Who have been some of your favorite people to write for? From Keyshia Cole’s album, to Usher’s “Climax,” you have quite the history in writing.

To me, for many reasons, it has to be Keyshia. She is like a sister to me. I went over to her house the other day, and I put out a fire. I drove all the way out to Malibu, because her damn balcony caught on fire. That’s my sister. I love her. I’ll drop everything because outside of music, she’s the only one who ever said, “Elijah, how are you feeling? How’s your mom? How’s your sister?” Everyone knows that I put two of my sisters through college. It gets hard as a new artist, but she’s the only one who cares. It breaks my heart that people see the hood, open side, but they don’t know the sweetheart that’s there.

How do you feel about the state of R&B today?

I feel like there are people trying to push the culture forward. You got Frank [Ocean], you got Miguel, you got The Weeknd. I like to consider myself as one of the people trying to push the culture forward. Then you do have the ones that sing about the same thing, like turning up, and getting drunk. I mean, my single “I Just Wanna…” is about it, but I’m saying that you won’t get an album full of those. We owe it to our listeners to do songs that help them get over heartbreak, heal them, and ones that can save lives. I think we could be doing that a little more.

What was it like to work with DeJ Loaf, and get her verse for the newer version of “I Just Wanna…” that gives it a more female perspective?

I love DeJ on it! You know why? I think we kind of lost that. Even seeing Lil’ Kim come out doing the thing at the BET Awards with Puffy, I’m like, “I been trying to tell y’all…” It’s something about when a female MC gets on a record, and puts a female perspective on a track with a thought process that’s originally for a male. So I specifically wanted a young, female. I didn’t want to be the dude who did a song with Jay Z, so people could say, “Oh, you have a song with Jay Z, but no one knows who you are.” So, DeJ is perfect for it.

What do you have coming up for the rest of the year?

No I.D. and I spent two and half years working on this project. I’m not going to let its worth be determined in the span of a week.  I’m going to perform. I’m going to bang it across out here until y’all are like, “Oh, I didn’t like this at first, but now I love it.” We got some really cool touring opportunities lined up. We also have some cool endorsement deals lined up to help keep the music out there. We might even possibly do a re-release at the end of the year, which I haven’t spoken to nobody of. There are songs that we did that didn’t make the final cut, but I still think people need to get. I just want to continue to prove to people why I feel like I belong here.