“Because I’m anticipating a lot of change – travel, attention, criticism – I’ve been trying to build a core battery of normality that can get me through it,” says Elmiene, reflecting on the rapid rise sparked by his 2021 viral cover of D’Angelo’s ‘Untitled (How Does It Feel)’. The video prompted rising UK producer Lil Silva to reach out to the Oxford-born soul singer, inviting him to a studio session and kickstarting a wave of collaborations with pioneering artists including Sampha and Stormzy.
The 22-year-old’s debut single ‘Golden’ came out soon after that fateful D’Angelo rendition, receiving global acclaim after being previewed at the late fashion designer Virgil Abloh’s final show for Louis Vuitton. Since then, Elmiene (aka Abdala Elamin) has dropped two EPs, most recently October release ‘Marking My Time’, a mellow five-track collection sketching out his vulnerable, emotive voice using powerful falsettos, soft percussion and ambient, cleverly textured keys.
As well as playing shows in LA and New York, this year he’s headlined Hoxton Hall and Jazz Cafe, packed out a tent at Glastonbury’s BBC Introducing Stage, and built on beautiful covers of tracks like Daniel Caesar‘s ‘Get You’ with performances on channels like COLORS. It’s not how he expected to be spending his twenties. Having studied creative writing in Bournemouth, Elamin was open to settling back in Oxford with a security guard job, where “everything you’ve ever known is still carrying on”. The success of tracks like ‘Golden’ and ‘Mad At Fire’ caused him to adjust that vision.
For the latest edition of Breakout, NME meets the British-Sudanese singer-songwriter at a hotel cafe in Shepherd’s Bush, the area of London he now calls home. We share a pot of tea, and settle down to discuss his deep love of nostalgia, “mourning” an alternative life outside music, and how he feels “more at home” playing to US crowds.
NME: Before ‘Golden’ blew up, you were comfortable with the idea of doing a 9-to-5 job in Oxford. What would that life have looked like?
“In that world, I was cushty. I was always the Oxford fanboy, like ‘We’ve got the river, why would you wanna leave?’ In my family and Sudanese culture more generally, when you go to uni it’s not expected for you to move out of your house, you’ll come back to sort yourself out, and then you’ll probably get married off somewhere… so it was always very much like, ‘I’ll be here forever.’
“When everything started moving, I was like, ‘Oh shit, maybe I could move out.’ The biggest conflict I had early on was asking, ‘Am I ready to bury the life I thought I was gonna have, and mourn and accept that, and then enjoy and accept the new life I’m living now?’ A lot of my earliest EP was me making preparations to really give that life its fair dos before I left it. It was like mourning the death of a relative.”
Nostalgia is a big theme in your music. What role does it play in your life?
“I’m a very nostalgic person, I have a big romance for the past. But at some point, I realised my life was moving so fast, it felt like yesterday wasn’t so clear, today wasn’t so clear, and everything was moving all at once. It really hits me when you have a travel day, say you’re flying to America, and you have a whole day dedicated to tomorrow. It’s a day you can’t even look back on, because it’s a day completely for the future’s sake.
“I find it a fun challenge to find nostalgic joy even for those days. I’m a fiend for it! And nitpicking and finding those moments of joy and satisfaction is what keeps you grounded in today and now, and not focused on wanting to do this in two years or this in four years… there’s never an end to how much you can anchor yourself in a certain moment.”
How have your shows in LA and New York differed from what you’ve experienced in the UK?
“In America, it’s mad, because America is where R&B was born, so there’s a different energy. Playing live, in between songs I’ll sing an old R&B song that I’m obsessed with and see if the audience can figure out what it is. Here, it’s a bit slower and then you get a few R&B nerds in the crowd and I’m like, ‘You get it, I see you’ – but there, everyone gets it.
“There’s pride in the audience for what their world and their culture has accomplished, it’s amazing. When I did my Oxford show not too long ago, that was the hardest show I’ve ever done. I was like, ‘Shit, New York felt so much more like home than this, but this is literally my home!’”
Things moved quickly after your cover of D’Angelo’s ‘Untitled (How does it feel)’ went viral. How did you find the transition from doing covers into writing your own songs?
“That was the first mission. At uni I did poetry, so I’d been writing poetry for years, but I wasn’t familiar with writing music. I knew loads of skills overlapped, there are loads of things that bridge across, and I’ve really trained that muscle. I’d spent my whole life studying R&B, and I realised I should just make a template.
“So I took ‘Rendezvous’ by Craig David, which goes verse-hook-verse-hook-bridge, and I took my writing and poetry and put it in that world. It wasn’t the hardest bridge to cross, it was just about decorating it, enhancing it, giving it nuances, and realising it’s a different medium to poetry completely.”
How did you find being at university in Bournemouth?
“Bournemouth was good, my problem was that I didn’t really turn up to uni at all. Covid hit in my first year, so I kind of went up until February, then things went online, and I went home to Oxford. My mum was in Sudan and couldn’t come back, so I had the whole Oxford house to myself, it was brilliant! I had this six month meltdown, lazing around, on Playstation parties… it was the maddest character building, I like to say that so that it doesn’t feel like I wasted six months of my life.
“But the people I met in Bournemouth got me to where I am now. There was so much creativity around, so much inspiration. I remember travelling up to London to go studio, and it then being like 10pm, or even 8pm, and you’re thinking about the four-hour journey back that night. There’s something about those early days – again, the nostalgia with me – being on the train at 1am, or it’s cancelled at Southampton, and you question “Why am I doing this again?” It brings a lot out of music when there are struggles.”
“I find it a fun challenge to find nostalgic joy”
Tell us about the inspiration behind your new single ‘Someday’…
“‘Someday’ was built around a friend that I wasn’t as close to anymore, that I used to see in a romantic way, but it was like “That can’t go through, for any reason.” I thought whatever that is that I felt, I need to encapsulate it, notice aspects of a person that I found that were amazing, and look for it in the future, and if I find that in someone in the future, I’ll be doing the right thing.”
What role does your faith play in those relationship dynamics?
“That’s what dictates my guidelines of how I live. Because I’m Muslim, when it comes to relationships like that, that’s not really the route that we take. My faith is the compass of where I go, and I’ve never been more thankful for it than I am now, because there are a lot of things within the world of music that, if I didn’t have my faith, it would be easier to fall into. But because I have my right and wrongs, it keeps me on a straight path.
“As a kid, those rights and wrongs are just words. You have to go through your own journey to understand what those words really mean. It’s when I went to uni and lived alone that I had the realisation of, ‘Do you wanna do that?’ and ‘Am I what my parents think I am?’ I realised ‘Yes, I am,’ and for me, it’s perfect, because I just wanna make more music with no distractions.”
How would you describe the Elmiene sound?
“The Elmiene sound is the sound of pleading. It’s a sound that lets you look into yourself and go, ‘What am I missing?’ or ‘What do I need?’ It’s a sound that makes you confused, but also makes you feel clear in your confusion, and that’s what I always strive for, because in my music I’m looking for answers, and I hope that in me looking for answers, you find your answers.
“That’s a really important part of us as humans; coming to grips with our emotions and asking why they are what they are. If I can do that, I’ve done my job.”
Elmiene’s new EP ‘Marking My Time’ is out now via Polydor Records/Def Jam