Eryn Allen Kane Talks New Music, 'Chi-Raq,' Working w/ Prince and J. Cole
Rising Chicago singer Eryn Allen Kane is hands down one of my favorite budding superstars making noise in the Windy City. Over the past couple of years the Detroit native Chicago residing soulstress vocals have made a number of guest appearances on and various tracks from Chance & the Social Experiment’s SURF album to Saba’s “Burnout” and Towkio’s “Heaven Only Knows.” Eryn has also garnered the co-sign of his purple majesty Prince, who handpicked Eryn to provide guest vocals on his protest song, “Baltimore”.
This past November Eryn released her highly anticipated debut EP AVIARY Act 1 which featured her unanimously praised singles, “Have Mercy” and “Slipping” as well as her single “Piano Song” (which premiered on episode 5 for season 3 of BET’s Being Mary Jane.) This past Tuesday (February 2nd) Eryn released the second half of her EP, ACT II, a moving, foot-tap-inducing experience that Kane hopes will help listeners “find hope, inspiration, and courage.”
That’s Enuffs Unee set down with the singer to discuss everything from her start, two part EP’s, linking with Prince and J. Cole, and more.
Unee: Tell me about yourself and how you got this far.
Eryn Allen Kane: Oh man, I’ll give you a somewhat abbreviated version. I’m from Detroit. I started singing when I was super young in a church choir, kind of how a lot of other singers got started. Moving forward to high school, I was always into the performing arts. I decided I wanted to go to the same school that Aaliyah went to, she’s obviously like one of my heroes. So I went to DSA, Detroit School of the Arts, for like 3 years and then went back to school in the suburbs and graduated. After that, I went to Columbia [College]. That’s how I actually went to Chicago. I had some terrible development deal in Detroit, and I breached contract. So for like 18 months after I breached contract, I couldn’t write or record any music. I kind of gave up on the music thing for a little bit, and started in on my acting. I was an acting major at Columbia College. 3 years later, I went to Australia to visit my dad and got back into music. I just started recording, making songs with just my voice and household items to make beats. That’s how I found music and then came back to record these songs that I made while I was out there. Soon, I met my manager and my engineer and it kind of all pulled together and made this project that’s out right now!
Unee: A few years ago, I remember you dropped Her Pain, the BJ the Chicago Kid & Kendrick Lamar cover. Was that the first song that got you back into music after acting?
EAK: Yeah, that was the first. Actually, none of the songs that I first made when I came back to music are released. It’s funny because I went to my manager who wasn’t my manager at the time, and I was like “I want to record these songs”. They were recorded on my laptop. They were like “We gotta save these. Let’s make an entirely new set of songs and see what comes of it. Let’s just start recording.” So one night, I went and kind of freestyled that song, wrote it, and did the little back vocals to it. I left it off of YouTube, and that’s kind of how that happened. That wasn’t part of any of the songs I made overseas or anything like that.
Unee: You dropped Act I at the end of 2015. Can you explain how that project came about?
EAK: I got back in touch with some friends and told them I just needed a place to record. They were like “We got you. Let’s just try to think of another set of ideas. When you get inspired, write something.” That’s kind of how I operate anyway. So whenever I was inspired, I would just kind of etch it out and then hash out the entire base idea. Eventually, we had a set of five or six songs. So I thought, why not have some of our friends who play instruments like try to hash this out? Let’s make it into a real song. I put a horn section and stuff in there and start scatting on them, and then we actually have a friend who plays horn. We had guitar parts and all these different pieces that I put together with my voice to just kind of mimic with the instruments and then we made the project. It actually came together for Part 1 and Part 2. Aside from 2 or 3 of the songs, all of them were recorded in a basement in Staten Island. We just did it that way, and then I just went back and added vocals.
Unee: So what made you divide it into two separate EPs instead of releasing one entire EP?
EAK: (Laughs) It was actually my manager who kind of said “Maybe we should split it up because you have all these songs on the list and two of them aren’t finished yet. You wanna rush on them. We could just do some now and save the rest for later. That way at the top of the year, you’ll have something special as well.” I was dead set on releasing it all together, but then he mentioned that we have these other songs that we could put on there. We have a little more time on getting it mixed and giving the people more. I thought ok because I’m down with giving the people more. We just set it back so that we could get all the songs that we were working on all out.
Unee: Piano Song, how did the production crew from Being Mary Jane get that song? And what was your reaction when you heard it on the show?
EAK: It was licensed by the licensing company. I don’t really know how it came about. Just one day, my manager hit me up like “Yo, Being Mary Jane likes your song. Do you want to put it on the show?” I said “Yeah! That’s a cool show.” (Laughs) That’s how it came about. I don’t really know. There was another gentleman who my manager knew that like reaches out and licenses music. My manager must have given him two of my songs just to take a look at – he actually went out, and he found somebody who liked my songs. That was really awesome because I’m really down for the show too because it’s really empowering. I like Gabrielle Union. So it’s really awesome that they wanted to do it and use it.
Unee: I recently saw Chi-raq, and I know you were in it. I know the movie was receiving different reviews from people that live in Chicago and outside of Chicago. What are your thoughts on the movie? Do you think it was a good portrayal of what’s taking place in Chicago?
EAK: Firstly, I’d like to say that I definitely take into consideration all of my friends’ concerns and reservations about the movie. I can definitely understand where some of that comes from. However in being involved with the movie and reading the scripts fully, I can honestly say that I don’t think that Spike is intentionally bashing the city of Chicago. I don’t think that we’ve gotten carried away and done some crazy movie that’s going to make Chicago look bad. I think he’s bringing a very controversial light to a situation that we’re dealing with here. I know that a lot of people were put off by the term “Chi-raq”, but the movie is about moving away from that term & it’s negative connotation. He involved a lot of people from and living in Chicago currently, including me. I think he was just trying to do the movie in his own artistic way. I guess it’s not necessarily what everyone would agree with, but he wasn’t shooting a documentary. He was shooting a fictional movie that was based off of a play that was written in 411 B.C. If we’re being honest with ourselves, that’s what it is. I think logistically he did a great job of bringing about great topics that no else was trying to give a fuck about. I’m actually happy I was a part of something that he did that I think was positive. There was a lot more positive than negative to be focused on.
Unee: I know you’re from Detroit, and Detroit is having their own issues. Do you want to touch on your hometown?
EAK: Man, it’s always been kind of an issue ever since I grew up there. I was born on the east side of Detroit. My grandma lived there and owned a business for 24 years, a home daycare. I was pretty sheltered because my family did a good job of being like “We live here, but you don’t have to be product of your environment. Let’s do this. Let’s go to church. Let’s be involved in this.” It was a lot of nurturing there which I’m very grateful for. On the outside especially upon graduating and going through the recession, things were bad. A lot of my family members had to move, including my mom. My mom moved to Washington DC and my father had already moved to California. He’d been in California for some time. Everyone was losing their jobs. My aunt lost her job, so she had to move to DC. Things were hard, and I’ve always kind of associated the key midwest cities. Chicago is like the cleaner, bigger, more diverse Detroit. (Laughs) Detroit’s not diverse at all. It’s a majority African-American city, and then everybody moved up out of there. Things have always kind of just been tumultuous, and I’ve always liked comparing the two cities. I love Detroit, Detroit is home. It’s always nice to have another sister city that you feel like is very similar to Detroit in ways. I think that’s why I call it my home now. I can kind of really relate to how they operate here and the things that are going on here as much as I could in Detroit. It’s difficult to talk about sometimes. I haven’t been back in a while, but they’re both great cities. At the end of the day, I love Detroit and that’s what I call home.
Unee: You did a collaboration with Prince, how did that come about? And what was your reaction when he requested you to help him?
EAK: I was supposed to work with him back in 2012 or 2013. When I released Hollow, he’d heard it. And I’d just gotten out of the shower so I was just running around the house, naked and screaming. So that was my initial reaction to him liking my stuff, and then he was just like “Yeah, come out here and record a song with me.” It was a couple of days after I released Have Mercy. I was just like this isn’t real. It really didn’t set in until we were at an Applebee’s right before we were supposed to go in and record with Prince. I was in Minnesota, and I just freaked out and I flipped. I was just like “I can’t do it!” I told my manager that it wasn’t possible because I didn’t have enough experience, and I wasn’t ready to record with Prince. It was just kind of funny because my manager was like “What the hell? We’re here. You’re doing it.” I knew I’d let myself have the opportunity because that’s why I thought I wasn’t worried yet. I didn’t have enough time. I got over that quickly, and then we went to the studio. Luckily, he wasn’t there. He just came around the end. He was like “Hey Eryn.” I said “What’s up?” He said “ I need your soul on this song. Can you help me out?” I was like “Sure.” He said “Do whatever you want to do. Do what you do.” I was like “Shit! He’s leaving it up to me?” He was like “Yeah.” That’s kind of how it was. He didn’t object to anything. He actually ended up liking everything I did. We took it from there. I ended up doing an impromptu performance with him that night or that evening at this party he was hosting for a friend. It was really cool and really surreal. I got back to my house and was like “Did all that shit just really happen?” That was kind of how it came about.
Unee: I also heard that you’re in the process of recording with J. Cole. I know you probably can’t speak on the song that much. How did you guys link up?
EAK: We just really worked on one specific thing. I know a lot of people assume because I went down there that we worked on this “collab thing”. He was actually just genuinely excited about my music and my art. I have some friends that work with him. One day, I guess they just showed him a video of me. He hit me up, and I went to a J. Cole concert in Detroit. I took my two brothers with me. They were super stoked because they were huge fans. Yeah, we saw the show and went home. That night at like 3 or 4 in the morning, I got a text from J. Cole and he just casually said “Hey man, what’s up? I really fuck with your music! Come on through. Let’s link up!” I was like “What the fuck? This is not real.” (Laughs) I was checking my phone to see who gave him my number. I was kind of like laughing about it. He said “I heard you were at the show tonight, just like hit me up if I’m in Chicago.” We actually linked up when I was in New York, and I got to go to the Madison Square Garden show. I met him and talked to him, and he eventually was like “Come on out to North Carolina, so we can jam.” I ended up going out there and working with a bunch of them. They’re just the sweetest guys, just genuine human beings. As a woman, you know it can get really depressing to think about the things that happen to you and how you’re treated in this industry. It was just really wonderful to finally come into contact with a group of gentlemen who were very assertive and attentive. They didn’t need to talk about all the craziness. They were just very polite and awesome the whole entire trip. We just created music, and it was all for the love of music. It was so prevalent and so evident that these people just really, really cared about music. That was really dope. But doing a collab? We’ll see. We just went down there and jammed on a bunch of stuff. It was awesome.
Unee: What do we have to look forward to for in the rest of 2016 from you, other than the Part 2?
EAK: I’m releasing Part 2, obviously. There’s going to be five new songs. I’m going to hit the road. I’m going to go on a tour in March, a small tour. I’ll be announcing those dates. Then there’s SXSW (South by Southwest). I’m trying to do the performance thing because that’s something I haven’t been able to do thus far. You guys will see a lot more of me out here performing and doing stuff. So yeah, that’s what I look forward to in 2016.
Unee: Will the tour be a midwest tour or will you hit one of the coasts?
EAK: It’s actually going to be all over the place. It’s part of a — I don’t know if I can announce it yet. (Laughs) It’s 10 dates, but I’m only doing 4 of the 10. Then I’m going national, and it’s going to be a few different places like Atlanta and that sort of thing. I’ll definitely be announcing all that at the top of the year.
