Jordan Adetunji: “In 2025, I’m looking to take over straight away”

28 October, 2024

Jordan Adetunji (2024), photo by Chris Buck

Jordan Adetunji was out at a nightclub when his muse, the Californian R&B star Kehlani, dropped him a private message. The Northern Irish vocalist’s brisk, addictive breakout single ‘Kehlani’ – an ode to the eponymous pop star that was labelled one of TikTok’s songs of the summer – was put together in the bedroom of his mum’s house in Belfast, and dropped nonchalantly on TikTok back in May. It blew up, and in the space of a few weeks, his artistic inspiration reached out to him, asking for a remix.

Jordan Adetunji on The Cover of NME (2024), photo by Chris Buck — Jordan Adetunji on The Cover of NME. Credit: Chris Buck for NME

“It was very organic,” he tells NME. “I always wanted to ask Kehlani if she would do a verse, but I was a bit shy about it. She hit me up and said, ‘So am I gonna get the open verse?’ and I was like, ‘That’s crazy!’ She was in the studio, and I needed to send her the file, so I was in the middle of the club trying to search for the right file; I’d named it something so dumb! I managed to get it to her, and she locked in on that one. The remix came out fire.”

The two tracks have taken Adetunji to places he never could have accessed before. “We’ve performed the song everywhere: London, Europe, France, all over America, and it’s always a vibe,” he says. “I performed with Kehlani when she brought me out for her ‘Crash’ album launch in London; we also played together at [iconic 19,000-cap New York venue] the Barclays Center, which was fire… I’m still travelling with the song while creating new music.”

“It’s crazy hearing ‘Kehlani’ in the club and seeing Travis Scott going crazy to it”

Born in London to Nigerian parents, Adetunji moved to the Northern Irish capital when he was 10, and he’s been based there ever since. He clearly feels a deep connection with the city, partly because of his links with its clubbing and live music scene and partly because of positive encounters he’s had with other Belfast-based musicians such as Kneecap and Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody, who gave him early radio plays and helped him grab a landmark BBC Introducing showcase in Belfast. But while he emphasises that “Belfast culture has influenced me a lot”, the success of ‘Kehlani’ means the 25-year-old is spending less time in his home city these days.

“I’ve been out here for like a month now,” he says as he joins NME on a call from Los Angeles, where he’s still feeling his way into a fresh morning. “It’s very different, but I love it, and I feel like it’s where I fit, style-wise and with music. I have a very R&B vocal sound, and being influenced by the new wave of drill in New York has helped me switch on a light to try more stuff with my voice.”

Jordan Adetunji (2024), photo by Chris Buck — Credit: Chris Buck for NME

There is an increasing sense that Adetunji’s voice is the primary instrument at his disposal. His debut mixtape ‘Rock ’N’ Rave’ centred around a wide array of complex instrumentals that blended hyper club rhythms with heavier rock guitar influences, from the upbeat, intricately percussive ‘You & I’ to the rock-trap fusion showcased on ‘Miami’. But his recent releases have stripped back the beats and intensified the spotlight on the vocals. ‘Kehlani’ is sparse and brooding, with percussive clangs and deep bass that plunge you into the bowels of a New York club. This minimal backdrop helps lift Adetunji’s fluid, Travis Scott-esque Auto-Tuned tones a little higher. It’s a sonic shift that excites him as he gears up to drop new music in the coming months.

“The new music I’ve been making is in the ‘Kehlani’ world, but it’s definitely more R&B-driven,” he says. New tracks like ‘Options’ (released on October 18) brim with the confident energy of a polished, cinematic single from SZA or Tinashe. There’s also a greater alignment with the US rap scene than on previous projects, encapsulated by a feature from Atlanta heavyweight Lil Baby on the same track, which audibly draws from bouncing NYC drill influences.

“I’m very big into eras,” Adetunji explains. “They allow you to take your audience on a journey through different sonics. I feel like I’ve learned everything that I have from ‘Rock ’N’ Rave’, adapted it, and made it even better. [The newer music] is still a bit experimental but very much R&B-led. I feel like I’m able to express myself more and talk a lot more about how I’m feeling on the newer stuff. My style of vocal and my style of writing hooks fits those types of beats.”

He says spontaneity is a big part of the process, which doesn’t come as too much of a surprise given that Adetunji dropped a snippet of the original ‘Kehlani’ before he’d even finished making it. His tracks tend to be short and punchy, rarely exceeding the two-and-a-half-minute mark, and he finds that creating with speed is the perfect way to capture the essence of what he’s trying to communicate. “I made that track fast,” he says of ‘Kehlani’. “I only had a melody and a hook, and once I had that first bit, that’s when I posted it – it wasn’t finished. Once I got a little bit of a reaction, I was like, ‘Damn,’ and I finished it in like 20, 30 minutes.”

Adetunji has been honing those rapid production skills for nearly a decade; his mum bought him a computer around the age of 16, and before long, he was playing around with the production software Logic and dropping tracks online. From creating his earlier post-punk tunes to building hyped-up club anthems and smoother R&B efforts, the process has remained similar throughout. Whether he’s working on his own or with regular producers like Take A Daytrip (Lis Nas X, Juice Wrld) or J Rick (Headie One, Obongjayar), he likes to keep things simple in the studio, usually engineering his own vocals in order to feel comfortable experimenting. He’ll typically start by dropping vocals on a loop, then “building the beat around it” and focusing on creating an evocative atmosphere.

“I try not to overthink it. I want people to connect to that raw thing”

For someone who fell in love with music partly through gaming, this is crucial. Playing games like Need For Speed or Spyro, he’d enter certain missions again and again just to hear specific songs and see how the visuals aligned with them. Today, when he’s in the studio, he’ll regularly pull up a screen without audio and record while watching the visuals. When he made ‘Rock ’N’ Rave’, creating sounds evocative of a video game simulation was a key aim.

In terms of lyrics, he says it’s all about “writing down the rawest thing”. Explaining his writing process, he adds: “I try not to overthink it. I want people to connect to that raw thing that you just said, no matter how it sounds… toxic, positive, whatever it is. Music is about people connecting to a sound, connecting to a frequency.”

Inevitably, this focus on spontaneity brings us back to the making of ‘Kehlani’ and its subsequent explosion online. Currently, Adetunji’s breakout single has amassed over 220 million Spotify streams, sparked a TikTok dance craze, and, after that out-of-the-blue message, inspired the artist it’s named after to hop on an equally powerful remix. Viral success has clearly benefited the Belfast musician immensely, but the big question now is: How do you create something lasting from this fierce flash of exposure?

“Waiting for something to happen on TikTok can ruin how you release your music,” he says thoughtfully, accepting the limitations of an app that has had both positive and negative implications for emerging artists. “Some things are slower, some things have a different frequency, and you’re not always going to feel that on TikTok within 15 seconds. But I feel like TikTok really helps to boost something when you do have that quick idea… you create the vibe, you align the song and the visual, and people can really connect with that vibe fast. I always say that it’s an algorithm, so the people pick the music, they choose what they watch and what they comment on, so they’re driving it. Vibing off them and learning how to capitalise on that support is so important.”

Much of Adetunji’s summer was spent concentrating on exactly this: building off the back of his breakout hit. In June, he signed with Warner Records’ 300 Entertainment, which has previously helped the likes of Megan Thee Stallion, Young Thug and Fetty Wap to achieve huge international stature. He cites the label’s interest in discussing his future strides as a key reason for inking the deal. “In developing the world that I’m trying to build, it felt like a good move because it puts me into the culture that I want to be in, that I want to spread my music in,” he explains. “I met with [CEO] Kevin Liles, and we had a great discussion about what comes after ‘Kehlani’ — he was the first person that really spoke about that. In 2025, I’m looking to take over straight away and flood the market with great music.” That mission kicks off early with the release of ‘Options’, a hint of what’s to come in the new year.

It’s understandable that Adetunji has his eyes set on the future. But the Belfast singer is still sometimes blown away by what he’s managed to achieve with one track. “It’s crazy hearing it in the club still,” he smiles. “Seeing Jaden Smith vibing to it, seeing Travis Scott going crazy to it on his Story… it’s created a culture, which I love.”

Jordan Adetunji’s ‘Options’ is out now via Warner UK/300 Entertainment

Listen to Jordan Adetunji’s exclusive playlist to accompany The Cover below on Spotify and here on Apple Music