Singer, songwriter and producer AJAY has just released his second EP These Yesterdays: a lush, harmony-layered and emotion-filled project fit for fans of contemporary soul. In the rush of his EP release while preparing for his EP release show on Thursday, February 9th at Silk City Diner, we caught up with AJAY to ask him a few questions.
Isaac (PSN): So, when did you first start making music? And how has your sound changed since then?
AJAY: I started playing guitar when I was nine, and got serious about it around twelve. I was playing a lot of blues, because my mom listened to a lot of BB King and stuff like that. By the time I was 14 or 15, my parents had me out at bars playing with old heads from my hometown. Then around eighth-grade, I heard Biggie’s “Ready 2 Die” album and I got really obsessed with hip-hop. But I still had this idea that hip-hop doesn’t tie in with being an instrumentalist. Then I discovered the Roots. My homies who were older than me had a local band called the Madmen, that was purely in that lane, and I started trying to write more a rap-oriented sound. You can hear the last little bit of that phase on my first EP. But in the middle of writing that music, my friend got me really into Tame Impala and Mac Demarco, Connan Mockasin and that kind of alt experimental sound. I think that’s what lead to where my music’s at now. It’s definitely evolved since then in its own way, but since I’ve been putting out music under AJAY, I’ve definitely felt that at its roots it’s R&B chords and songwriting- I want the experimentation with the sounds themselves to be genre-less.
Isaac (PSN): Awesome! How do you think living in Philly has influenced your musical journey, if at all?
AJAY: Yeah, I feel like as a musician, as far as my skillset as a live player goes, especially my communication with other musicians, I owe a lot of that to my life since I moved to Philly. I’ve pretty much lived in Philly for 6 or 7 years now, and I’ll say… I don’t think people are gassing it when they say that a lot of the best musicians in the whole world are here; and so as a musician I owe a lot to being in the jams, and being pushed by other people my own age and older; just the merging of genres everybody has going on here, you know? So, I’d say a lot of my skillset as a bass player especially, and just working on stage with other people, I really owe to Philly.
But as an artist, I’ve felt myself go against the grain of Philly because I feel like all my favorite music and how I want to be seen with my music breaks a lot of barriers between different scenes. I just don’t think Philly yet has reached a point where all the barriers have been broken down, especially between the DIY scenes and the Black American Music scenes.
Isaac (PSN): Yeah, that’s so interesting to hear. I wanted to hear a bit more about your process writing your new album, These Yesterdays. When you were working on it, what was your process like?
AJAY: I think it was very much the same process as my first project, I was just older and going for different things. I think a lot of my music comes from an emotional place. Some of these tracks were already completed before Covid, but some definitely came from the mud of what we were going through. I think the main themes are around ideas of isolation and sadness, and struggles with anxiety and depression. It’s not so much that the album is just about being sad, but I’m reflecting on my internal self-criticism, and asking, how long am I going to be stuck in this cycle? Then realizing it’s up to my current self to change it.
Isaac (PSN): I saw you post recently about how you’re starting to think that the modern definition of success is meaningless. Can you talk a bit about what success looks like for you these days?
AJAY: That actually speaks to a second theme on the album. The songs “Swindlers,” and “67six” are both about the music industry, saying, “f*** playing into how they want this game to be played.” My experiences with the industry so far, and the idea of success, is really in terms of numbers and analytics. “Swindlers” is the only song I’ve put out so far that hit an algorithmic boost. A lot of it probably had to do with Orion Sun’s listeners. It’s just funny- getting a couple listeners from her triggered this algorithmic thing where every day got around 1,200 listens from new people all over the world. I remember the instant gratification of being like, “Damn, my s*** jumped 10k!” But then I started looking deeper into the analytics, and the real win was that I think around 260 people put it on their personal playlists, which means they saw it worthwhile enough to throw in their rotation.
Isaac (PSN): So, who would we find on your personal rotation?
AJAY: Some of the people I’ve been f***ing with lately are: JONILL, brushstroke, Black Buttafly, Tuck Ryan, Ryan Gilfillian, K Y O N, SRYCHRLY, Suzanne Sheer, Flanafi, Indoor Yves, CJ Mills, Orion Sun, Max Swan, Taylor Kelly… I’m probably forgetting people.
Isaac (PSN): That’s a great list! What can we look forward to from you in the coming months?
AJAY: Tuck Ryan’s record is going to come out soon and I’m the executive producer on that. A lot of my vocals are hidden in there, and we had so many of Philly’s heaviest hitters on there.
I also have more music coming. I’m sitting on some singles now that I’m really happy about.
But personally, I’ve really been realizing it’s time to rely more on collaboration having its place in “AJAY’s” music. I think I’m ready to take my music in a route of being more widely open to other people’s input. I’m finally confident in the community I have around me and just want to write and collaborate more with my homies.
AJAY debuts his new release live on Thursday, February 9th at Silk City with special guests Jonill and Black Buttafly. Click here for more info.