J3M looks for love across the universe with ‘AFRONAUT’

Stationing himself at the control board of various keyboard instruments for his new solo project J3M, and a debut EP, AFRONAUT, Jemuel Roberts journeys through space and time to find his bearings in the present.

Taking listeners on a galaxy quest through cosmic nu-disco, R&B, soul, and synth pop soundscapes, the record is a concept EP that tells the love story of the titular AFRONAUT travelling across the universe in search of his alien lover, getting rejected and learning to let go. 

On one level, the EP could have told a love story about any astronaut and an alien, but Roberts says he chose the avatar of AFRONAUT to stand in as a personal alias (Roberts has Guyanese roots) and give Black listeners a character they could relate to.

“I wanted to also think about representation, because there aren’t a lot of Black astronauts, and there aren’t a lot of Black queer astronauts, so I was like, this is something that isn’t common and hasn’t been done, so that’s how we created this sort of character.”

Asked if the title was also intended to draw attention to the alienating experience of looking for love in the modern age as a queer diasporic person, he admits it wasn’t a consideration that entered the conceptualization of the record, but he welcomes the interpretation with excitement.

“That’s something that I’ve never thought of, but yes! I would say so! Definitely,” he allows. “People look at you and make assumptions about what you’re gonna be like in this modern dating era where you make decisions based on a swipe. So they see this Black guy, and it’s like, okay, no one’s gonna know that I’m classically trained, no one’s gonna think about a Black person playing classical music, nobody’s probably going to think about the fact that I played in a punk band for 10 years, nobody’s gonna think about how multi-faceted I could be.”

Tracing the constellation of relationships and hangups Roberts has endured over the years, the EP’s six songs were inspired by different romantic partners that have slipped on and off of his radar, the alien functioning as a biographical composite throughout.

“The album has been an actual trip for me because it started out being about one person,” Roberts explains, sharing that “MOONLESS,” “SHOW ME,” and “SPACE AND TIME” are all written about the same person. “‘BLAME IT ON THE UNIVERSE’ is an older one about someone else, but then other muses were found through ‘TMYLM.’ There definitely were a lot of different muses involved.”

A nomad by trade, he says that although the EP slowly trickled from distant writing sessions that have been clouding his orbit for the past 10 years, the record itself came together with relative ease in the vast stillness of pandemic life. A seasoned singer and keyboardist, Roberts spent much of his time pre-pandemic in bands and touring transience, performing with acts like Tanika Charles, TiKA, Zaki Ibrahim, Amaal, the OBGMs, James Baley, and more, so when the pandemic put a halt to live performances and touring, Roberts set the controls for liftoff.

“It’s just so much easier trying to make a record when you don’t have a million gigs and aren’t learning all this music for other people and not at home and constantly in transit, flying here and flying there.”

Much like his album avatar, Roberts says that when it came time to record the EP, he spent much of the process in transit, traveling to Chalet Studio in Uxbridge to record all of the piano tracks on a Yamaha C3 baby-grand and far as the UK to record the disco-funk jam “Space and Time,” which features a System-100, a rare analogue mono-synth Roland produced from 1975 to 1979.

It’s appropriate that the video for “SPACE AND TIME” features Roberts stepping into a space suit and zipping around the city, riding the Rocket, and cruising in a friend’s whip.  As Roberts dances in Yonge-Dundas Square, the shimmering residue of recent rainfall reflects the surrounding billboards and turns the commercial intersection into a lost scene out of Blade Runner; a waiting platform in Dundas Station becomes a galactic docking bay.

The EP’s quest narrative ends where the songwriting process began. The oldest song on the record, Roberts estimates he wrote “BLAME IT ON THE UNIVERSE” 10 years ago about coming to terms with a romantic relationship that fizzled out. As the conclusion of the EP’s love story, the track represents AFRONAUT absolving himself of the guilt he internalized over the end of his relationship with the alien. By accepting the influence of the random chaos of the universe, AFRONAUT allows himself to let go and move on to embrace whatever the future might bring.

That ability to turn a broken heart into self-love is difficult alchemy to master, but Roberts shows how it’s possible in just six songs.

“Ironically, that being the song that I wrote the longest time ago, I feel like I still am learning that lesson,” Roberts reflects. “Like, the last guy I was seeing I was hung up on for so long and still sort of am and still sort of blame myself. It’s nobody’s fault when something doesn’t work out — just blame it on the universe.” 

AFRONAUT is available now on all platforms.