INTERVIEW | MICHIGAN RAPPER ELOHIN TALKS TO US ABOUT HIS LATEST ALBUM ‘BROKEN NARRATIVE’

Michigan based rap­per Elo­hin (pro­nounced El-o-in) presents his latest album, Broken Nar­rat­ive, inde­pend­ently released through his brand CF Enter­tain­ment (Change Factor Enter­tain­ment). Broken Nar­rat­ive is Elo­hin’s most per­son­al album to date and addresses a wide vari­ety of emo­tions and sub­ject mat­ter. The album is inspired by his many struggles and exper­i­ences which helps to express the dual mean­ing behind it’s title. 

Broken Nar­rat­ive fea­tures pro­duc­tion from mul­tiple pro­du­cers includ­ing DJ Pain 1, Tone Jonez and Dream­Life Beats just to name a few. Post pro­duc­tion, mix­ing and mas­ter­ing is handled by Stel­lar Award win­ning, Grammy Award nom­in­ated pro­du­cer Spec­h­ouse of Spec­h­ouse Media who has worked with some of the biggest names in Chris­ti­an Hip hop. Album fea­tures and col­lab­or­a­tions con­sist of vocal­ist Coko But­tafli, Reg­gie Wil­li­ams and Amber Ram­sey along with the con­scious and life chal­len­ging lyr­i­cism that Elo­hin has become known for in the inde­pend­ent hip hop world. Elo­hin paints a clear pic­ture with his lyr­ics and beat selec­tions while present­ing a per­spect­ive that takes listen­ers into a more per­son­al side of his life.

Tell us a bit about how you got star­ted in Music? Was there a par­tic­u­lar event or per­son that encour­aged this?

I got star­ted in music as a teen­ager when I wrote my first rap. No cap, it was so trash and ter­rible that I did­n’t even have a desire to keep try­ing lol. For­tu­nately, I did end up try­ing to write again about a year later and I got bet­ter and bet­ter over time. In all hon­esty writ­ing was a way for me to express myself and vent my anger and frus­tra­tion.

How did grow­ing up in Michigan shape the music you made? 

Being from Michigan and grow­ing up in Detroit there was a lot of viol­ence and poverty. It was not unusu­al to see a neigh­bor­hood that had well main­tained blocks right next to blocks that were dilap­id­ated. As a city we’ve been the under­dogs for a long time. In music we were on top with Motown but once that left it’s like part of the city’s soul left with it. I was­n’t alive dur­ing Motown. I was a hip hop kid so the only artist from Detroit that was get­ting any main­stream recog­ni­tion dur­ing my mid to late teens was Slum Vil­lage and Eminem and Royce da 5’9. They did­n’t have that typ­ic­al Detroit sound and that really influ­enced me. I just wanted to bring atten­tion to my city and my state through my music. Once I became a Chris­ti­an my life­style and the mes­sage in my music changed but I still wanted my city to shine. I wanted my music to play a part in mak­ing the image of the city more pos­it­ive and not neg­at­ive.

Tell us a bit about your com­pany CF enter­tain­ment? What made you start it?

Yeah no prob­lem. CF Enter­tain­ment is some­thing I star­ted to help oth­er artists who are just start­ing off from the ground roots. It’s so many little things that I have learned from being an artist myself that I nev­er had any­body tell me about. Simple stuff like song order, enter­ing metadata or set­ting up pub­lish­ing. The first artist I worked with was my dude Corey Breeze. I helped him release his debut EP “Get There” back in May and it’s fire! I have anoth­er female vocal­ist that I’m work­ing with as well. I’m just try­ing to keep it mov­ing.

What are the bene­fits in remain­ing inde­pend­ent as an artist? 

I think one of the biggest bene­fits of being inde­pend­ent is hav­ing the free­dom to shake and move how you see fit. I answer to myself and set my own pace. I work with who I want to work with and release music when I want to release music. Not only that but I have the free­dom to get involved with things out­side of music as well without the stress of a label try­ing to dis­cour­age that.

Talk to us about your latest album ‘Broken Nar­rat­ive’? What was the inspir­a­tion behind it? 

So, Broken Nar­rat­ive is my offi­cial 3^rd album and I wanted it to be one of those real per­son­al pro­jects you feel me. I wanted to write some­thing that was extremely hon­est and trans­par­ent to where I am as a per­son and what I have been through in life. Even down to the beats and the art­work design I just wanted it to have a more intimate/ per­son­al feel. The under­ly­ing mes­sage is really about how our nar­rat­ive’s are broken because of life cir­cum­stances, oth­er people that hurt us as well as our own per­son­al choices. We try to put that nar­rat­ive back togeth­er by ourselves in our own strength but in real­ity God is the only one that can fix our Broken Nar­rat­ive. The flip side of that concept talks about break­ing nar­rat­ives that oth­er people have rewrit­ten for you. For example as a young black male stat­ist­ics say that I should be in jail or dead. I’m expec­ted to talk a cer­tain way or act a cer­tain way by my own peers based on my eth­ni­city, where I grew up, and what I was pre­dis­posed to. You know that whole idea that if you’re black then you eat this kind of food, you like this kind of music, you prob­ably have a baby mama ect… I’m break­ing those nar­rat­ives in how I live my life foreal foreal!

How have you been able to reflect on your struggles in your music? Are there any par­tic­u­lar tracks off the album that are per­son­al to you? 

Being hon­est about life and being open about some of my struggles is one of the things that I feel makes people grav­it­ate towards my music and me as an artist. Yeah I’m Chris­ti­an and yeah I’m looked at as a lead­er in my com­munity but I’m not per­fect. Mov­in’ On fea­tur­ing Amber Ram­sey is one of those songs that expresses that per­fectly. Even though the entire album is per­son­al it’s a couple of oth­er real per­son­al ones that stand out. Words of Wis­dom is per­son­al because I wrote it to my two sons and the title track Broken Nar­rat­ive is per­son­al because I tell the story about not meet­ing my fath­er until I was an adult. It’s just raw open and hon­est music.

Tell us a bit about the pro­duc­tion on the album and who you worked with?

I got tracks from a few dif­fer­ent pro­du­cers on this album. I got tracks from Tone Jonez, DJ Pain 1, Blasi­an Beats just to name a few. I like using a vari­ety of pro­du­cers because I like to switch up the feel of things. I also worked with Spec­h­ouse, a pro­du­cer out of Atlanta. He did some addi­tion­al pro­duc­tion as well as the post pro­duc­tion, mix­ing and mas­ter­ing. He has a phe­nom­en­al ear for music and it shows in his work. Last year his pro­duc­tion earned him a stel­lar award for best hip hop album plus he has a couple of grammy award nom­in­a­tions so it was a no brain­er to work with him. He helped the album con­nect from song to song and have a cohes­ive feel to it. He’s the truth!

What do you want your listen­ers to take away from the album? 

My hope is that people will hear my vul­ner­ab­il­ity on the album and be able to relate to it. I want people to know that they don’t have to go through their struggles and hurts alone and that God will walk with them through it all just like he did for me in the past and just like he con­tin­ues to do for me now. All we need is a heart that is will­ing to change and a heart humble enough to reach out and ask him for for­give­ness, help and strength. I find myself ask­ing Jesus for help and strength every­day because it is only because of him that I am able to make it and keep mov­ing for­ward! When I get myself out of the way and let God be God then things begin to fall into place and that’s “Facts”!

How did Hip-Hop change your life? 

There’s a line in the 2^nd verse of my song DYB (Do You Believe) pro­duced by Tone Jonez that says “I wrote my way out of a felony armed rob­bery” which was refer­ring to how rap­ping kept me out of trouble and gave me focus. I mean, don’t get me wrong I got into trouble but it would have been worse if my mom was­n’t so strict and if I did­n’t have hip hop as an out­let.

What have you got in store for the near future?

I plan to con­tin­ue releas­ing new music and doing my part to help oth­er artist that are just start­ing off. I’m involved in a lot of non profit work as well work­ing with teens across Michigan so that is anoth­er thing I will be doing. Pro­mot­ing this album is obvi­ously in the plans as well which I’ve been doing. This is hon­estly the first time that I have released an album and I haven’t been able to pro­mote it on the road. Once this pan­dem­ic is more under con­trol and things com­pletely open up again I plan on hit­ting the road to do some shows. That’s key for me. I love inter­act­ing with fans and people who appre­ci­ate good music with a mes­sage.

Where can we fol­low you? 

You can fol­low me on my web­site at https://www.notyouraveragerapper.com

You can also fol­low me on all of the social media plat­forms

Twit­ter: https://www.twitter.com/elohin07

Ins­tagram: https://www.instagram.com/elohin07

You­Tube: https://www.youtube.com/elohin07

Face­book: https://www.facebook.com/elohinfanpage

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Rishma Dhaliwal

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds

Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voice­less. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

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