Roxbury rapper Najee Janey sets his voice free

There’s an interlude in the middle of Najee Janey’s “This Is Not Your Love Song” in which an argument unfolds. A phone rings, and Janey picks up, sounding sleepy. The woman on the other end of the line lights into him. “I know you’re not out there making love songs again, baby!” she exclaims. “C’mon, man, we got money to make!” Janey bristles defensively. “I don’t care about the money. I care about the love!” he snaps, but quickly amends his statement. “Matter of fact, I care about the balance.”

“This Is Not Your Love Song” is the third song on Janey’s EP “Break Free.” (The project is available on the music platform EVEN starting June 6 and hits streaming services June 27.) The song’s breezy, West Coast-style beat and an earworm of a hook, delivered in Janey’s coy falsetto, signal the project’s carefree ethos. It would be easy to overlook the tense exchange between the performer and his interlocutor in the middle of the song. But in a very real way, the moment reveals the conflicts and questions that animate “Break Free” — the most obvious being the newfound frequency with which Janey, a Roxbury-born rapper, sings.

The emphasis on melody over bars was one of the first things I asked Janey about when I interviewed him as he prepared for the project's release. His response was matter-of-fact. “All my music [in which] I am singing solely, it garners the most streams and attention,” he said.

Janey has always been an emotive rapper with a taste for downtempo, funk-inflected beats. On his first two albums, 2019’s “The Purple Earth Theory” and 2021’s “Blue Manifesto Deluxe,” he stuck mostly to rapping. But occasionally, he’d slip into song, his warm delivery at times swerving into sultry. He experimented more with singing on his 2022 EP, “FOUR AGREEMENTS,” though with a melancholy cast to match the serious subject matter.

“‘FOUR AGREEMENTS’ is sort of grappling with being an artist,” Janey said. By contrast, “Break Free” is less self-referential, more experimental. “Every song is different on this record,” he said. “I could pull out a reggae joint. I could do some neo-soul, and it’ll all sound authentic and real.” Hence the title, "Break Free." “[It’s] breaking free from all the constructs that people have on me.”

Janey is an open book, giving off lover-not-a-fighter vibes. He’s friendly and charismatic. By his own estimate, he has been performing professionally for 11 years. (He is also the nephew of former Boston mayor Kim Janey.) At 28, the Roxbury native has two full albums under his belt, several Boston Music Award nominations (though no wins), and a growing reputation in the Boston hip-hop scene.

"If Biggie could sing and Prince could rap, that would be me."

Najee Janey

But it can be hard to parlay local buzz into something bigger, especially in Boston. Perhaps this is why Janey, more than other musicians I’ve interviewed, seemed to have given particular thought to how his music might be perceived, and therefore, how it could be marketed. When I asked how he would describe his sound on “Break Free,” he said, “If Biggie could sing and Prince could rap, that would be me.”

If there’s a balance to be found between artistic impulses and the pressures of the market, “Break Free” makes a convincing case. Throughout the EP, Janey doesn’t sound like a guy making canny commercial choices — he sounds like a guy who is having fun. On “Doggy Bone,” he riffs over a sweaty beat, voice pitched up into a childlike register to produce a trippy hook. On “Around the World,” a zigzagging bassline and an off-kilter piano sample allow Janey to deliver one of his loosest, most expressive rap performances yet. On the love song “Have It Her Way,” he practically croons, his voice swathed in hazy vocal harmonies. “I’m your Superman,” he purrs on the chorus. “You’re my Wonder Woman.”

The song, he said, was written as a message to other men. “Cater to your woman,” Janey explained. “Protect, provide and love your woman. Let her have it her way.”

The woman in question, Janey’s wife Empress, happened to be in the room during our interview. (Empress Janey is part of Najee’s management team and runs his social media accounts.) She chuckled knowingly at some of her husband’s more romantic pronouncements. But she confirmed that the Najee Janey on “Have It Her Way” was authentic. “He’s very much a giver,” she said.

“Have It Her Way,” which was produced by GIB DJ, a frequent collaborator, is Janey’s favorite song on the project. “It’s one of my favorite vocal performances that I’ve done,” he said. “I’m hitting my falsettos right. I have this raspy, nasally, kind of D’Angelo type of vibe. It sounds like a vinyl. It’s just warm.”

Still, his audience was never far from his mind. “The imagery of what I’m saying is there, you can visualize the words,” Janey said. “It’s simple enough that anyone can understand.”