Elijah Blake is the latest songwriter attempting to step into the limelight. After writing Usher’s “Climax,” as well as hit songs for Rihanna, Rick Ross and many others, the GRAMMY Award winner has been working hard to launch his own shooting star with a few songs and an EP under his belt. Now he's ready to truly step to the front of the stage with the release of the latest single off his upcoming album, Shadows and Diamonds, “I Just Wanna…” featuring Dej Loaf.
“I Just Wanna…” is a mid-tempo club song about getting drunk and grinding all up on the PYT you’re feeling at the moment. If you were wondering what the ellipses were all about, the lyric continues “...get f**ked up with you.” While the production is serviceable, this isn’t Elijah’s best showing as a songwriter. Lyrics such as “I want you now/ I need you now/ I gotta hit that shit somehow / Somehow/ I gotta hit that shit somehow / Right now,” are not only super duper basic, but Elijah doesn’t have the charm to make them work. Like many club songs, the chorus does the heavy lifting. In addition, Elijah is upstaged by the his co-star Dej Loaf. The up-and-coming rapper doesn’t deliver any memorable lyrical content, but her voice and her swag greatly outshine Elijah. She pretty much takes over the last third of the song, and the whole track is much better for it.
Along with dropping the his debut single, we also have the Mike Ho-directed video. The clip starts off with Elijah stuck at work in a shoe store while his boy (played by former America's Next Top Model contestant Don Benjamin) tries to convince him to play hooky and join him at a block party. He finally convinces Elijah to go along with the plan after learning that this chocolate shawty he’s been feeling will be in attendance. And what a coincidence, said chocolate shawty stops by the shoe store right at that moment, leading Elijah and his crew of dancers on a merry chase to the block party. The clip is very reminiscent of Chris Brown’s “Yo (Excuse Me Miss).”
While the songs Elijah has crafted for other artists have been hits with impressive turn of phrase, “I Just Wanna…” doesn’t do much to turn our ears. In fact, Elijah has done much better with songs such as "6 / Fallen" and “X.O.X.” and tracks from his mixtapes. Like most emerging artists, he’s probably still searching for that right sound to help him blow up and achieve the same fame as the seasoned artists with whom he's worked. We applaud his work ethnic and track record, but can't clap to this.
