News

Introducing… EJ

• 21st Nov 2011

EJ was born Edwina Johnson in Stockholm, Sweden. Her single, Barbadian doctor mother uprooted her to spend time with an extended family in Gothenburg.

‘We had a great musical community there. And the racial mix really mixed. Iranians, Turks, a big Somalian community. It all worked together.’ She attributes her musical genealogy to her father, an Afro-Cuban guitar wizard. ‘But music has been in me since day one,’ she adds.

Her initial musical awakenings were a mix of the sacred and the secular, something that you can hear perfectly attuned in the irresistible gospel-inflected semi-accapella of her debut single Mama, I’m Gonna Sing. ‘My grandmother took me to church every Sunday. The house was swarming with grandchildren. I had that mix of church singing and then getting back to her house and seeing cousins breakdancing, listening to Michael Jackson and Neneh Cherry.’

Moving to London at the age of 12, EJ found a whole new set of experiences and influences. “I absorbed it all” she says. Expect to be blown away from her future anthems “Bangers & Mash” and “Supersize”.

EJ – Mama, I’m Gonna Sing by PurplePR