Electronic music has roots in the midwestern cities of Chicago and Detroit through house and techno music and the Black people who created them. Today, in cities like San Francisco, New York, and European places, the genre Black mid-westerners created has a new face. As time progressed, rave culture became synonymous with a genre that came out of the technological revolution of the mid to late-20th century, happening after the Civil Rights Moment and Motown left Detroit for Los Angeles.
As time progressed, we saw electronic music make its way into other Black forms of music, like funk, hip-hop, and R&B, taking the modern soundtrack and putting on a spaceship for the future to hear. In R&B, we have seen this sonic change come to life through the new generations of artists.
“[It was] a challenge for me to bend R&B. That’s always been a huge thing for me since I was very, very young since I realized I liked unique styles for R&B, like listening to Kelis, The Neptunes, everything they touched. I’m just like, ‘Oh my gosh. This is very interesting to listen to,’” singer/songwriter Rochelle Jordan said after a delayed flight to San Francisco and before her Noise Pop show that night.
Jordan’s music from the start of her career showcases her ability to bend the genres of R&B and electronic music uniquely. “It was always kind of embedded in me to shift things, if I could, and just find my individuality within R&B music,” she said. Being born in the UK and spending most of her life in Toronto, Canada, she gained influence from the music she heard coming from her older brothers’ speakers. When it came time to venture into making music, she consciously chose to place her voice over traditional UK dance music sounds, thus creating what we hear in songs like “Love You Good” and “Next 2 You.”
“Naturally, I knew how to approach those tracks, which was cool,” she said.
After a seven-year hiatus, she released her 2021 album Play With The Changes, most of which she wrote during the 2020 pandemic. The album went through many iterations before landing on the name we know today. For Jordan, it was a very transitional time in her life. Most people were wondering what the next steps of their lives were going to be, and she was no exception. Luckily in this time of uncertainty for the world, she turned to her music, and with the help of the producers she works with specifically, KLSH, she could put her feelings into song lyrics.
“All I could do is create through that feeling,” Jordan said reflecting on what happened, now four years ago. “Luckily, the producers that I work with specifically KLSH, who was my main producer. But the people that he also brought in were also like-minded, and we’re also excited about identity in music and just holding true to even the weirdest of stuff. We love that. We bask in that. So we had a lot of fun doing very weird things. But, yeah, it pulled me out of what could have been probably, like, the worst time of my life.”
Amid the ongoing international fear of COVID-19 and the murders of people like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, everyday things were put into a different perspective. With the song “Lay,” she expressed the feelings of anxiety that came with her partner leaving the house and the unpredictability of whether or not he would be coming back. “So when I’m looking at my man and watching him walk out the door, and feeling that terror, can you imagine what that would feel like?” she asked. During the show that night, “Lay,” got the same treatment as on the Play With The Changes (Remixed), the serious tones of the song become more stimulating, with the drum & bass beat by Machinedrum.
The lights flashed and strobed turning the Rickshaw Stop into more of a rave rather than a R&B concert, amplifying the connection between the two cultures of dance and R&B music. Today, it is more common to see people blur the lines of two genres that could not appear more different. Janet Jackson whom Jordan referred to as “mother,” showed how it can be done with the help of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis in her 1993 song, “Throb.”
With artists like Jordan, Kelela, Channel Tres, and producers like KAYTRANADA, we see the ways old influences appear in music today. “There’s a lot of Black artists that are coming through the dance sound right now, and collectively we’re making a major impact as it was before,” she said. Hearing these two sounds integrate seems unique, but Jordan said it is a part of our DNA.
Jordan’s musical DNA bleeds into her live performances, giving her music a new perspective to the fans. “Broken Steel” featuring Farrah Fawx, is an excellent song looking at how society sees and treats Black women.“I thought that message was important,” she started:
“Generally, we’re seen in this specific lens, and we’re often seen as harsh and brutal or attacking or whatever, and it demonizes us. We’re always being demonized. But the truth is, specifically, as a Black woman, we’re very soft. We are way softer than people realize or understand because of what we have been through. And these walls that have been created are to continuously protect that softness, and sometimes it’s hard to see. But that needs to be recognized, that’s something that was an important message that I wanted to get across.”
Before Play With The Changes, Jordan released 1021 in 2014, a project that was more purely centered around R&B. Listening to this album, listeners can hear clear influences from artists like Aaliyah. Recently this album got a new life, with the popularity of the song “Lowkey,” thanks to TikTok. The song goes through Jordan grappling with feelings of telling her friend her true feelings and is now the soundtrack for two-minute Day in the Life vlogs.
“You think something’s kind of dead in the water and the next thing you know, it’s being amplified again. ‘Lowkey’ has a new life form, and I feel like it can again and again and again,” she said.
The night was ending, and she ran through all of her hits. The crowd started cheering, “Encore! Encore! Encore!” and she returned. Watching her tonight, it was hard to not think about how she is at the point of living her dream. When doing records like the Jimmy Edgar song she’s featured on, “Dreamz Come True,” it is evident she is not only singing songs that show her fans there will be light at the end of the tunnel, but she made this song to help her through those times as well.
“It’s very interesting to realize my story and what it looks like, even from the outside perspective because I’ve been in this industry so long and because of the choices that I’ve made and where I am now and where it’s projecting to, it’s like ‘oh, okay this was right, and this is how it was supposed to be.’ I believe in that,” she said.
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