682 fans
A prismatic tour, a lo-fi mist, an open experiment: Benja blends bedroom-infused indiepop with the soulful production of R&B. Like the best of eclectic visions, the Toronto-based guitarist pulls from a variety of sourcebooks.
Benja started in an indie band before studying jazz guitar; a synthesis which, like gauze, is transparent enough to locate but blurry enough to escape singular definition. “My love for jazz led me to want to understand other Black American music: gospel, blues, soul, the thread between them,” he says. “Also, my father is from Ghana, so I’m interested in different styles of West African music. And punk influences, rock, pop, indie. All of it.”
Saturated and dreamy, his latest single, Gone, has a backbone melody that lodges itself in the hippocampus before ascending into the ether. With a feature from rapper JustJohn, Benja’s hypnotising riffs - warped and sliding, incredibly precise - are never too far from the smoothness of his falsetto.
Benja’s dexterity takes many forms: he’s backed up Bad Bad Not Good, Jonah Yano and Odd Future’s Hodgy , and is finishing up production on the forthcoming K’naan album. “I usually build instrumentals first, then lyrics flow from there. For me, it’s about processing the world through sound.” With a new EP in the works, the guitarist and up-and-coming producer is operating on a number of magnetic frequencies.
