Melina Nguyen
Melina Nguyen
The singer-songwriter and producer released his third album, Heaven Ain't Sold, recapturing his fans' attention after 7 years.
Credit: Tyler Smith (@comfortingsmile)
Choker, a Detroit native and current LA-based artist, has returned to the R&B landscape after nearly 7 years.
Heaven Ain’t Sold, his third full-length album, was released on Feb. 20 under his own label, Jet Fuzz.
The self-produced artist blew up upon his debut, giving audiences his 2017 album Peak, followed by Honeybloom.
Choker, who fuses hip-hop, soul, psychedelic rock, and more in his work, has often been compared to Frank Ocean in the past. In similar fashion, he hasn’t been observed pumping out yearly or biennial releases on a mechanized schedule. Instead, he just makes music for the sake of it, not for any sort of metric.
“I would finish a project and then I wouldn't feel strongly about it, so I would scrap that project and I'd start another thing. That happened a couple times,” he told Pigeons and Planes in an interview. “I was grasping at straws for years, and things didn’t snap into focus until 2022 or 2023.”
Self-taught in piano and Ableton, among other skills, Choker has shown both technicality and passion throughout his now more than decade-long career.
Heaven Ain’t Sold tells a long-awaited story of solitude, depression, and anxiety, but also possible rebirth, growth, and second chances.
Permeated with falsetto runs, emotional orchestral passes, and grounding bass, the album blends several sonically upbeat—perhaps even deceptive—instrumentals with oftentimes heartbreaking or vulnerable lyrics.
Answering a few questions, Choker gave us some insight into what went into the release.
Credit: Tyler Smith (@comfortingsmile)
This Q&A has been edited for clarity.
How has the reception to the album been? Does it align with what you expected, or did it break your expectations?
It’s been positive for the most part. I’m not someone that expects anything really reception-wise. I just take things as they come.
How do you approach making a song? Do you start with songwriting first, then producing? The other way around?
It varies. Heaven Ain’t Sold was largely songwriting-driven but overall, I probably tend to start producing first, hunting for the right sounds and getting a feeling to come across that I can then grab words from.
Sometimes I’ll start a beat and it’ll remind me of something I already had written down. In the same breath, I’ll jot down some lyrics on a walk and in my head think of what sonic ideas I have laying around that might sync up. They’re constantly feeding into one another.
How has it been operating under your own label, Jet Fuzz? Do you feel like staying independent is the way to go for self-produced artists?
It’s been tight. The freedom comes with its trade-offs and challenges. Independent can be the way to go for any artist, self-produced or not, if they have the bandwidth for it and the right people around them. I can only encourage someone to do what’s right for themselves.