CJ Run
Chicago Selects is a new series of playlists curated by Chicago’s indie artists. No restrictions, no requirements — artists make a mix then tell me about it. This is a free article. Those who wish to support can use Venmo @JackRiedy or Paypal paypal.me/RiedyJA.
In her book Fangirls, journalist Hannah Ewens learns from a series of One Direction fans that “the emotions are the prize at the end, the aim, a reward for all your fannish activities. They’re a glue that tacks fandoms together.” CJ Run was a dedicated One Direction fan as a kid, dating back to the boy band’s first formation on X Factor, and Run’s own music hops across feelings and genres with the enthusiasm of a true music fan.
The Chicago-based musician’s latest self-produced single “Dey My Dey” is out now on Bandcamp and streaming, with a video co-directed by Run and Basejeezus. The song details the frustration of dealing with “the right guy at the wrong time”, but side-steps any stress by coping with work and weed. The hook is based on a common Nigerian phrase, and it’s a perfect late summer jam no matter where you hear it.
Run has focused on developing their production during self-isolation, and they also launched an ongoing GoFundMe campaign in order to fund a home studio and other living expenses through the end of the year in order to work on music full time. I talked to CJ while they were vacationing at their family’s home in North Carolina to learn more about their selections.
When you were growing up, did you listen to a lot of UK music?
No, actually. I grew up on American hip-hop and R&B. The time I was growing up in the UK, British hip-hop and R&B was very much underground. I still listened to a lot of British pop music, Elton John, George Michael, Spice Girls, things like that, but I was listening to American music for most of my life. I moved to America when I was 13, so I didn’t start getting into UK hip-hop until I was about 11, 12, so it was just as I was leaving I started to get into it. When I moved to America, I was so homesick and distraught for my first year, I used to just immerse myself in British pop culture, and that’s why it’s built up to this day, that’s my go-to.
I think there’s a residual Harry Potter effect, but I knew plenty of American kids growing up who became Anglophiles for no good reason. You had a legit connection to your past that you could tap into.
American culture is so secular, you can’t escape it no matter what part of the world you grow up in. There was a while, living in the UK, where I was like “I don’t want to listen to no UK rap!” I used to be listening to T.I., 50 Cent, Chiddy Bang, Snoop Dogg, Pharrell, Missy Elliot, and I was like “Oh my god, this is real hip-hop, I don’t care about Wiley and Skepta or whoever.” It’s funny how in America there are some die-hard Anglophiles but in the UK, there’s a lot of people that don’t even listen to British music. No one ever wants to be where they are.
Do you keep up with UK hip-hop now?
Yeah. GRM Daily, which is basically the hub for all UK urban music - I hate that word, but I don’t know what to call it as a collective - Black music in the UK, GRM Daily has it, so I stay up to date. It’s funny because it feels like I’m an outsider looking in now. Even with this playlist and the music I listen to, when I go to the UK, I’m always curious what are people actually listening to? What is actually popular? So I keep up.
As far as the genre distinctions in UK hip-hop, do you have a preference between grime, UK drill, more mainstream sounds?
I like afro-swing, and I like UK drill. Two opposite ends. Afro-swing is real vibes-y type music. UK drill just has an energy behind it, I think in the same way people feel about Chicago drill, that hardstyle type of rap, UK drill just gets you in that mood. UK drill is hard, 140 bpm, snares, all that. I hear the way everybody’s trying to make a UK drill type track when I hear those hats.
Are you trying to make any beats like that yourself?
Yeah. I want to do it tastefully. UK drill is so specific to London, and the UK drill rappers are also drillers, like trappers, you know what I mean? So I can’t just look up “UK drill type beat” and try rapping, because the subjects I wanna talk about are not what traditional UK drill is. So I need to do some like, lo-fi drill. Some fusion. I have to do it my way. But I do want to implement that style, because I can rap like that and I’ve been practicing those flows.
Is that your process now that you’re trying to self-produce your stuff? Here’s a style I want to try, so I’m going to practice the flow, practice the beat.
Yeah. My music is just a product of me being a really big fan of music. I listen to a lot of stuff and I listen to the pockets and patterns people use, and I’m very much about fusing styles. I know how to do UK drill flows, but I could take this beat and sing on it, a pop hook on a drill type beat. I am self-producing which has been going well. I keep saying it like that because for so long I was like “Ah, I don’t make beats, I can’t do all that.” On “Dey My Dey”, one of my producer friends called me and said I did a really good job on the mixing, and I was like “Yeah, I did!” Woah, I can actually do these things that I’ve been psyching myself out for the last ten years.
I still want to work with other people because there are still sounds I’m trying to learn. A lot of my beats have been very simple, but that’s also good because I’m a vocalist and I need the space to do everything I want to do. It’s nice to know that when push comes to shove, I can make my own beats.
What was the starting point for “Dey My Dey”?
I started with the melody. I found a pad from a sound pack and was playing it out. I wanted the drums to swing like “Whiskey Demo” by Ojerime, which is on the playlist. The song really just wrote itself, it’s everything I was feeling for the past month. “Dey my dey” is a saying in Nigeria. My mom will always put me on to little things, and she said “If someone asks you, ‘How’s your day?’, you say ‘I just dey my dey.’” She was like “You should put that in a song, people would love that.” Within four days, the song was done. It just happened.
I see your music on college-focused playlists, queer playlists. Do you feel like you have a Nigerian fanbase?
I do! I’ve been featured on Okayafrica before. Lots of pages focused on queer people in the Diaspora who make music big me up. I’ve made songs where I’ve said things in Igbo or Yoruba just to stick it in there as part of the bar, but I haven’t made a song that’s inherently African. So now that it’s out, I’m gonna bother everybody with it, see where it lands. But because I am so many things, I want to allow people to see me in every facet of what I can be. There’s a lot of different ways to be CJ Run, and I want to keep making music that speaks to my diversity as a musician, as a music listener, as a person.
I see you have a ZAYN track in here, and I read an interview where you talked about the New British Invasion last decade, and I remember you tweeting about trying to see One Direction in concert. So, tell me about being a One Direction fan.
Yes, finally! [laughs] I grew up in the era where X Factor was the biggest thing going. I was a big fan of Zayn’s audition. It was cool because he was of South Asian descent and he wanted to sing R&B. He didn’t make it, which was sad, but then when the group formed, I decided I’ll just support One Direction! I moved to America in 2011. My accent was a lot stronger and I was freshly from the UK. I didn’t have a lot of friends in school, so you make your friends on the internet, based on stanning whatever artists you’re listening to. I was a big fan of One Direction, the lesser-known band The Wanted. I got into a lot of stan wars about The Wanted vs. 1D. It was stressful.
You were in the stan trenches for these British boy bands!
You don’t understand, I really was. I was out here. I was a die-hard fan but Zayn was my favorite member always. I like One Direction’s music purely because I was in it. This is the music that me and my friends would listen to over FaceTime and fangirl about. It was a moment, and I was in it.
When Zayn went solo, I wasn’t mad about it. I knew he would. I feel like I’ve seen every 1D interview on YouTube. You could tell he didn’t want to be there, he’s a very quiet guy. He joined the group because they’re putting you in a boy band, what are you gonna do, go home? On his first album, I was ready to pledge my allegiance to R&B-pop Zayn. “Bright” was my favorite song on that album, and I still listen to it now. I think he has a very powerful voice and a lot of control over his range, and I can also tell where his influences come from, just being a brown person growing up in the UK. I fuck with Zayn.
It sounds like for Directioners, voting for them on X Factor was like being at an indie band’s first show.
It was. When X Factor launched in America, I auditioned online with a video, but nobody ever got back to me. So I was like “I’m just gonna go,” even though I didn’t pass the first few rounds. It was so naive of me, I was 14. I had to go to Greensboro, NC, which was three hours away from where I was living. When we get there, I’m obviously not on the list to audition, and my mom was like “So what did you do? You submitted right? This is why you should have let me look over your application, we drove all this way.” But it was still free to watch the auditions. During the break period, they were letting audience members sing a bit. My audition song was going to be the Amy Winehouse version of “Valerie,” and I wrote a rap with it. So I did my little rap and I sung “Valerie” for this huge stadium at 14. Demi Lovato was a guest judge back then, and she heard and thought it was cool.
I’m really happy that didn’t work out. At 14, there were still so many things about myself I was discovering: my gender, my sexuality. I just wonder if I was put in the public eye too early, what would that have looked like for me? I started making music at 13 and I had these dreams of being a child star like Lil Bow Wow or Lil Mama. Looking back now as a 22-year-old, I’m so glad I got to grow up as a person in my teen years. What would “I think I might be non-binary” look like, if you’re signed to a record label and you’ve been marketed as this girl power pop rapper? Would that have been traumatic as hell? Probably. I used to be like Justin Bieber thinking “Maybe if I just do covers, and someone will find me.” I‘m so glad nobody found me. [laughs]
I was happy to see NAO on here because when I lived in London for a semester, I saw one of her early shows.
“Firefly” was the first time I’d ever heard her. That song came out when I was a senior in high school. I used to blast that song on my way home, and it reminds me of a time when I was very hopeful and anything was possible. That’s why I’ve been listening to it lately, to feel hopeful. [laughs]
There’s a lot of British artists on there but there’s some Americans too. That Busta track is on there because I listened to his first album a couple months ago, just to know where he was coming from. We talk about artists that have stood the test of time, he’s one of them. I got into Brandy seriously over the last year. I was too young to fully appreciate her. I listened to Afrodisiac for the first time for a podcast called I’ve Been Meaning To Listen To That last summer. She really was the blueprint for a lot of modern R&B. I feel like she gets her dues, but not enough!
I know you went to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Did you know Mother Nature while you were there?
Yeah! They weren’t in school anymore, but they still lived in Champaign. I remember I saw Klevah open for The Internet in 2016, and it was before they were Mother Nature, so TRUTH just came on for a couple songs they had together. I had just gotten to school, I was 17, I was still like “How do I become an artist?” I remember seeing Klevah after the show and being like “Hi! Oh my god, you’re so cool!” My first show that I was ever paid for was opening for Mother Nature.
Have you been keeping up with the local scenes in Chicago since moving here?
I have been keeping up. I listened to Joshua’s new project. Ifeanyi Elswith. I listen to Wyatt. It is getting harder not being able to go to shows. I miss shows so much, I miss concerts. Everything is such a mess, so I’m trying to cling to the things I know won’t leave me, which is myself and my music.
I feel like my existence as an artist is what happens when you listen to a lot of music and you’re just like “I wanna do that too!” People tell me “I listened to you and became more secure in my gender identity” or “I listen to this kind of music now because of you.” The fact people listen to the music on my Instagram story is very cool. Telling me you like the music I listen to is more of a compliment than telling me you like my music. [laughs]
we move
Triumph - J Hus
Tangerine Dreams - Ojerime
Whiskey Demo - Ojerime
Get It Together - India.Arie
Make Your Move - Heiroglyphics
HUNNIES - Ace Tee
Pressure - Raleigh Ritchie
Ben’ Ova - WSTRN
SHOTGUN - closegood, Harry Jay Robinson
Been Away - Brent Faiyaz
Angel in Disquise - Brandy
It’s a Party - Busta Rhymes, Zhane
Betty - Pa Salieu
Firefly - Mura Masa, Nao
Mains - Skepta, Chip, Young Adz
Pull Up - Blanco
BRIGHT - ZAYN
Love, Peace and Prosperity - J Hus