RJ drops Debut album ‘Home Grown’
RJ today dropped his debut album ‘Home Grown’ & its 13 fire tracks on life experiences, identity, family and proud northern soul.
Manchester is home to the Grime artist RJ where he lives and creates most of his music to date. The album goes beyond northern vibes, where the artist explored tones of New-Soul with piano and guitar arrangements in tracks like R.O.B. and Morning Meds.
A few track titles showcase values that resonate with his listeners, such as Money Minded, Worth and Family First.
The song Flawed reveals tenacity and fragility. The track could spark conversations about mental health and the struggles of carrying on as an artist even when nothing seems to be going your way. As in the lyrics, “And even tho I came so far, in the morning I can wake up, and every single thought is ungrateful”.
And continues, “I been putting money into music, and its nothing left”.
Make sure you listen to Home Grown and come back to us with your thoughts!
Review written by Natacha Pires
Stream ‘Home Grown’ on Spotify:
RJ started out as a Grime MC from South Manchester, making a name for himself performing at respected venues such as Academy and Band on the Wall from a young age around 2006-2009.
Life then took over and RJ had some time away from music for a number of years before returning in 2017 and forming a new working partnership with Manchester Grime veteran, turned producer JSD (Virus Syndicate) and his Midication family.
He quickly went back to his roots releasing Grime anthems such as ‘Airmax’, ‘Manchester Grime’ and ‘Pad Work’ before opening up about his experiences that led him to where he is now in songs such as ‘Growing Pains’ and ‘7:15’.
In 2019 RJ released his debut EP ‘Be Yourself’ which showed a more versatile artist in the making and has since gone onto perform on major stages locally such as Parklife Festival.
He entered 2021 with the nostalgic garage sounding ‘BARS’ which quickly captured the ears and eyes (courtesy of an outstanding visual directed by James Killeen) of the local scene gaining support from DJ Roesh at BBC Introducing Manchester, a ‘Record of the Week’ title at Unity Radio and secured RJ his first play on BBC Radio 1.
He followed this up with the hard hitting ‘Gym Talk’ and autobiographical ‘Northern Soul’ which acted as the “Intro to the Intro” giving the listeners a quick back story of some of RJ’s life and setting the scene for his debut album ‘Home Grown’ which was released on 12th March, 2021.
Follow RJ on Instagram:
https://instagram.com/rj_mcr?igshid=v6higzp01xft
For all the latest news visit here:
https://www.unityradio.fm/category/news/
