Courtesy of Plytime Facebook page
One of the hardest elements of being an artist in the age of the internet is getting your name established within the local music community. Perhaps the only more difficult thing, though, is redeveloping a new moniker and identity when your sound doesn’t match your revised vision. That’s where Plytme, a hip hop and R&B hybrid, currently stands with the release of his first EP under that name, DejaVu. Formerly known as AWill, the artist revamped his sound and style in the tail end of 2020, and is elevating his game in the process. The release is distributed through his own digital imprint, Plyhse Records.
“This is going to sound super cliché, but I woke up one morning last fall, and it all hit me like a ton of bricks” said Plytme. “I came up with the idea of the name, the label, the sound, the direction I wanted to go, all out of a dream. I went to go check Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube to make sure my idea wasn’t out there already, and when I confirmed that it wasn’t, I pushed the button to go to it. It just stems from wanting to go in a new direction with my music.”
DejaVu is a three-pack that encompasses the core elements of who Plytme is as an artist. While AWill had a lot of potential as a purely hip hop outfit, the EP shows that harmonics are going to be a key element of the sonic atmosphere that Plytme creates going forward. Part of that sound change has to do with evolving musical tastes away from the microphone.
“I’ve been listening to a lot more R&B within the last year” said Plytme. “My tastes have changed over time, my inspirations have changed, and the goals that I want to attain within music have changed as well.”
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The material on DejaVu is personal, too. Tracks like “Permanent Changes” do not shy away from the specifics of a relationship falling apart. The internal components of that struggle are documented as well, with firsthand accounts offering a therapeutic release for the artist, but a relatable connection to the listener as well. The guitar-driven closer “Old Songs” carries on the logical next step of moving past that relationship, and also gives the project its name. It may seem like those emotions take time to ruminate, but the whole project was created in a day.
“I had some free time at home, and had made about three or four songs in a day” recalls Plytme. “I listened to that session, and I said that the next time I record, I want to record something that I can compactly put out. One of my biggest problems is that I make so much music that it’s hard to choose what I want to release. I committed to a date, put myself to the fire, committed to the idea and actually executing it. I put the snippets of the songs on Instagram the same day I made them, and they were out the next week.”
Whether moving on to greener pastures in a love life or career, the overarching message of the EP is closure and transformation.
DejaVu is currently available on all major streaming platforms.
