Essosa’s Crush! EP Is a 90s Throwback With 2026 Drums (Fight Me)

Crush! EP turns heartbreak into sleek, double-time nostalgia—smart, messy, and occasionally too generic for its own good.

Let’s be honest: this EP is a control freak in a cute outfit

This is the kind of project that sounds effortless until you realize how many decisions had to go exactly right for it to feel this casual. Crush! EP doesn’t stumble into its vibe—it sets the lighting, picks the lens, and tells you where to stand.

And yeah, it’s romantic. But it’s also managerial. You can hear someone who’s been planning the business side of music longer than most artists have been picking stage names.

The backstory isn’t “inspiring”—it explains the precision

Here’s what matters: Joy Aiseosa Bakare has been treating music like an industry puzzle since she was 14, literally handwriting books about how deals work—option periods, how album contracts get structured, the kind of language that traps artists who only want to talk about “the vibe.” That’s not cute trivia. That’s the mindset behind Crush! EP: it’s built by someone who doesn’t trust luck.

She grew up between Toronto and Essex, started piano at three, wrote songs by eight, with gospel and jazz in the house. And you can hear that foundation in the way the chords behave—like they’re trying to be emotional without being melodramatic.

Then she went and studied pharmacy at University College London. Demos between lectures. That’s a particular kind of exhaustion: the practical life draining you while the creative life keeps tapping your shoulder like, “Hey, we’re still doing this.”

The detail that sticks with me, though? She needed money for her first music video—“Lemonade,” from the 2021 EP Dreamworld—and she basically lived on crackers for months and worked late pub shifts to pay for the shoot. Not glamorous. Not mythical. Just stubborn. She graduated, had a job offer lined up, and chose music anyway.

And because she’d been reading contracts since she was a teenager, she wasn’t walking into this naive. She’s said she’s not a lawyer, but she can read a contract relatively well. Again: not an “artist quote,” a mission statement. Crush! EP sounds like someone who doesn’t plan to get played—romantically or professionally.

Arguable take: that level of preparation makes the music sharper, but it can also make it feel slightly “pre-approved,” like risk got edited out in the final export.

“Missing U” is the template—and the tell

The sound of Crush! EP locks in early because the first song Essosa and producer jkarri wrote together was “Missing U.” You can feel it: like they found the blueprint and refused to pretend they didn’t.

The goal they’re chasing is simple to say but hard to land: a 90s synth with “2026 drums.” That ratio becomes the rulebook for every session after.

The keys lean into that Janet Jackson mid-90s glow—those bright, clean keyboard shapes that feel like they’re smiling through a gritted jaw. And the drums? They tick with that clipped, slightly jumpy pace jkarri brings to the stuff he does in that modern, breakbeat-adjacent pop world. The effect is weirdly specific: it’s like a 1996 slow jam got rebooted with double-time hi-hats and nobody informed the synths. So the pads are lounging while the percussion is already late for something.

On first listen, I thought the contrast was just a trendy mash—retro top, modern bottom, done. But the more I sat with it, the more it sounded like an emotional mismatch on purpose: your heart moving slow, your brain spiraling fast.

Lyrically, “Missing U” is the emotional thesis but not in a neat way. She left someone, knows it was the right call, and still can’t stop picturing him with another woman. That’s the ugly middle people don’t like admitting because it ruins the clean “I’m healed” storyline. She wants to swallow her pride—“I wanna put my pride aside/But I can’t handle it tonight”—and then the second verse shifts into action: going outside, finding the courage to explain. Not dramatic, just human.

Arguable take: “Missing U” is stronger than the rest of the EP because it sounds like it’s arguing with itself—most of the other tracks pick a mood and stay there.

The midsection flirts with greatness… then grabs the nearest cliché

After “Missing U,” the EP slides into “Favourite Liar,” and this is where I start side-eyeing Essosa a bit. The song tells someone to leave his ego at the door and vows to change his life. Big statements, the kind you can paste onto almost any R&B situation and it’ll still fit.

To be fair, production-wise it’s lively: there’s a late-90s Neptunes-ish bounce—record scratches, handclaps, a slinky chord progression that walks like it knows it looks good. It’s the kind of beat that makes you forgive a line that should’ve been rewritten.

But I kept waiting for the lyric to do something only *she* would say, something as specific as “Missing U” was. It doesn’t always get there. And that’s my mild complaint with Crush! EP in general: about a third of the writing settles for “R&B phrases that sound like R&B,” instead of the sharp little personal turns she’s clearly capable of.

Then “Signs” comes in riding quicker percussion, like the EP is rolling the car windows down and trying to act unbothered. The hook is built for motion—city lights, late ride, volume a little too high.

And lyrically… yeah, it leans stock again: “You know that you’re mine/You always come right on time/I’m seeing the signs.” That’s not bad, exactly. It’s just the musical equivalent of nodding politely. You don’t play a line like that because you had to—you play it because it fits.

Arguable take: “Signs” proves the hook can save a song, but it also proves hooks don’t automatically equal personality.

When the EP tightens, it stops pretending love is polite

Here’s the turn: Crush! EP gets better the moment it stops acting like romance is a tasteful museum exhibit.

The title track, “Crush!,” comes from a specific situation—waiting for someone to come back to London. That context matters because you can hear the waiting in the pacing: it’s not frantic, it’s suspended. Like she’s checking her phone without wanting to admit she’s checking her phone.

And then “Touch bby” flips the script. The patience is gone. If “Crush!” is waiting, “Touch bby” is plotting.

She’s not just liking someone here—she’s trying to keep someone who’s always been halfway out the door. There’s a playful streak at first, like she’s joking her way into control. The lines even toy with the idea of sabotaging someone’s luggage—laughing while quietly pulling the exit sign off the wall.

I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure the song would stick the landing when it started cute like that. It’s easy for “playful” to turn into “throwaway.” But a couple bars later the tone drops, and the whole EP suddenly tells the truth: they’re on borrowed time.

That’s the frankest admission on the project, and it makes the earlier flirtiness feel like a coping mechanism instead of a vibe choice.

Arguable take: “Touch bby” is the EP’s real centerpiece because it’s the moment the fantasy stops being decorative and starts being desperate.

That ending is a shrug, not a speech—and that’s why it lands

One of the slyest choices on Crush! EP is how it skips the big breakup narrative everyone expects. No long courtroom monologue. No tearful “here’s what you did.” Just a pivot.

The EP opens with a line that basically says, “I think I’m ready to fall again,” and it closes on “I’m better off without.” That’s a wide swing, emotionally. And instead of building a tidy bridge between those poles, Essosa just… shrugs. There’s even that cutting little dismissal: “You were punching anyway.” Translation: you weren’t all that, and I’m embarrassed I tried so hard.

That contradiction—ready to fall, better off without—feels like the point. Some people call that inconsistency. I call it realistic. Feelings don’t progress like chapters. They jump-cut.

Still, I can’t ignore the imbalance: Essosa’s ear—especially as a producer and creative director—often feels ahead of her pen on parts of this EP. The sound palette is dialed in, the drum/synth math is clear, the era-collision is intentional. But on a chunk of the lyrics, she writes like she knows what R&B is “supposed” to say, not what she actually wants to admit.

And because she’s been studying all of this since she was fourteen, I’m betting the pen catches up. Honestly, it already does on the best moments here.

Arguable take: the EP’s biggest strength (discipline) causes its biggest weakness (occasional generic writing).

The tracks that actually matter (and why)

This EP doesn’t need every song to be your new personality. But it does need a few songs to prove the whole operation isn’t just good taste and clean mixing. These are the ones that do:

• “Missing U” — the emotional push-pull is real, and the production contradiction (slow heart, fast brain) makes it hit harder.
• “Touch bby” — playful control turns into a blunt time-limit, and the mask slips in a way that feels intentional.
• “He’s Not All That” — even the title reads like a needed cold splash of water, the kind of statement that ends a spiral.

Conclusion: the EP’s real flex is that it refuses to beg

Crush! EP isn’t trying to win you over with vocal Olympics or a cinematic storyline. It’s doing something pettier and smarter: it’s staging desire as a negotiation, with bright synths acting like everything’s fine while the drums twitch like they’re counting down. When the writing gets specific, it stings. When it slips into generic R&B language, it briefly turns into wallpaper. But the core is clear—Essosa isn’t romanticizing heartbreak; she’s auditing it.

Our verdict: People who like their R&B with crisp, forward-leaning drums and a little emotional side-eye will actually love this. If you need big lyrical poetry on every track—or you think “seeing the signs” is an acceptable line in the year of our lord modern music—you’ll get annoyed fast and start skipping ahead like you’re speed-running an album.

FAQ

• What is the core sound of the Crush! EP?
  Crush! EP runs on 90s-style synths paired with noticeably modern, double-time drum programming that keeps the songs restless.
• Which track best represents the EP’s approach?
  “Missing U” sets the template: nostalgic keys, jittery drums, and lyrics that admit the messy part of moving on.
• Does the EP tell a full breakup story?
  Not really. It jumps from being ready to fall again to being better off without, skipping the neat “plot” in between.
• What’s the main weakness across the tracklist?
  Some lyrics lean on standard R&B phrases, and the writing doesn’t always match how sharp the production choices are.
• Who is this EP most likely for?
  Anyone who wants sleek, era-blending R&B that feels like texting someone you shouldn’t—while pretending you’re just “going for a walk.”

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