We know the dilemma all too well: A search on streaming services for a musician you recently saw live yields five or more artists with the same name. Multi-hyphenate talent Nick Meyerson experienced this dilemma under his former moniker, Nick Jordan. Jordan, who was named Best New Band by the Star Tribune and Best R&B Artist by City Pages, is now known as EHN JEY.

“I don't think that EHN JEY and Nick Jordan as artists are that different, but I wanted something that could play more to my strengths as an independent artist,” he mentions. “I chose EHN JEY not only because the initials are stylized differently from Nick Jordan, but ‘NJ’ is like a nickname that I hold dear to my heart. When I started making music here in the Twin Cities and met a lot of really talented musicians, that was just the nickname that they started to call me. So it feels very natural to go by that.”

Delivering life-changing performances takes precedence for Jordan, who has rocked stages from First Avenue to the Basilica Block Party. His sophomore EP, Dividends, provided an up-tempo homage to influential ‘90s and early 2000s R&B. This year’s Needs & Non-Negotiables shows project and performance in lockstep with one another. The music collects reflections that EHN JEY had when the outside world experiences disappeared during the pandemic.

“I wouldn't redo anything that we had to go through as creatives with quarantine and COVID, but it did take the guilt out of unapologetically shutting down and saying, ‘I am working on completing these songs now,’” he states. “I'm sick of staring at unfinished demos that are almost there. It's like, ‘No, we're going to complete this, and we're going to take our time and make sure that we love every single song.”

Needs & Non-Negotiables is the first new work from EHN JEY since making the 2019 release of “U Don’t Love Me” featuring The Nunnery, but most of the songs began during that time frame. The inspiration for an eight-song album was Anita Baker. “I was like, ‘Hey, Rapture had eight tracks, let's do eight tracks, no filler.’ I like these songs sonically. Not only do they have similar themes of acceptance and learning to let go of what's not for you in order to get what is for you, but there’s also a line of continuity through the work of something that felt like a complete project.”

While he wrote and produced the majority of Needs & Non-Negotiables, EHN JEY was not alone. He enlisted the assistance of co-producer Luke Darger to provide some necessary checks and balances. “When you start bringing someone else into the fold who has stock in your project, what you're doing, and the completion of it, it makes you move differently,” he says. “Left to my own accord, I wouldn't have a good sense of when something is done, when to execute something, when to call somebody else in. Just to have someone else that you can really trust and dialogue with — music is so communal, even when we're listening.”

Aside from the bulk of material being produced by EHN JEY and Darger, Maxee contributes background vocals to the leadoff single “Bag” with Nyasia, and main vocals alongside EHN JEY on “Loyalty.” “She had originally tapped me to write and produce something for a project she was working on,” he says. “We both really liked the song, but we ended up tabling it. When I was finishing the album in 2020 and revisited it, I sent it to Maxee. I asked Maxee ‘I know I made this song for you, but can I take this back for Needs & Non-Negotiables?’ She was cool with it. When you listen to it, it really makes you tune into this like linear lyrical experience. You have these different tonalities to it, like two different perspectives, but they're saying the same thing.”

Additionally, booboo assists with guitar on “Candlelight Bright (Freestyle),” one of the most raw and unfiltered moments on Needs & Non-Negotiables. “She's just f***ing killing it,” he exclaims. “When I think of superstar producers, I think booboo. That’s prodigy level. Booboo nailed her guitar part in two takes, which took 10 minutes.”

Another one of the raw moments kicks off the project, is “Hurt Myself.” “[It] centers around thinking about someone when you’re trying not to, and have you thinking, ‘I shouldn't, but let me go ahead and type their name in anyways, and do my little my little Instagram creeping.’ It's not cute, but it's real,” he notes. “However, if you listen until the end, the message takes a twist, and it becomes a message about self-preservation, and not hurting myself anymore by putting myself in situations that are inherently bad for me.”

Needs & Non-Negotiables marks a very important evolution in EHN JEY’s discography. While it still has some fingerprints evident from the artists he learned from that informed some of the songwriting such as Solange’s When I Get Home, it is also an intentional effort that showcases a breadth of different styles of R&B that shows a world of wisdom, experiences, and learned lessons that EHN JEY encountered in his mid 20s. “The takeaway I want from a project like Needs & Non-Negotiables is to feel more understood in kind of the complex, sometimes messy emotions we go through. A lot of the things I wrote about were things I was experiencing in my mid 20s. And I feel like I was never warned about the mid 20s, and how complicated they can get.”

The release of Needs & Non-Negotiables will be commemorated with a release party taking place at the 7th Street Entry on Friday, July 8. As for what to expect, EHN JEY expects those in attendance to ready themselves for something totally different. “It's just going to be a really elevated, sophisticated set and showing, because I look back at my old sets, and I'm like ‘this was tough.’ It's been over four years since I even headlined a proper show, and had a proper 45-50 minute set, so it’ll contain elements of stuff I've done before, but with new material and new routines. I'm just so excited about it.”

EHN JEY Needs & Non-Negotiables Release Show. With Ness Nite, JIJA, and Anju. Friday, July 8, at 7th St Entry. Tickets