Singer Ella Rosa has had a relatively busy past year; the rising star was hard at work on her current and future projects during the pandemic. She dropped her fresh and vibrant Yellow Blazer EP back in October and in April of this year released “Englishman in New York,” the leading single from her upcoming body of work. “Englishman in New York” finds Rosa channeling the iconic Sting as she covers the legendary singer’s song with her unique twist: a soul-bearing cascade of relatability reinvigorated through subtle influences of both lounge Jazz and R&B.
The following conversation took place about a week before Ella’s latest single, “Just Me,” was introduced to the world. Even though Ella was busy being a boss, making moves, training for her upcoming LA show, and creating more infectious hits-to-be, she still somehow had time to talk with me about her identity, her latest song, inspirations, and more. She is an icon.
This is the conversation that took place:.
. . .
MARC GRIFFIN: Ella! What’s up, girl? How are things?
ELLA ROSA: Good, good. I’ve been training, and tryna get over jet lag; it’s crazy at the moment, so.
MG: Gotchu, gotchu. I understand you have a lot going on, so I was patiently waiting. No worries!
ER: Oh! Thank you. Yeah, sorry about that. My Bluetooth is kind of f—ked up, but how are you? How are things?
MG: (laughs) It’s chill over here. Rather hot in Buffalo, NY right now, but I can’t complain.
ER: I used to know someone that went to college at Brockport University. Do you know where that is? I used to go there all the time to see that person.
MG: Did you used to go into the city of Buffalo to examine the incredible architecture?
ER: (laughs) Yeah, yeah, I did. Actually, we used to go into Buffalo for a couple of school trips, and it was pretty cool looking at the buildings.
MG: Actually speaking of Buffalo, well, [of] New York, particularly Englishman in New York—or Englishwoman in New York, in your case. I know it’s the first single from your next project. So tell me a bit of how that song came about.
Ella Rose courtesy of Hello PR.
ER: Yeah, so when I first moved to NY—that was the same era that I met that guy who went to Brockport, actually—but I moved to NY when I was like twelve. That was one of the weirdest moves, and I have traveled around quite a bit in my life. This move in particular was interesting because I was going through puberty and then also moving from the countryside. When I say countryside, I mean like full-on fields everywhere, you know, there’s sheep in my backyard (both let out a hearty laugh). When I first moved, I started listening to rock [music], and I started getting into 80s Rock, with Sting being one of the first musicians [that I listened to]. I knew that he was from a shipyard in England, and I listened to one of his TED Talks, and I was like, “Wow, this guy is really eloquent and really interesting to listen to. So then, he sang a song during the TED Talk, and I was like Jesus Christ. His voice is incredible. So a long story short, I became obsessed with The Police/Sting, and I came across that song, which wound up becoming the anthem of my move.
MG: I feel that. It sort of encapsulated what you felt like during those beginning days in the city.
ER: Right. [It’s] the misunderstandings of cross-culture. It’s pretty hard to explain… kind of like you speak the same language, but you’re on two completely different planets. I know it’s a huge language barrier, not the same as someone moving from a different speaking country, but it was definitely a change. This song is really meaningful to me because I’ve really settled here. I understand that England is my home, but the US is where I reside right now, and I love it. Englishman in New York is kind of a song to my younger self like you’re here now and everything will be fine soon.
MG: I love it. Yeah, I understand that, and I can also feel the sense of pride in one’s identity when you sing the song, too. I can feel the passion within the lyrics; your passion shines through on that song, so thank you for that!
ER: Thank you, I appreciate that.
MG: Fasho, fasho! So that leads me to my next question, right, your upcoming single, the real reason I wanted to talk to you today. “Just Me,” featuring 24Hrs. Could you speak to how this song and the feature came about? I imagine this single will be featured on the same project as “Englishman in New York,” right?
ER: Yes! So, it’s all going to be in the same vein. This next year will have a lot of music about change and a lot of music about my younger self becoming an actual woman. Actually, I just got the cut for my music video [for “Just Me”], and I was full-on, doubled over crying (gives a slight chuckle). I’m excited to show it to people. It’s funny because I wrote “Just Me” back in November [of] 2020. I wrote it with Geoffro and Kiah Victoria, two really great collaborators with me. I only had a week in LA while also going through a break-up with another f—king long-distance relationship. A bit of a theme there, definitely (Ella laughs another genuine laugh. It’s contagious and relatable, so Marc joins in on the existential joy). But, I was going through a lot of weird shit, and I was moving around just like… mature-wise. I was definitely going through some type of change, and I realized that my personality type is definitely a people-pleaser. I love winning people over. I love becoming someone’s good friend, someone you can rely on, right. It became such a point to me that I lost my actual core self because I was molding to other people’s personality types so that they would enjoy my company more. It was a bit of an identity crisis because that was also around the same time I was going through my rebrand, my new name, and my style. I feel like I’m going off on a tangent, but whatever.
MG: No, no, this is all relevant! You’re good!
ER: Okay, great (laughs). I was getting asked a lot of questions like, “who are you?” “what do you associate with?” “what do you like?” and “what do you not like?” Kind of like questions that you’re asked on dates that you don’t answer truthfully, but these were the kinds of questions that I really needed to answer genuinely and truthfully because I want this rebrand to stick around for the rest of my life, so there was a lot of pressure on that. Because of that, we wrote [“Just Me”] in vein of staying true and loyal to your core self, being just yourself, whether that be basic or whether that be weird or uncomfortable, just trust it because if you become your unique self, then you’ll be the most unique person in the room. For me, it was getting to the point where I wasn’t even liking myself, and I just had to find a way to do me, basically. That was the essence of the song’s core. [How] the 24Hrs feature came about—I came about his stuff because I have a song called “24 Hours,” and I was like, “that would be jokes if I had someone named 24Hrs on a song called 24 Hours.” Then we got to talking on Instagram through voice notes, and we shared music, and he was like, “I wanna do ‘Just Me,’ it’s the one to me.” We went back and forth with themes and ideas. Within three days, he basically sent me the cut, went through some mixing, and it was done.
MG: Wow, that’s super awesome. All of it. Everything about your finding of self and the song’s inception. Usually, there’s some back and forth with music and could end up taking three months, six months. Then before you know it, it’s been two years, so that’s super dope [that] this went well. I’m curious now, though, bouncing from the inspiration for the “Just Me”s inception, just from listening to “Just Me” and “Myself” from your Yellow Blazer EP, there seems to be a recurring theme of feeling alone or not wanting to be alone, and I can’t help think about the pandemic especially since you stated you wrote “Just Me” in 2020. So, did the isolation during the pandemic play a part in creating “Just Me” or any other songs around that time?
ER: Yeah, so it’s funny you say that because “Myself” is the first song I did when I first came to LA [in those] three days. I had never been here before, and I really wanted to be a musician, but I was struggling pretty badly with the fact that this life is not one where you have a bunch of companions and chill time. I think a lot of people struggle with this too. The feeling of being alone and having no one, it’s actually crippling to me, and I don’t know why that’s my default setting (laughs). My default setting is that I’m completely alone and no one likes me, and I always feel that. That’s why I said that long-distance relationships are my sh-t because I get time to do my life and work but also not having the pressure of having someone around but on the other hand, having someone to love and knowing that I’m not alone. That’s something that I’m going through now—learning how to be single and understanding that not everyone hates you; you’re all good. That’s a huge theme in music like isolation, loneliness. These are things that I dealt with even before the pandemic, and I constantly felt alone, even with people all around me.
MG: I feel that; me too.
ER: Which is sad as fuck! But it’s all okay (they both laugh in a complete mutual understanding that it might not be okay). It’s all good. But the pandemic definitely… I was doing a lot of writing; I went back to therapy and figured out a bunch of sh-t in my life hence why I am single now. I feel I don’t need anyone else to make me happy, and the pandemic helped me clear out the mental cobwebs.
MG: Gotchu, well, I’m glad that you have taken the proper steps to address your mental health. Mental health is health, period. So it’s really good to hear you have gotten some healing done.
ER: Thank you!
MG: No doubt. So, with your reign of success that you’re having right now, featured in tons of publications and playlists and things of that nature, how does that feel? Does that have an impact on your artistry?
ER: It’s a funny question that you ask me that. There’s this beginning to a Nicki Minaj song, and she’s talking about how everyone thinks that she got her success in ten days, but to her, it feels like ten years. I feel that. So, to me, it’s interesting because it doesn’t feel… you know when I get great things, I really do try and sit for a second to thank the universe/God for helping me, but it’s kinda like an onwards and upwards motion all the time. That may sound greedy, but I’m always trying to level up and get better, seek out feedback, and think about the good stuff that I have done that could use some polishing… a bad trait (laughs). I love personal feedback, but this has been an incredible journey that I’m so excited to continue on because I see the work and the progress. There’s nothing worse than working your ass off, and you’re not seeing any progress—blood, sweat, money, tears crying, and nothing to show for it. That’s terrible. And see, even on that, what matters more to me than accolades is friends being like, “oh, I listened to one of your songs on a run yesterday.” Accolades are great, and I know I need them, but there’s a lot of bad happening in the world, right, always, so if I can make the day feel a bit less shit with my art, that would be awesome.
MG: And with “Just Me,” what are you hoping that audiences and fans take away from that track?
ER: I don’t want it to get too heavy, and people like listening to it being sad. I want “Just Me” to be an anthem of you becoming your unfiltered self. That’s the whole theme of the music video, the song in general, becoming your five-year-old self bouncing around being chubby and annoying. That’s what I want people to feel. That unfiltered love you felt when you were really, really young, The opposite of that really heavy shit going on.
MG: That’s super beautiful, and I can definitely see how, especially after listening to it a couple of times, that you’re trying to get this message to come across melodically and lyrically. “Just Me” is comforting and sort of bubbly. There is an element to the track that is sad, but it feels more like a happy sadness.
ER: Yes! Yes, exactly you know how you’re listening to a song, and it should make you cry, but it doesn’t; it makes you feel energized and happy?
MG: Yeah, yeah.
ER: That’s exactly what I want people to feel when listening to it.
MG: That’s beautiful; I can’t even lie; there is sadness, but it’s a self-preserving sadness that makes you feel something like you’re alive.
ER: Exactly! Yes, that makes me so happy you’re saying that, dude. It might make me cry a shit ton!
MG: Yes, the song is incredible! But just one last question, I know you’re an incredibly busy woman. You have a show coming up in LA as well; how are you feeling ahead of the show, and how many other times have you performed?
ER: So, it feels like I’ve been performing since I was three, but professionally… I’ve been doing shows in NY, LA, and London since I was 14. I’ve been doing it for a minute, but I was doing a lot of featured performances back then, but now it’s my own original songs, and I feel more confident and excited. I have been playing with a band for a few years now, and I feel like we’re really in the flow at the moment. So, you should come out! I know you’re in NY, but if you ever feel like taking a trip to LA, I will have shows every month.
MG: I know I said that was the last question, but for real, this is the last question (laughs). So you’re super inspired by The Police, Erykah Badu, Amy Winehouse, Nina Simone…could you tell me anything about this upcoming project and its tone, mood, genre, messaging, and influences?
ER: For sure, yeah. As I mentioned earlier, this album would be set on making you feel great like your younger self. A lot more excited about being that core human being. In terms of particular words, I would say love, sexy, fun, exciting. But in terms of mood, I would say empowering, sexy, fun. I want people to be able to drive to this music, smoke, and feel cool. And you’ll see as the project comes out that the tracks on the project all feel similar in vibe, and it’s definitely Pop-R&B but definitely with some Badu vibes and SWV. And you know who I’ve been listening to a lot lately? Someone [that] I’m just obsessed with. I have always been obsessed with her, but lately, it’s been real.
MG: Who?
ER: Sade.
MG: Oh, girl! Sade is an icon, c’mon. Oh my God, what a legend!
ER: Yeah! And what’s crazy is that my dad, I realized that my dad… I went back to my grandad’s, and it’s like an old and run-down kind of thing, and we were looking through all the records, and my dad found his old mixtapes like Sade, SWV, Phil Collins, just amazing music, great, great music. And it’s funny because my parents never brag about their music taste. Still, I remember they gave me a lot of awesome CDs, and that’s why Amy Whinehouse is one of my main influences because that was one of my favorite albums growing up. Such a f—king cool memory. If I told my seven-year-old self I’m doing what I’m doing right now, I would be ecstatic. I also want to take this time in this article to thank everyone for sticking with me during my awkward phase when I was figuring everything out and getting to the broader vision. So it’s just incredible to see where everything is heading.
MG: Beautiful. Honestly, it’s just beautiful. That’s a really amazing way to capstone this interview. Thank you, Ella, for being so dang awesome, and I appreciate the conversation.
ER: Thank you for having me; it’s been a great time!
You can listen to Ella Rosa’s single “Englishman in New York” on Spotify here and check out her brand new single “Just Me” HERE!
