Ehiorobo

Meet Ehiorobo

Ever heard of “art rap?”

If not, buckle up and get ready for some excellent sounds and textures à la Ehiorobo. This New Jersey R&B vocalist mixes a jazz influence into his multi-layered songwriting, producing experimental and eclectic serenades. Get ready to swoooooon when you hear this fellah’s vocals. 

Below, we chat about getting nosey in the future, the magic of a full band, and the importance of being yourself. 

Read on to get all the warm and fuzzy feels.

Bird Watching: A Mad Lib With Ehiorobo

Bird watching can be more fun than a barrel of CLAWS. Our CONGEALED feathered friends are everywhere, waiting to be watched. An interesting bird to start with is the WRINKLY oriole, which builds its nest in TOME trees. Early in spring, we hear the oriole give its mating call, which sounds like this: "SQUIRT." Then the male and female get together and PULSATE. Later, the female lays 9 eggs. Isn't that AGGRESSIVE? Another fascinating bird is the CURIOUS nuthatch. The nuthatch is very tame. He will fly down and land right on your NAPE OF THE NECK and eat your STARS. Other birds to watch out for are the red-crested SPEAR, the DECLARATIVE-necked thrush, and the yellow-bellied EGG SALAD sucker. Now that you know something about birds, get out there and watch!

Would You Rather…

be able to smell the future or hear into the past? Please explain why?

I was about to go with smelling the future without thinking twice, because I thought about how wild it would be to smell like, 400 years into the future after my essence has shed this mortal coil and all. I know that’s not the largest number, but it doesn’t need to be that huge to reach that point. Like, imagine smelling nothingness. Even oxygen has a scent that you’ve just grown used to you know. Smelling nothingness would be so earth shatteringly weird. It probably wouldn’t feel like you’re inhaling at all because nothingness isn’t oxygen you know. It’d also be cool to smell whatever is going on in David Chang’s Momofuku kitchen when he becomes an old man.

After this whole idea, I thought about how weak it would be if I had to smell exactly what my future physical body (dead, or alive) was going through, with the brain that I’m smelling into the future with. Smelling maggots in the ground, or everything turned into computronium in the year 12,000AD would still be cool. 

Hearing the past would be sick though because you’d be able to choose exactly what you’d wanna hear. I’d probably wanna listen to a secret conversation Fela Kuti would’ve had about being a bandleader, general society, or idk African food or something. Honestly, there are so many more things I’d like to be able to listen to. But yeah, probably healthier to stick a nose into the future instead of living in the past so that’s where I’m leaving this one!

Some Questions with Ehiorobo

What is your favorite restaurant in New Jersey? What do you get there?

A few years ago, I had a friend who was an international student that took me and some friends to this spot called ‘The Bospherous’ in Nutley, NJ. That was my first time really trying authentic Turkish food, and it went so crazy. I’ve had Turkish food a lot since then, and nothing’s really compared to that one time. We tried mad desserts, and their baklava go hammer.

How has jazz influenced your music, if at all?

I never really spent a lot of time listening to all the classic jazz pioneers, but I did binge a bunch of different artists who did. I had a lot of friends who would play me stuff. I like Ahmad Jamal a lot. That 90’s/2000’s Soulquarian movement with players like D’angelo, Bilal, Glasper and all them, and the people they worked with definitely hit me in a huge wave. I remember listening to Brian McKnight live performances just gawking at the vocal runs he was hitting. I think I’m more a fan of jazz fusion and jazz crossing with blues, gospel, funk, rock & and all that. Growing up in the church, I was always a fan of intense harmony, and I think r&b artists pulling from jazz theory to make pop songs hit me the most back then. Stevie Wonder is a god at doing exactly that, and he will go down in history as a titan. You know he’s been making full length, slap-heavy albums since he was 12? And they sound like STEVIE. Anyway, yes. Jazz theory, and form-bending black genres bleeding into the landscape of American pop song-structure sound hot and feel good to listen to. Also took me a while to learn that jamming wild chords everywhere can become numbing, and that makes hearing simpler chords played very expressively more satisfying. Balance man, my body craves it even when I think I don’t, it’s crazy.

What is it like when your music is translated by and performed alongside a full band?

Oh, it’s some magic for sure. I really like transcribing my own music with people who are gnarly at specific instruments and expanding whatever it is that I did to make it crazier for a live environment. Whenever I can get it out of myself and see friends making individual parts their own, it’s always something to marvel at for a second. Some songs sound better when the instruments are spread out on a stage, and others sound better with everything glued together like listening to an old radio. I like to go with whatever feels best either way, so I always have band members doing lots of things with different stuff.

What was the best piece of advice you ever received?

When I was around 16, my older brother, cousin and I had this long conversation about music while we were in Nigeria for my grandfather’s 80th birthday. They were both recording and making stuff a bunch back then. They kept on telling me how important it is to keep everything based in my personality, and to not act like something that doesn’t feel true to me. At the time, I felt like they were just pleading for me to “not be fake”. Haha. But now that we’re deeper into the digital age, I’m definitely increasingly aware of how much brain power it takes to keep up a facade. All of that can be much better spent learning actual new skills. 

But also, being able to act like something that exists outside of yourself is so much fun. Sometimes, that’s what makes performance interesting, and it can really allow you to see yourself in a new light.. I guess their advice was to be so “you” that you become a caricature of yourself so that it’s easy to keep up appearances and connect with people. I just feel like sometimes that’s entrapping, and it’s how you trick yourself into holding onto a past identity forever. Dystopian grade-school mode. People change every day you know. That advice helped me realize it’s important to be you being anything you want as the days go by. I think that’s what everyone wants to be, and that energy is always contagious.

Where did you develop your production skills?

Mostly in the basement of my parent’s home. I’ve been using Maschine for a long time. I still have the first version because my Maschine Mikro feels crazily comfortable even though the gummy buttons are becoming less responsive.

If you could make one change to the way the music industry is today what would it be?

It would be for views and plays to be entirely hidden from everyone all the time. That shit is melting brains. Everyone is a TV producer now, skittishly checking their ratings every second to make sure they’re still hot in the public’s eye. I get that being on top of the numbers is important for some people and all, but looking at how many times other people have viewed or played something is similar to giving up the power of your own sensations and relying on someone else’s experience. Everyone listens two ears at a time.

What does "limeade" mean to you?

Sweet good heavenly brain electrifying potion that feels like home and reminds me of working on something for a long time.

How do you go about layering such disparate sounds and samples

I kind of just layer things until I go, “Wow this sounds like a home I didn’t know I had”.

Is there a formula or is it more organic?

I have a strategy to getting things finished now. It involves tiers of demo-ing, and writing in a way that’s very specific to my nature and stuff. I find that if I give myself time to play and literally do whatever, it makes me enjoy having a structured approach more. I’ve been giving myself time to do that, and sometimes, the play-time yields songs haha. So after all, everything does seem to be a mixture of both. 

I like having different toys and sounds to play with, especially physical ones. After this last tour I went on, I got a bunch of new (used) instruments to mess around with. That, along with using Maschine, play-time feels like play-time instead of problem solving. I feel like that’s important.

What is your experience with collaboration on this EP? Is it something you want to continue?

If you mean the remix EP for “One Slash Million” with Omniboi, it was a super cool experience. I love the remixes, and the idea of remixing in general. All of those remixers put such a personal spin on the track, and really showed out for that one. The track was so collaborative to begin with, between me and Omni. It definitely was made on the internet, and we kept sending things back and forth in chunks trying to freak each other out every step of the way. Def was a good time, would do again.

How did you develop your vocal style? Can you cite any influences?

Before anything, I started off rapping when I was younger. My older brother, my neighbors and I would record ourselves on really shitty hardware and marvel at the idea of hearing ourselves recorded. I’d also write more melodic songs, poetry, and more, but would keep all that to myself. I started producing, singing, & messing around with instruments more often when I was around 16 (specifically after that Nigeria trip I mentioned). Stevie Wonder, Jamie Lidell, N.E.R.D., and Janelle Monae were a lot of base influences. I was mainly using Youtube to find new things, and would basically only pay attention to Youtube rap culture, and or the west coast beat scene. I was definitely an Odd Future kid too. Soon, I got really into Sampha, Jesse Boykins III, Open Mike Eagle, and Milo (R.A.P Ferreira). Even got to meet and call some of em’ friends now, which is always cool. 

I started learning how to sing by playing my favorite shit in my car on the way to classes, and trying to sing alongside my favorite singers. Doing that while writing all the time and trying out new things is what I think congealed it all. I still like trying new vocal stuff out a lot, it feels like playing and it tends to lead somewhere truthful or fun.

What is the all-time best toy from your childhood? Why?

I had this one Cubix toy that used to playback speech-audio. Not sure if you can call it talking haha. To me, it was a robot pet, and I’d watch the show while having my toy in sight. Very immersive. Second place is a green Light-Speed Rescue Power Ranger I lost in a ball-pit somewhere.

Can you give us your essential items for surviving summer in New York City?

I don’t live in NYC, but I do be out there often. Stay hydrated, make your own juices instead of buying $10 smoothies, and read books instead of looking at the internet, flashing lights, and advertisements all day. Things get wild when people are over-stimulated in the NY heat man.

Any final comments? (This is your electronic soapbox for one last answer.)

Listen to and watch more things that were made before you were born, don’t believe tha hype, consider replacing coffee with black tea, take a sec to really revisit & analyze a Disney Channel Original Movie, and keep it rockin and rollin.