, even if they feel ugly or wrong, even if it’s just to identify how you don’t want to feel. The songs each capture a time in my life where I was trying to process a big feeling.

The first track, “Blur & Fade”, was written during a time of processing grief and leaning into vices. I lost my grandmother and at the time I was seeing someone and attempting to keep it casual. I don’t think I’m great at the concept of casual dating because I get very invested in people, on top of that I was trying to process this loss, so that time was confusing and difficult. I didn’t want to deal with the confusion or the difficulty, so instead, I existed in a grey with this person even though it wasn’t the healthiest choice for either of us.

“Get Out” is the oldest song on the EP. It was written back when I was just starting college and before I had come out or even really processed my sexuality. The song was originally written about a female and the idea of being taken over by someone and trying to warn others — or yourself? — not to make the same mistake. At the time, I didn’t feel comfortable enough to perform it live with she/her pronouns so I put it away for a while. After coming out, the song resurfaced and I did a bit of rewriting and added it back to my catalog.

“Fear is a Liar” is the only co-write on the EP. It’s a song written with a great friend who I was living with at the time. I started writing during a period of heavily publicized police brutality in late 2018. I wanted to process my fear of losing my brothers or my father to a similar attack, but I also wanted to talk about how other forms of fear manifest. Fear, in general, has stopped me from doing so many things in my life and I wanted to write something that reminded me not to let fear win. I had half of the song written but I felt myself getting lost in it. I went down the hall and asked my roommate at the time for help. I wanted another perspective and I also think sometimes songs are too heavy to hold on your own. It was helpful to have another creative human to diffuse the intense feelings I was trying to sort through. The song took on a new life and we personified fear as this man who creeps around and waits for you to let him take over. The idea was to write something that acknowledges this strong emotion but encourages to never back down and give in to fear. Sometimes fear can be good, it can keep you safe, but usually fear just keeps you up at night for no reason. You never have to just give up and give in to that feeling.

Summoning spring with Adjenai; press photo courtesy of the artist.

Inspirations and insights on the ghost-like video adaptation of the title of the track.

The title track, “Make Me Feel”, is one written post-breakup. I had a moment of realization that I wasn’t actually in love with the person and had possibly never been in love before. Instead of writing a sad song, I wanted to write something about the imaginary person that I could be in love with and how they would make me feel. I was trying to identify what I really wanted, and it felt mythical until it wasn’t. I can firmly say that now, being in love, all of the things I wrote ring true. The music video was filmed with my girlfriend on Valentine’s Day using the extra space left on my old family tapes. I wanted a video that could show what it’s like post-breakup when the ghost of that person still surrounds you, they don’t leave right away even if they’re not physically taking up space. On top of that, for me, there were lingering expectations of what I wanted to feel in my next relationship. During my post-breakup haze, it felt like everything I wanted to experience was intangible and out of reach.

Listening to this EP, I hope people feel. I hope people don’t let fear stop them, I hope that people going through tough times know that they’re not alone and that there’s something on the other side. Feelings are overwhelming sometimes but they’re a sign that you’re alive, let them exist, and find a way to process that works for you.

Current activists and artists that are making great things happen.

There are so many artists that inspire me and most of them are my friends and collaborators. I am lucky to know amazing musicians/bands/artists — Kira Morrison, Reggii (my co-writer for “Fear”), the band Trends, Stefan PVDS (my guitarist), the list can go on forever. I pull inspiration from a huge variety of genres and voices. I’m a fan of Joy Oladokun, Lake Street Dive, Begonia, and Donna Missal. Seeing Janelle Monáe play live was the reason I decided to make this EP and artists like Alicia Keys and Jill Scott are the reason I started making music. The list can truly go on and on. There are so many amazing people making music and telling stories.

Adjenai’s new pop perspectives of heightened sentiments; press photo courtesy of the artist.

Future forecasts, hopes, goals and wishes.

The future holds a lot more music for me. I have a catalog of music that I haven’t done anything with and I’m looking forward to putting more of it out there. I’m not taking another 4 years before my next release, that’s for sure.

Parting words of wisdom and reflection.

My biggest takeaway from this project is patience. Patience is a skill to practice — patience with yourself, patience with others, patience with the world. It’s hard to let things run the course that they need to run, but you just can’t change that so just try to enjoy the ride. This is a lesson I’m sure I’ll have to learn project after project but it was definitely the theme of my last few years.

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Listen to more from Adjenai via Spotify.