Emerging artist and passionate music creator-rights advocate Jorj Sabio has unveiled his debut album, ODJI SPRINGS. The album is a rich tapestry of sound, rooted in Alternative R&B yet seamlessly weaving in elements of Pop, Hip Hop, Jazz, Soul, Flamenco, Latin American popular music, and British Folk.
Through its 13 tracks, the album charts an introspective journey from heartbreak to healing, reflecting on heritage and identity with ODJI as its central character—a personification of DNA and the soul. Inspired by the likes of Erykah Badu’s Baduism, Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP, and Lianne La Havas’ Blood, Sabio’s album promises to resonate deeply with listeners who crave meaningful narratives in music.
With visuals crafted by All Gravy Projects and Albert Graver, ODJI SPRINGS extends beyond sound, using cinematic storytelling to reflect its themes of self-discovery and growth. In this quickfire Q&A, Sabio shares the inspiration behind the album’s genre-blending sound, personal themes, and the essential role of visual storytelling in bringing ODJI SPRINGS to life.
ODJI SPRINGS is a character I created while exploring my family history and imagining lives across time. I reflected on love, loss, and those shared experiences we all go through, linking them to how I imagined my ancestors lived.
Your debut album ODJI SPRINGS blends a variety of genres like Alternative R&B, Pop, Jazz, and Flamenco. How did you approach blending such diverse influences into one cohesive project?
I am a big music geek at heart, and have always loved such a wide range of music that I’m at a point where I don’t really hear genres anymore because I think genre labels are quite arbitrary. This blend just naturally happens for me as it’s the music I listen to, the music I play and study, and therefore it’s the music that comes naturally to my ear when I’m writing music. I think some of my biggest inspirations, like Beyoncé, don’t limit themselves or put themselves in a box, and I think I’ve always wanted to be like that.
You’ve mentioned that ODJI SPRINGS explores identity and heritage through a conceptual narrative. How did your personal experiences shape the album’s storyline?
I started writing songs back in 2016, and I think the deaths of my maternal grandparents in 2017 and 2018 had a big impact on me. We had been very close, but I realized how little I knew about them, their pasts, their parents, and their parents’ parents. Investigating those stories became my escape, and I started learning more about my paternal grandparents’ lives too. I got very interested in certain parts of history the further back I traced, and this cyclical nature of human history became a very big part of the album’s concepts. Folk music from the past also influenced me musically.
Your album has been compared to iconic works like Erykah Badu’s Baduism, Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP, and Lianne La Havas’ Blood. In what ways did these artists and albums shape your creative process?
These three albums each represent strong aspects of my album. Baduism explores Erykah Badu’s perspective and worldview, a sort of philosophy. Blood delves into the elements that make us who we are and the legacy of what came before us. ARTPOP is bold and emotionally intense, expressing trauma, climaxes, and resolutions through metaphor and concept. ODJI SPRINGS definitely embodies elements of all these concepts.
With ODJI SPRINGS serving as a personification of DNA and the soul, what message or emotion do you hope listeners will take away from the album?
ODJI SPRINGS is a character I created while exploring my family history and imagining lives across time. I reflected on love, loss, and those shared experiences we all go through, linking them to how I imagined my ancestors lived. We’re all, in some way, destined to repeat the mistakes of our elders—that’s how we learn and grow. The soul is life, DNA is the code that creates life, and our DNA is built on our ancestors. Epigenetic studies suggest that our DNA mutates based on our experiences, so inherited trauma plays a big role in this story. The name ‘ODJI SPRINGS’ is personal too, derived from my initials, and in some languages, ‘Ogi’ means soul.
You collaborated with All Gravy Projects and Albert Graver for the album’s visuals. How important was the visual storytelling in conveying the themes of ODJI SPRINGS?
Aside from being a musician, I’m also an actor, so storytelling is at the core of all my creative projects. I’m inspired by artists like Lady Gaga and Beyoncé, who are masters of visual storytelling. In SABIO, created with All Gravy, I’m seen summoning my grandparents through the guitar, inspired by the film Coco. In THE SPRINGS, made with Albert Graver, we developed a Wizard of Oz-like journey to reflect finding what you need within yourself. My Instagram reels for THE PLANE and ODJI show ODJI as a South London Cowboy bandit, bringing these character visuals into contemporary scenes. Each visual element reflects ODJI’s journey and growth.
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