Essosa on 'Crush!' and the Art of Creative Control
We've got a Crush! on Essosa's new EP—and no, it's not just the name. We catch up with the London vocalist giving pop and R&B a candy-coated reset.
Essosa in 2026. Image via Press.
There's something almost corporate about the way Essosa (born Joy Aiseosa Bakare) makes R&B. Deadlines met, vision executed and records delivered. Every colour is approved, every synth, vocal layering and collaboration is a subject of careful curation and vetting. Her new EP Crush! is the reflection of this new era Essosa welcomes in her creative practice: a pink, satin-lined catalogue of songs and a labour of love—emphasis on labour.
Essosa made Crush! like a true creative director, executed without compromise and juxtaposed with a slight air of whimsy. During the recording of her third EP, the studio felt like sunshine and rainbows—but make no mistake: the work still had to land by day's end.
On the cover, she sits with a pink corded landline in her lap, her caramel-copper hair draping past her shoulders, a lavender shadow brushed across her lids, and her brown eyes looking right at us. In the press shots, she lounges on a cotton-candy pink bed adorned with silk sheets and matching pillows, each one embroidered with 'Essosa' in elegant cursive. This design choice nods to Summer Walker's 2019 debut Over It, taking a pinker, poppier and somewhat more deliberate approach.
This is a far cry from the Essie's World days, where she sported a rugby tee with her back turned, gazing out into the clouds. Three years on from her debut major-label project: Essie is now Essosa. Just as Janet Jackson once stepped off the beaten path from Dream Street into Control and Rhythm Nation 1814, Essosa pulls us into Crush!—her own silky, pink-nail-polish-lacquered world.
Essosa's relationship with music has always been a deeply studious one. Besides being a self-taught producer, songwriter and recording artist, she is a scholar—and that is in many ways but one. Born just after the turn of the millennium, she was raised in Canada, London's East End and Essex, just a few years shy of the streaming era.
Her early musical education came through the radio, BET on a Sunday morning and the church. "I was born in 2001, that's the first media I consumed. Gwen Stefani and No Doubt on the radio, Fergie ruling the charts," she tells The Culture Crypt. At seven years old, she found herself harmonising in class, being told it was the wrong note, but knowing it wasn't.
Essosa lives by a self-assured scholarly philosophy echoed by Michael Jackson: to study the people you look up to. For Essosa that means "Michael and Janet Jackson, Madonna, George Michael, Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Teena Marie and Paula Abdul—my GOATs. I studied all of them intensely."
Her voice, too, carries the discipline of a scholar. It's hers—more mature, slightly husky, soulful. Her vocal technique reads like a collage of her proverbial mentors: the layered chord progressions of a Darkchild-era Brandy, refractions of Janet and a little smidge of Whitney influence, too. "There's a thread of influence that runs from Whitney and Michael, to Aaliyah, Monica and Brandy, and then to me. I feel like I'm just continuing that thread."
When asked how she's able to study from the greats but still create her own identity within her sound, she responded with a measured confidence: "Not to gas myself up, but I think that's a skill. Not everyone can listen to music, distil it, make it their own and still have the influence obvious."
Essosa (centre) in 2026, during the "He's Not All That" music video shoot. Images property of Charlotte Caleb.Musically, Crush! has all the whimsy and girlish innocence of a 20-something in love with all the executive grit of a longstanding R&B legend in a turbulent industry, rallying for creative emancipation. The EP's title track and project intro is a lush R&B utopia, equipped with shimmering synths and serene harmonies.
Elsewhere, "He's Not All That" glimmers with hints of Miami bass and dance-pop, illuminated by a catchy, lovelorn chorus. In contrast, "Favourite Liar" pays homage to the late '90s Neptunes energy with its infectious chord progression, soulful vocals and a future-forward jingle.
But long before Crush! and her current creative path—the catalyst for Essosa's journey can be traced back to her student days. In 2023, Essosa was a pharmacy student balancing her studies with part-time shifts at a pub. During this busy time, she recorded a TikTok video in which she lip-synced to "Waste My Time"—her sultry Essie-style rendition of Michael Jackson's 1982 song "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)"—and it caught ablaze.
Catching the eyes and ears of millions, Essosa found herself thrust into the industry overnight, signing with Atlantic Records and receiving cosigns from names like Cash Cobain, Kali Uchis and KAYTRANADA.
“Every time I went into the studio, I was like—I want the music to sound like it’s pink, polka-dotted and girly.”
That same discipline and assuredness followed her into a pharmacy degree at university—and then, with "Waste My Time" in 2023, it followed her out of it. The transferable skill was never pharmacology but rigour. At 14, she was making handwritten books about the music industry—option periods, album structures, contract language. "I'm not a lawyer," she says, "but I can read a contract relatively well, because I've been studying that since I was 14."
She also studied music technology and engineering and engineered every song she put out until "Waste My Time." On Crush!, she basically executive-produced the whole thing herself. "People don't know that I produce. I don't show it to people because I'm shy." LinkedIn, but make it R&B and pink. "Every time I make music, even if it's R&B, I always have a little something where you can do a two-step."
The sonic identity of Crush! locked into place when she finished "Missing You" in January 2025. That was the day the EP became pink. "Me and [my producer] JKARRI talked about aesthetics and he suggested pastel pink, which really clicked. If I know what the aesthetic is going to be, I can really make music to fit that aesthetic. Every time I went into the studio, I was like—I want the music to sound like it's pink, polka-dotted and girly," uttered Essosa. It is exactly in that way that Essosa was able to take the reins for this project and make sure everything worked.
This executive ownership she has over her craft hasn't always been the case. On her previous body of work, Essie's World, Essosa fought constant interference—team members who didn't get it and would suggest green or purple when Essosa's vision was so clearly pink. "I'd be like—can't you see, there's a vision here? What's not clicking?" she recalls.
So, as all great creative enforcers do, she had to change tack; the old team had to go. She spent two years after "Waste My Time" rebuilding, with a new management team and a gracious label exit, diving into freeform independence. Now, three years from her breakout, Essosa is still here treating the craft like the full-time job it is. "When you see artists who give in to what everyone tells them to do, it doesn't really work. You don't have an identity. There's an artist identity you have to fight for," she says.
With the foundations set, Essosa's momentum is building fast, just ask her collaborators. She opened for Rochelle Jordan across two tour legs—the US run in late 2025, Europe this spring—making notes from performance footage between shows to sharpen her stage presence. She featured on the deluxe edition of Don Toliver's OCTANE after getting on a flight from Paris to his album camp, working so hard they asked her to stay an extra day.
"I was like, I'm getting on this album even if I die doing it," she says playfully. She also scored her first writing credit on Odunsi (The Engine)'s "Dangerous Love" with former Culture Crypt cover star Natanya—a melody hummed into a voice note from bed, lyrics finished on an escalator at Westminster station. Essosa basically went from entry level to management in three years with her music—producer, songwriter, creative director, touring artist—and she's running it all with the same exam-season intensity that got her here.
As the conversation winds down, the chat shifts to Crush! as a real, physical place. Essosa responds immediately, almost instinctively, tying a neat bow around her mental mood board. "Crush! feels like a 2000s shopping mall in a cartoon. You know 6teen? My project feels like that."
Crush! drops May 1st. In the meantime, stream "He's Not All That" below: