Daily Discovery: Mon Rovîa Reconciles with His First Love on New Song “An Endless Cycle”

The impassioned journey into a first love experience is a universal sentiment—throwing caution to the wind with blinding naiveté. Janjay Lowe—a Chattanooga-based artist monikered as Mon Rovîa—captures the gut-wrenching reckoning that ensues when the incandescence is inevitably extinguished, poring over the unsettled terms on which things ended.

“A lot of times with our first experience we go into it with our hearts on our sleeves because we see movies and read books, and believe this is how it must be,” the artist tells American Songwriter. “The truth of the matter is relationships are hard and they don’t always work out. But another truth is there will be more opportunities for love, more experiences to find its beauty. ” 

The ethereal track reveals a more gentle approach from the songwriter—fit for Spotify’s editorial playlists including Dazed and Spotify & Chill—without skimping on sonic grandeur. It follows March’s “To Taste The Divine”—the first of four songs compiled for his forthcoming EP, Dark Continent. He sets the tone for the collection with stark messaging.

“It’s about assimilation and fitting into a culture we—meaning immigrants or minorities— were never made to fit into,” says Lowe. “It’s about that struggle. ‘Will you like me if I become exactly like you? What else do I need to do to be accepted?’ It asks that question and needs an answer.”

As a songwriter, Mon Rovîa strays from the rigidity of processes. He doesn’t write lyrics before a session, he prefers to “go in blind.” It’s all about spacing to me, and finding the words that end the sentences well, that really bring a message home,” he explains.”I love searching for myself for what I want to say, and finding the story that is hiding in the beat. It’s a magical experience when I know and find the road, it always is so rewarding. But to me, the production leads me, every beat has something it wants to say.”

Paradisiacal production by Summer Dregs on “An Endless Cycle” clashes with dark lyricism and vocal delivery for an all-encompassing dynamic. “A lot of the time I get lost in the production and then the dark lyrics come in and I’m like ‘shit, this song is sad as ever’—but many of us have been there,” he adds. “Life is much the same, beauty, mixed in pain and sadness.”