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Jun 28, 2019
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Luna Elle
Rb Hip Hop
Rising Toronto R&B Singer Luna Elle Invites Listeners Into Her Life on ‘RSVP’: Interview
Following her Billboard Canada R&B LIVE performance at NXNE, the 21-year-old emerging R&B artist has released her first full-length album. She tells Billboard Canada why it's wise beyond her years.
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Luna Elle is a scholar of late ‘90s and early 2000s R&B.
“It’s my bread and butter,” the Ghanaian-Canadian singer tells Billboard Canada.
She performed a cover of D’Angelo’s “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” at the debut of Billboard Canada R&B LIVE at NXNE in June, and it’s one of many classics she’s internalized. Throughout the conversation, she speaks glowingly of icons like Beyoncé, Brandy, Jazmine Sullivan and Toni Braxton.
That era formed her, even if it was technically before her time.
“There's so much musicality and attention to detail in terms of what you're doing with your voice [in that era’s style] that I love,” the artist, born Michelle Hamilton, says. “I grew up on that [even though] I'm actually a 2000s baby.”
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Given the deeply soulful vocals and sensual sounds that form her music, you wouldn’t necessarily be able to pinpoint the fact that she’s only 21. But Luna Elle has mapped out her own path.
The Toronto-based act released her debut album, RSVP, last Friday (Oct. 23) on Hot Freestyle Records. Hamilton explains that the acronym embodies what she was expressing in her music at the time: rhythm, soul, vulnerability and passion.
“I wanted to open up the floor for love,” she says. “I'm inviting people into this other side of me that I haven't really explored musically.”
It’s a fruitful exploration, but it’s one that comes with some fear for the naturally “private, shy and reserved” Hamilton. “When you're in love, that's the most vulnerable state that you'll be in,” she says.
Elle calls “AMPM” the “first real love song” in her discography. When she made “Invitation (RSVP),” the concept for her debut album began to form.
Hamilton started releasing music at the early age of 15, but anchoring her sound in classic R&B proved a bit of a challenge. Without a huge trove of romantic experience to draw on for the love songs, she relied on her friends' and older sister’s experiences to guide her songwriting.
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“If what I was singing about was a bit more suggestive, my voice would only lean into that.” Instead, she forged on with writing about heartbreak rather than love and relationships.
Four years after her debut EP, Loss of Valuable Energy, and two years after her sophomore EP, Forgetting You, Hamilton had 12 tracks of first-hand experience to share and a sound that brings in elements of soul, jazz and pop.
But success started earlier. Hamilton won a CBC Searchlight Award for Top Teen in 2023 and earned two Juno nominations, both for traditional R&B/soul recording of the year in the following two years. Then, her debut single, “True Love,” landed a co-sign from basketball icon Shaquille O’Neal, who touted her as “next up” in 2021.
His endorsement brought Hamilton tens of thousands of followers overnight. Hamilton says they still haven’t met, but she did text him to express her gratitude.
“It was crazy,” she recalls. “He really did play such a big role in the start of my career, and I will always appreciate him for seeing the light in me from so young.”
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Now, half a decade on from the all-star basketball player’s comment, Hamilton remains humble about the praise for her debut album. “I don’t think I’ve taken it in yet that people are listening,” she says. “But I feel like it's been a long time coming, and I'm happy that it's finally out.”
Now that RSVP is out in the world, Hamilton is looking at what’s next. “I’m so ready to build with this momentum.”
This article is part of Billboard Canada's NXNE spotlight series. NXNE and Billboard Canada are both part of AMG.
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Published by ARTSHOUSE MEDIA GROUP (AMG) under license from Billboard Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Media Corporation.
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