From Belfast
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Standing among legends such as Beyoncé, Future, the Weeknd and Erykah Badu in the nominees for this year’s best melodic rap performance Grammy is Jordan Adetunji (pictured above), a 25-year-old from Belfast. While the Academy defers to Beyoncé at almost every opportunity, Adetunji could nab it with something he made in his bedroom.
His brilliant two-minute track Kehlani has the immediacy and instinct of a punk single, as Adetunji slinks around thudding drums to sing a series of chat-up lines – “I like the way your body is, is that too obvious? OK, I like your confidence” – in a disarming, fluttering melody. He compares his love object to the R&B star Kehlani and named the song after her. “I was in two minds, like: how’s she going to take this? Is it too much?” he says on a phone call from Belfast. “But I really wanted to make a song with her – I really wanted her to see it!”
The track blew up on TikTok even before it was finished, after Adetunji sang the work in progress to his followers – a common tactic for him. “TikTok is a creative tool and an A&R tool as well: sometimes I test my hooks on there and see what people like,” he says. “There might be something I’m not sure about and then I put it out [on TikTok] and people love it and it makes me love it more.”
Completed, Kehlani then took off worldwide, reaching the UK Top 10 during a 20-week chart run. Kehlani herself inevitably heard it and called up Adetunji asking to do a remix. “She was like: you need to send me the files” – but Adetunji was otherwise disposed in the middle of a Dublin nightclub. “I’m like: damn! Trying to phone my brother in the middle of this club to send it. Luckily, I had a version where there were no other verses in it, so I sent it, but that was stressful. I got mad lucky. You manifest something – and then it really comes to life.”
It has been the breakthrough moment for Adetunji, who has been making music since his teens after moving with his Nigerian mother from London to Belfast at 10. “I went from everyone else being of colour in the same class to being the only Black kid. That was interesting. But everyone took to me and was really nice.” He was inspired by the “breaking-the-rules” feel of his new city’s music scene and a remarkable diffusion of artists he discovered online and in video games, from the Afropop of his mother’s heritage to Joy Division, Drake and the industrial rockers Static-X.
He co-produces much of his music, which has the genre-blindness that is so common to his generation. Oli Sykes, the frontman of the pop-metallers Bring Me the Horizon, was impressed by Adetunji’s 2020 post-punk song Wokeup! and waved it under the noses of his bosses at RCA Records, who signed Adetunji (he has since jumped to another major label, Warner). The 2023 mixtape Rock’n’Rave turned out more rave than rock, leaning towards Jersey club, trap and African dance.
His tracks almost never break the three-minute mark and are frequently under two, in line with a broader trend in rap. “The consumption of content [online] has made people’s attention spans shorter,” Adetunji says. “They’re looking for that dopamine hit straight away. But I feel like once people become a fan, they’re willing to delve deeper into it.”
He says his forthcoming new material has cohered more around the sound of Kehlani – a genre being dubbed “sexy drill” – and is focused on relationship drama. He won’t be drawn on details – “Love is great!” – but admits an earlier breakup ended up boosting his career: “It just made me more focused and want to release more music. I was able to go away from that situation and take control of my own life.”
He has already released one post-Kehlani single track, Options, with one of the biggest names in US rap, Lil Baby – they filmed a video together on a yacht in Miami. “I don’t think I can express how nice this guy is,” Adetunji says. “He was like: keep going, keep your foot on the gas, this is what it’s all about.” I wonder aloud if that is daunting advice, given the ruthless pace of today’s attention-deficit pop. “Naaah,” he says, smiling. “It feels great. I know I can make an impact – because I have an audience now.”
