“All Mine,” an electronic pop ballad, written by Penn’s very own Karis Stephen (C '18), will leave you dreaming of sandy beaches and sweeping vistas. Over Sense’s tropical beats, Stephen’s sultry vocals will charm you with the promise of love so easy and so effortless that time seems to stand still. Together, Karis and her counterpart Blue Bookhard (C '17) form a poppy R&B duo called Eleven. “All Mine,” which features French electronic group Sense, is Eleven’s third single.
Since its release earlier this month, the song has gone borderline viral. Stephen tells Street that “All Mine” has made it onto Spotify–curated playlists—the song premiered on Spotify’s New Music Fridays in a number of different countries in addition to Spotify’s Viral 50 playlist in both the U.S. and the U.K.
Stephen expresses shock and humility at this instant success: “It blew up more than we thought it would … it’s been kinda crazy. We just truly did not expect all of the, like, love and success that we got. We’re really happy and very thankful for it.”
Karis guesses that the song’s traction worldwide might have something to do with Sense’s international background. Hailing from Lyon, France, Sense brings something new, different, and distinctly European to the steamy sound of “All Mine." Sense’s genre “errs on the side of, like, European house music,” Karis adds. Her more classic vocals place Eleven in a more American musical sphere, especially when paired with the group’s soul and R&B influences. In a sense, “All Mine” is the meeting of two different cultures and musical traditions.
“What we brought to Sense is this ability to write factual lyrics. They brought the chill, electronic, European kind of sound,” Karis says.
In many ways, the collaboration with Sense was rather unexpected. “All Mine” is new territory for Eleven.
Karis explains, “Both of our styles of music are very different … It was just a very different style for us to try. It was very poppy and electronic, which we usually don’t do, but we thought it would be a cool mix.”
At its core, though, Eleven is a musical group dedicated to experimentation, something that Stephen finds imperative to musical growth.
She says, “Something Blue and I founded Eleven off of was this idea of trying to be fluid in what genres we try … I never wanted to be put in a box—oh, you are pop, oh, you are R&B, oh, you are hip–hop. The beautiful part about music is trying new things—to be fluid with it. That’s kind of like why we saw this collaboration with Sense as an opportunity … to do something new.”
The result is originality. “All Mine” feels fresh enough to be different, but familiar enough to be relevant. Eleven wrote the lyrics and vocals after Sense sent them a rough cut of the background track. Karis explains how Eleven’s creative process was stimulated by Sense’s snappy beats and lazy synths.
She said, “Over the phone we talked about concepts, and what the Sense track … made us think of. We ended up settling on is … like a trust fall—allowing yourself to trust someone enough to fall for them … like this feeling of falling and letting go, but being happy about it.”
Sheepishly, Karis adds, “In that way, I guess, it was kind of a story about me and Blue."
