Lex Leosis: “Won’t Wait”

Toronto-based queer alt-hip hop artist, Lex Leosis, announces her new EP, Terracotta, will be dropping just in time for peak summer vibes, and arriving on July, 9, 2021. Today, the now Tiktok rap battle champ and former member of the Toronto all-female rap group, The Sorority, shares the debut single from the new project, the sunny, tropical-beat infused, “Won’t Wait.” The new track offers a breezy, bouncy beat under Leosis’ vulnerable lyrics and she yearns for real talk and love, but not at the expense of self-worth. Describing the single, she says:

“The song was inspired by waiting on a person that I wasn’t sure loved me in the same way I loved them. I think we’ve all been in a romantic situation where you feel like someone is stringing you along. You feel the connection strong when you’re together but distance brings out the uncertainty and you don’t feel as close to them as you once did. I feel like women especially are made to feel “clingy and crazy” when we just want some communication.”

A queer artist, open about her bisexuality, Leosis shows without telling that these relationship dynamics are not unique to the heteronormative. Being led on and gaslit are pains that anyone with an open heart are risking. Leosis continues, “The best case scenario is that they just tell you how they feel. When I wrote this song I was at the point in this situation where I was ready to walk away, on some “say something or you’re gonna lose me”…respectfully, haha. This song was all the things I wish I had the courage to say in the moment.“

This is classic Lex Leosis. By showing her Achilles heel, she hopes to empower women (including herself) to vocalize their needs are no longer being served. The song is a note to self to take good advice, especially your own advice — the advice you’d give to a dear friend when they were in an emotionally draining relationship. Leosis says, “I‘ve seen countless women give every ounce of themselves to someone who doesn’t even want them in return. We all deserve the love we want and need.“

The Toronto Guardian says, “An artist well known for her dynamic flows, aggressive stage presence and elaborate story-telling, Lex Leosis is loud, opinionated, constantly fighting for what she believes in and hungry to make something of her family name. She’s got an attack in her flow, juxtaposed with a finesse in her lyricism and a hunger in her vocal tone. Her family gave her traditions, Toronto shaped her, and California helped form her sound.” 

That California sound Leosis cultivated in her Bay area-living days is shining on the latest single and throughout the new EP, Terracotta. “Won’t Wait” was produced by Rainer Blanchaer (Drake, The Weeknd, French Montana, The 1975), who is an executive producer on the whole EP. Having met through Leosis’ roommate, Blanchaer became a pandemic pal, and one of the only people she’s seen consistently during lockdown. They’ve used their time making music together in Leosis’ bedroom studio and the result is Terracotta.

On the EP, Leosis says, “In the Terracotta pots process, clay starts by being refined and molded. Through fire, time, and attention to detail…the terracotta pot is complete. I wrote this project through the pandemic. I was coming off releasing “Mythologies” (March 2020) and I was sad that I had to cancel a lot of my roll-out plans. No interviews, shows/tours or celebrations. I put my whole heart into that project and to see that I couldn’t continue my rollout because of the pandemic was a big blow. Instead of letting it defeat me, I decided that it would make me stronger and that I would use this time to rebuild.”

Leosis also admits, “The EP definitely had a muse. Someone I really love and has consistently inspired me. This EP details all the feelings I’ve had about them, and consequently, about myself over the last year.” A dedication to the softness that quarantine created in her, a part of herself she didn’t have time to look at before, she also had time to dig through her grandfather’s old jazz records that she loved as a kid. When he passed in 2009, the records were given to her but had been dusty until Covid made her slow way down. The piano, saxophones and live drums on those records inspired the live elements on the new EP and Leosis says, “He had this foresight to leave those to me. We used to sit in his car outside our house and just listen to Jazz and I loved music as a kid.”

Between her quality time with Rainer, her grandfather’s records and her time to be with herself, she found a way to channel summer’s warmth, growth and freedom into 6 tracks. Stay tuned for more before the EP is out on July 9, 2021.