Exploring love in all its forms and expressions in Elaine’s Elements

Following the release of a highly acclaimed body of work, 21-year-old singer, songwriter and performer, Elaine, has carved out an admirable musical lane – a lane that sees the young Wits student glide in the glory of a smooth and breezy ride – much like listening to her debut project, Elements, a seven-track EP that explores the meaning of love in all its forms and expressions.

“The project is dedicated to myself. I just really wanted to talk about love but not love in the mushy and rose’s way – I didn’t want to highlight it in that perspective. I wanted to bring attention to the different types of love and how love can make you feel and react,” she said.

From the first track, Say It, down to the closing song, Risky, the EP takes the listener on a warm and relatable journey, a journey that forces the listener to strip themselves bare, face their insecurities, and question their ideas about love.

“Love, first of all, is reciprocation. I bring that up a lot and you need to know where you stand with someone. It’s very important to be honest in a relationship and I feel that someone who the element Love IS can be really honest with you is someone who really loves you. I also wanted the project to be honest and it came from an honest place,” Elaine said.

Staying true to her artistry, Elaine brings her ideas and tropes around love together all the way through Elements and she does this in an effortless and non-imposing way – making room for the listener to add their own experiences and ideas into the EP’s conversation.

“I think that’s what being an artist means, being able to take whatever it is that you’re feeling at a specific moment and putting it into words. That’s what I’m good at because I really am shy and I don’t speak about how I feel – so I just write and sing about it, that’s how I put it all into one.”

Having been named Apple Music’s New Artist Spotlight for November last year, the independent chart-topper made history by being the first female artist in South Africa to reach number one on the Apple Music Album Charts with her debut self-released EP. The EP has gained over two million streams and continues to grow.

“I think everything always comes full circle at the end of the day and that was something I was very worried about when I put the project together – whether it was going to come full circle or whether people were going to receive it the way I meant it and not misinterpret what I say. It’s really easy to misinterpret what artists say because everyone has a different perspective of love and love is a personal feeling but it was received the way I wanted it to be and it did come full circle. I wanted people to relate to what I’m saying and I wanted it to be familiar.”

Through her unique approach to the trapsoul and RnB, Elaine brings a fresh new face to the local RnB scene and has appeased the industry’s thirst for a new superstar singer. With the local RnB scene still struggling to establish itself as a solid mainstream genre, Elaine’s maturity allows her to confidently blend warm melodies with sharply intimate lyrics making it difficult to separate the artist from the music and thus making her debut project a deeply personal body of work.

“I am my music and that’s exactly what I’m feeling. For me, Elaine the artist and Elaine in general are the same person. Separating the music from the artist for me is impossible because everything I write is from the heart and very honest. What you hear and what you feel is who I am.”