It may come as a surprise to anyone who’s heard Ebhoni’s energetic and unapologetic R&B anthems, but the Toronto hip-hop artist says she hasn’t always been able to express herself. She self-describes as someone who kept her emotions bottled up inside, and in turn, kept her personal feelings out of her music.

That’s all changed with her latest single, “Rep It,” a moody, slow-burner drenched in sultry auto-tune. “I was in a relationship that wasn’t the best, and I was dealing with so much,” says Ebhoni about the origins of “Rep It.” “The only way I could really deal with it was through music.”

Her songwriting process shifted to allow for more vulnerability. “I would go in the washroom and just write,” she says. “It wasn’t like I was writing to the beat per se, it was more so like I was expressing how I felt. But it was so easy for me to write, because it’s almost like I’m a telling a story.”

During the pandemic, Ebhoni also built a home studio at her house in Atlanta – she splits her time between there and Toronto – and started levelling up her production skills. The studio gives her the opportunity to be more hands-on during production, which she says helps her better articulate exactly how she wants a song to sound.

“The last thing I wanted was to walk into a room and not be in control of my setting, my craft,” she says. “[Production] is very male-dominated, and especially being a woman, I don’t ever want to [feel] dominated in a session about my music.”

Although Ebhoni just released the EP X earlier this year, she’s dropping a new project later this summer of 2021. The result of these more personal songwriting sessions, the new songs are a mix of R&B, hip-hop, and some Caribbean influences. “It’s moody, real, and raw, and very experimental,” she says. “I don’t think anyone’s going to expect it.”