"It's been a long, been a long time comin'... But I know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will"
~ Sam Cooke

It was predicted - and most certainly hoped for - by Sam Cooke back in the early sixties, and low and behold, today we find ourselves right in the midst of it. Change. Barack Obama became the embodiment of that sentiment, becoming our nation's first president of color, thus, it is with great pride that we can say, 'Change is now! Chanj has come!' (The record scratches and the music stops…) No, I didn't get over zealous and spell it incorrectly; there's a new kid on the block who goes by the name 'Chanj' and he has come, readying his debut album to be released later this year. "It's a quote that I live by...actually Lauryn Hill (one of his influences, along with Brandy and Michael Jackson) said it, 'if it's not changing, if it's not growing, it's dead, change is good.' I added 'change' at the end of the quote because I just believe that life is experiences and we need to evolve from those experiences," the singer/songwriter/producer says of how he chose his name.

Chanj, born Glenn Adams, Jr., hails from Plainfield, New Jersey, hence the 'nj' replacing the 'ge' in his moniker. He says, "I spell it Cha-n-j because I'm from New Jersey, and I want to represent New Jersey wherever I go, and give that love back." And deservedly so; New Jersey has indeed been good to their hometown hopeful, showing him much love very early on when he was part of a popular youth performing group. He reminisces about the experience: "It was a performing arts after school program and Ms. Ethel, the coordinator, found seven 'specials' within her class and created this group called Ms. Ethel's Kids and we would perform for different schools, nursing homes and different events in the tri-state area. We were pretty known around the area to the point where Nickelodeon even got wind of us...that was a lot of my training right there, because we would go through speech classes, acting classes, dance classes, everything...it was grueling, every Saturday morning at 10 o'clock...I would miss cartoons and all kinds of other stuff, but it was a lot of fun." Ms. Ethel saw that he loved the arts, but he still had some convincing to do.

It wasn't until a middle school assembly that Chanj took part in that he discovered his true voice. It was his father's stamp of approval that was the tipping point. "I was singing a song and my father was in the back of the auditorium. At that time, he really wanted me to play baseball, but I just had a love for music and the arts," he explains. "I sang the song, then afterwards I had come up to him and asked him how I did...he was crying and he was like, 'now I see why you wanna do this.' I think that's when things started to connect for me in my mind." His father's newfound support eventually extended to the whole family. "My family is the most amazing family I could ever be blessed with, from my church family, to even my whole entire family, I come from a musical background, my mom was a singer in a band, my uncle used to sing in bands, so everything was musical and for me to go on this path, everybody was like, 'YES! finally somebody.'"

In fact, much of what makes Chanj a solid and confident artist is derived from those helping hands that saw to it that he was 'heard' and 'encouraged' to touch people with his gift. "My mother did whatever she could to get me out there and to get me heard. I was always singing at city events or something nearby; a church festival or whatever just to be heard, because they all knew that I had a joy for singing," he gushes. "Church, I think is the foreground that all artists and entertainers should go through because you make a mistake up there and the congregation would still be like, 'Alright baby, its ok! Jesus still loves you!' and it creates a wonderful spirit so you can just keep going on. Ok, yeah, I can make a mistake but it's not about singing on the right note, it's not about what it looks like, it's about that feeling that you're getting across, that sense of freedom, that sense of breaking people from their chains or their bondage or whatever they're going through and giving them this lightweight feeling to fly, it was very encouraging." It's his hope to use these tools to do his part in removing the record business from the 'endangered species list,' as he puts it.

Chanj is sure he has the talent and the strategy to make a difference in an industry that he feels is struggling. He says, "It's about making timeless music. I think that's what we're missing now in R&B. Right now, everything is just for the moment. Everything is a fad, and as we know, fads disappear. They blow like the wind. If something is timeless…like you can hear an old Babyface song and can still throw your hands up and be like, 'that is my song!' or you can hear an old Temptations song and it gives you that same feeling, but if you listen to some of the things from today, it just really doesn't give you that timeless feeling, it gives you whatever the slang terms are for this moment in time, whatever the latest fashions or whatever the hottest car at the moment is; so I try to stay away from all of that and create timeless music that can be played any time. I always use this metaphor of a mom being able to play my CD in her car while dropping her kids off to school and she never has to worry about skipping over #5, # 8 and # 10 because it's a little inappropriate for her kids… because it's ok… it's simply beautiful love songs and beautiful stories at the end of the day."

Those beautiful loves songs and stories are sure to be part of Chanj's debut release. "My album is called Time for Chanj. Obama's in office and, you know, '09 plus Obama equals change...and I'm on the way," he says of the unapologetically R&B set. "It's very R&B, very much R&B, but there is a little soul in there just because of what I feel in music, you know, but for the most part it's strict R&B...who knows what the next album will be…so, I always say leave the door open for 'Chanj.'"

The album's first single, "It's the Worst," is written and produced by Steve Russell (Jordin Sparks, Fantasia, Tyrese, lead singer of Troop). "It's a struggle about two people trying to work out their relationship," Chanj describes. "From the guy's perspective, he's trying to do everything he can to make it work. But the situation it's still the same; a lover's quarrel that it is the worst."

Another gem is "Maybe" which was produced by uber-producers Dre & Vidal and written by BJ. "It's a great sexy song talking about a man being interested in this woman in the club and just gotta go after her and get it, but really in the art of gentlemanism and making an approach that is untypical," he describes. Two other standouts – and favorites of Chanj — on the album are 'Give It All,' produced by Ty and Chordz of Jack Sample productions and written by Marsha Ambrosia (Floetry), and 'Transform,' produced by Teddy Riley, written by Elijah. "'Give It All" is just a beautiful song. It's talking about how all the fame and fortune doesn't matter and I would still give it all up for the love of this young woman. It reminds me of an old Babyface song, the way it was written. I think a lot of women are just gonna fall in love with it. And 'Transform' I just absolutely love, because it's talking about being an example of love and saying that our love can transform the world, and it's just an amazing song," he says of the two tracks.

To get to this point of being on the verge of releasing a promising debut project, Chanj had to traverse the usual obstacles that burgeoning artists must face, including self-doubt. He revealed, "It was hard being comfortable in my own skin, being comfortable in the gift that God has given me. I have a high timbre to my voice and at a time we were getting a lot of backlash, in a sense, because my voice was too high. People were telling me I need to learn how to sing lower and it became really complicated...I was going to vocal coaching trying to get my voice to go lower and it just wasn't where my voice was…so I had to get comfortable in my own voice and understand that these high timbres and these high tones are just what is my voice...and that's the moment that I got comfortable. I believe the energy was able to come out and people connected to that confidence, like I was saying to myself and the audience, I don't care what you think, this is my voice and you're gonna hear me and feel me and then afterwards, you're gonna go 'wow!'"

'It's been a long, been a long time, comin',' but Chanj has finally come…

Chanj performing onstage during Urban Network Magazine and Alistair Entertainment's V.I.P. recent reception honoring Stephen Hill and Charles Warfield at the Canal Room in New York City.
(Photo by Fernando Leon/PictureGroup)