British-Sudanese soul shape-shifter Elmiene is already operating at a level most artists spend a decade chasing - selling out Brixton Academy and carrying himself with a mix of charm and resemblance to The Weeknd in Dawn FM.
I somehow managed to miss the memo until now, so on the off-chance youâve also been sleeping: consider this your wake-up call. The real clincher is that voice - old-soul, amber-toned and reaching for something bigger: timelessness.
His new single, âCry Against The Windâ, debuted at that Brixton show, and itâs one of his most vulnerable works yet. Built on a slow, spectral ballad that gradually swells into a pulse-driven ache, the track maps Elmieneâs complicated relationship with his late father, Jameel.
The opening line already cuts clean: âAfraid youâd call again to tell the same old stories / I know I canât pretend but this back and forth it bores meâ. By the time he admits, âI hate you, my Jameel / But Iâd watch the whole world drown to see you cry againâ, the song has become something knotted and contradictory.
The video sharpens that emotional tension further. Elmiene appears disguised as his father, then shifts back into himself mid-performance, moving between resistance and yearning as wind tears through a dim corridor. The prosthetics (crafted by Malina Stearns of Nadia Lee Cohenâs team) push the metaphor into something haunting and bodily - grief as a costume you canât fully take off.
Produced by Andrew Aged (a frequent collaborator of Mk.gee and Buddy Ross), the single sits in that soul-stirring, slightly frayed space Elmiene commands so naturally - raw but not ragged, elegant in its ache, sentiment stripped of any sugar-coating.
âThis song is about crippling guiltâ, he says. âWe all sometimes have to live with things we canât fix, but acknowledging and accepting that is heavy, like a strong wind you can never turn away fromâ.
đ§ Watch the video for âCry Against The Windâ below