Elijah Kessler has had a connection to rap music since the day he was born. As his childhood became his teenage years, Elijah continued to find a sense of personal expression in music, but he mostly kept this hobby private. Elijah’s creative spark wasn’t reignited until he went to highschool and befriended Instupendo who had been garnering some acclaim. Through the remainder of their highschool years, Elijah and Instupendo spent much of their time collaborating and putting track after track on Soundcloud. 
 It was at this point that Elijah’s career experienced a true turning point – Chaz Bear of Toro y Moi found one of his songs and immediately reached out to see if Elijah would be interested in working together. That initial exchange between Bear and a teenaged Elijah would turn out to be the beginning of a collaboration that would unfold over the course of the next 5 years. His day-to-day life at this time was largely occupied by classes, relationships, soccer, video games, and anime. 
 During these sessions, Elijah’s constant practice would make itself evident, as his knack for improvisationally writing hooks in the studio became abundantly clear. Along the way, several other producers became involved in the project, including Nosaj Thing and Elijah’s early collaborator Instupendo. These intermittent sessions would eventually coalesce into Elijah’s debut album, LIGHTSPEED.