Drummer & Producer Eliaj Drops Runaway EP, Teases New South Florida Collective

Drummer, producer, and songwriter Eliaj drops his debut project Runaway EP and sets the tone for South Florida’s upcoming collective, All Saints Mafia. 

The 18 year old ventured into beat-making three years ago and started producing for other artists focusing on creating a rhythmic narrative for others to flow over. He got invested in telling a story through percussion and even dabbled into making EDM music. 

When the quarantine struck back in March, he felt a desire to take it a step further, and invested his production skills and musical abilities into producing his own project, telling his story inspired by his love for music. 

Runaway centers around emotions and tells a story lyrically and rhythmically. It consists of six tracks and features All Saints Mafia member GodBlessUrban, who contributed as a producer throughout the project. 

Provided to YouTube by DistroKid High Note (feat. God Bless Urban) · Eliaj Runaway ℗ Bass Note Records Released on: 2020-07-31 Auto-generated by YouTube.

Eliaj released Runaway EP leading-single “If I Say So” in the beginning of the month (July 1st), setting the tone for an album with high quality of the beat and melodic rhythm. The blend of pop music within rap with elements of rock is undeniable.

Eliaj genuineness and personal touch is felt throughout his project, he blends elements of pop, rock, indie, and rap within his music to create his own unique sound within the sub-genre of pop rap music. He embraces different elements of music throughout his project, and merges them with ease to provide his take on hiphop.

Growing up, Eliaj was infatuated with rock music: Ledd Zeppelin and Deep Purple played a large role in shaping his palette. He started playing the drums at two years old and has been consistent in fine-tuning his skills. 

His father, who introduced him to music, left a successful career in music after tours in the late 80s/early 90s with the Goddess of Pop Cher. Despite his career change, he still fostered Eliaj’s passion for music. 

Eliaj drummer background is evident through his sonic style and production decisions on his first mass produced solo project, Runaway. He produced his beats, wrote the lyrics, laid the vocals, mixed and mastered the project from the comfort of his home studio, falling in love with creation process every step of the way. 

Runaway EP artwork was an image initially released on Instagram with the caption “gonna release an album just to make this the cover.” The image which inspired the creation of Runaway serves as the current cover with some edits. The artwork consists of a dark tone overlay with red, pink, and purple notes to offset the black and grey. It sets a tone, complimenting the feel of the tracks on the album.  

Born Yoseph Elias, Eliaj grew up in a sheltered jewish orthodox community where rap music was generally looked down upon. He was focused on being a drummer and was immersed solely into rock music before moving to Florida at the age of 15. He began listening to old school rappers such as Tupac, Biggie, Eminem to Andre 3000, Jay-Z and making his way towards Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, and eventually the new wave rappers.

He eventually realize that hiphop music has branched far from only being hard “gangster” rap, and consists of a plethora of sub-genres that embrace different elements of various music. It wasn’t until he got introduced to Post Malone that he start transitioning away from predominantly rock music and embracing the middle ground of the two genres. He was encouraged to explore genre-bending. 

Eliaj aims to connect with fans through his music and provoke emotions by providing tunes to uplift spirits, comfort, and have one feel lost within the vibrations. His goal is to start playing shows by the time concerts returns and is using this time to build his discography as an artists and an All Saints Mafia member. 

All Saints Mafia is a collective coined by Eliaj, Dwain King and GodBlessUrban. It is currently in its beginning stages and is inspired by Internet Money, Members Only and GothBoiClique. It was formed to provide a support system for its members, help one another navigate the music industry, collaborate, and to empower one another. 

The South Florida collective aims to create an alluring culture centered around genre-blenders and spreading unique sounds to fans through their music, dynamic, and individuality.

Broward County has produced an abundance of talent over the past 5 years with names making international waves. It has become one of the epicenters for emerging hiphop talent with a live music scene filled with loud energetic artistic talent. 

All Saints Mafia is working towards to releasing an EP after dropping their solo projects. They want fans to be able to have songs to come back to if they were to resonate with one of the artists on the collective project. 

It is only the beginning.

“There are a lot of bad artists, not to shit on anyone but they go with a really catchy song that isn’t that good and they blow up over that one song. They never had to sit there and contemplate what they are doing but if you’re one of those good artists that wants to give up real quickly, if you just keep grinding through it, if you’re really good, people are going to pick you up and help you. It’s inevitable.”