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Still, Run said they found community on the Internet. So I spent a lot of my high school years pretty much alone." and then the white kids would treat me like a token," Run said. "My accent was a lot stronger and just fresh out, you know? Black kids didn't buy into me being black because of my accent. The transition to life in the American south was lonely at times, Run said. At that point, they had lived in the United Kingdom for about five years and felt a close connection to black British culture and music through their Nigerian roots. Run, born CJ Seymour in Munich, Germany, said they started making music at age 13 after relocating to the U.S. And I feel like that just influences my art and gives me so much more to say." "But I'm okay with the fact that I'm a whole lot of different things. "Growing up it was hard to understand who I was because it felt like I was so many different pieces," Run told WBEZ. They studied broadcast journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and moved to Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood in July. The 21-year-old Chicago-based singer-rapper explores love, identity and human nature on their new album 'Here For Now.'Īt just 21 years old, Chicago-based singer-rapper CJ Run draws from experiences both urban, rural, European and American to explore love, identity and the duality of human nature on their new album Here for Now.īorn in Germany but raised in England, North Carolina and central Illinois, Run says they've been the foreign kid in a small town, the black kid that's "not black enough," and the queer kid without a queer community.īut now, Run has found a space in Chicago to hone their art and get their name out there.