Stone Cold Heart

When South African R&B singer-songwriter Elaine released her critically acclaimed debut EP, Elements, in 2019, she had no idea it would change her life. “I think, at the time, I was trying to deny it—there was a lot of imposter syndrome going on,” she tells Apple Music. “I was like, ‘I just made this with some people in between my classes in university.’ There was a huge learning to accept the new me for who I was.”

Yet, the five years that followed were filled with extreme highs and lows. The EP’s platinum success eventually led to her inking a deal with an American record label and moving to Los Angeles—only to get stuck there, alone, during lockdown. “It felt like I was living within an answered prayer, but it was kind of like God put me on hold,” Elaine explains. She navigated self-doubt and bouts of depression with the help of studio sessions, working on music that she eventually had to shelve after parting ways with her label. (“There’s no beef,” she clarifies. “I think it’s just the order of events, the timing, and with the type of artist that I am, there was a lot of disconnect in terms of the strategy. I was the first ever African artist that they had in the building, who wasn’t doing the most ‘African’ thing.”)

With her first album, 2024’s Stone Cold Heart, Elaine marks both her return to independence and her return home—and chronicles her resulting journey of self-discovery, through R&B and forays into Afrobeats, amapiano, and rock. “My world felt like it was crashing down,” she says. “It felt like I was in a completely different universe. That’s when I was like, ‘Well, if I’m in my own universe, it’s going to look, feel, and sound exactly how I want it to. It’s going to be a representation of who I am now, after I feel like I’ve overcome so many personal and career challenges.’ So Stone Cold Heart came from a place of pressure and of feeling like I need to be a badass bitch. I need to be tough. I’m such a mushy, vulnerable, emotional person but a lot of the things that I went through needed me to boss up and be grown. Sometimes, a lot of those things meant not thinking with my heart. It’s that balance of having a heart and knowing when to have those boundaries in place.” Read on as Elaine talks us through key tracks from Stone Cold Heart.

“Broken Hearted Ass Bitch”
“This sums up a lot of what I was going through in that five years. I think the nostalgia of Brandy’s voice that we sampled in the beginning [from the singer’s 1995 single ‘Brokenhearted’] sets the tone. Finding love in LA is terrible—everyone is just so detached and cold. I ended up getting into some very emotionally unavailable relationships, which were terrible for me. I was speaking to this guy before I moved to LA and we were cool. Then he ghosted me, and I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it. That’s where I started to learn the art of detachment and having to love people from a distance—but that was when it started to feel like I wasn’t being myself. I’ve never been a strategic person when I love someone. I just want to love you freely. So you never should have bothered me if you knew that you had nothing to offer.”

“Relapsing (Freestyle)”
“‘Relapsing’ is about this one relationship that was on and off and the manipulative tactics that they would use to keep me in their life. They were using their mental health as an excuse for their [shortcomings], like, ‘I cheated on you because I was depressed.’ I tried ending it, but I just kept relapsing. It was just a terrible cycle that I really had to bring myself forward and challenge myself to cut him off. It was a learning curve for me, just to be like, ‘Even though if you’re hurting, try not to hurt other people.’ I had to move away from that, but it did teach me a lot about being gracious with the people around you and being attentive as well, and learning to accommodate people and their shortcomings.”

“La Vida Loca”
“So ‘La Vida Loca’ comes on side B of the album. Side A covers a lot of experiences and encounters that I had. And on side B, when I came back to South Africa, that’s when I was spending a lot more time at home post-pandemic, discovering these new sounds. I was working with Elizée, who had a bunch of R&B-infused amapiano songs. Then my A&R, Wanda [Wandisa Zwane], was like, ‘How about we just mesh the sound?’ And I was like, ‘OK, how about [we call it] R&P? Rhythm and ’piano?’ There were no more blues. I wasn’t cussing anyone out anymore. I said my piece. So Elizée plays the chords, and it was him and his brother, Tony Duardo, who’s on the production. I fell in love with it, like, ‘I just came back from the craziest things, but I know that as soon as all of this dies down, we’re going to live the most unimaginable, carefree life. And until then, I’m going to sing about it and manifest it.’”

“Rumours”
“This is a song about someone who’s very special to me. He really, really helped me find my wings again. And just in a sense of not being hyper-independent—he really stripped that guard of armor from my heart. It was also a lesson to me to not close myself off—to love, to experiences—just because I’ve kissed a few frogs.”

“Stone Cold”
“I got to write this with Baby S.O.N. He was going through a lot during this time; and when people see me, they tend to open up. Anytime anyone speaks to me or wants to open up to me about anything, I take notes, because it might be a hit song. S.O.N was just like, ‘E, I’ve been running on fumes.’ And it is so bittersweet, because it sounds so good, [yet] it’s actually such a sad and somber song, which is what I loved. Not all ’piano is vibes. There’s also very spiritual, and it can get so personal and so deep. That was my first time riding that wave of emotionally infused R&P. It made me feel very at home. It made me feel like I’m so a part of the culture. It was a beautiful experience.”

“Love Me Slowly”
“I was talking with good friend and co-producer of mine, Zeke [Ezechiel Dalton], and I was like, ‘I want to do something rock inspired. But I want it to be romantic, but I want it to be very dangerous and dark femme. But I still want it to be vulnerable.’ So we just started going as detailed as we could, really getting into our creative process. I got my friend Brittany B. in the studio, and we just turned it into this poetic, rock love song. I had this idea of when you experience this really amazing love, maybe if they give it to you in doses, it will last forever. If they love you slowly, it might last longer, as opposed to someone love bombing you in the beginning and then it just, all of a sudden, ending. People don’t know how to love you—they can’t know from the jump. It’s something that we physically need to teach each other, talk about, and this was me just being vocal, in this new era of mine, about how I want to be loved.”

“Lost & Found”
“It’s such an emotional song. I was in Paris at the time for Fashion Week, and [the producer] Maseko sent me the beat, and I kept putting it off. Later, I’m in the Uber on the way to the airport, and I pop in my AirPods and I’m like, ‘Wow, this is amazing.’ As I’m listening to this instrumental over and over and over again, I get an email, which was the termination of my contract with my record label. I was like, ‘Wow, OK.’ I’m just looking at this document on my phone, like, ‘It’s really happening.’ Then I just started writing, writing, writing. ‘Lost & Found’ is just about letting go and realizing that maybe the people that I relied on so much weren’t necessarily the right fit. When you are walking away from something, [even if] both parties have agreed that it’s going to end, it doesn’t make it less painful. I felt like I was grieving, but I feel like I’ve rediscovered who I am. It’s bittersweet. It’s a whole new chapter, a whole new story.”