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Elijah Blake VibeZ

Twenty-nine tracks from a singer and songwriter who has written for Usher, Rihanna and Trey Songz and made his own strange, atmospheric records on the side.

Elijah Blake

Elijah Blake was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Florida, and came to attention first as a songwriter — he has credits with Usher (including "Climax"-adjacent material), Rihanna, Rick Ross and Trey Songz.

His own work is considerably darker and less commercial than that pedigree suggests. Blake's records are atmospheric, harmonically ambiguous, and frequently concerned with faith, doubt and moral compromise — a preacher's-son sensibility applied to secular R&B.

The Common relationship has been the most productive of his career, and the two tracks here are the best evidence of what he does.

What to listen for

"Real" and "X.O.X." with Common are the entry points — Common's warm, conversational delivery against Blake's smoke-and-shadows production is a genuinely well-judged pairing.

"Hanging Tree" is the most striking thing here. The title carries an unavoidable American weight, and Blake uses it deliberately.

"Stuck In My Ways" with Sevyn Streeter is the best duet — two singers who both write, neither performing sympathy.

"Best Friend" and "Uno" are the solo highlights, and "Dopeamine" is the title that tells you the subject.

The collaborations map a whole corner of contemporary R&B: Tamar Braxton, Jordin Sparks (twice), Keyshia Cole, KIRBY, Maeta and Tone Stith. "How U Gonna?" features Cheryl "Salt" James of Salt-N-Pepa, which is the most unexpected credit on the list.

"Abide" closes on the religious register that runs under everything.

Go deeper

Shadows & Diamonds (2015) is the album, and Bijoux 22 is the mixtape that built his following.

Chase his writing credits — hearing a song you know well and then learning who wrote it changes how it sounds, and Blake's fingerprints are on more mainstream R&B than his own profile suggests.

For artists in the same territory: Elhae, Xavier Omär, Ro James and Luke James — a whole tier of male R&B singers making genuinely good records to modest attention.

A closing thought on the double career. Songwriters who also record tend to keep their strangest material for themselves and hand out the polished songs, and Blake is a clear case — the records under his own name are consistently darker, slower and less resolved than anything he has given to Usher or Trey Songz. That is not a complaint about either. It simply means the solo catalogue is where you find out what he actually thinks, and it rewards the time considerably more than the credits list suggests.

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