In the artist's words:

Sometimes an extraordinary path in life begins with a child sensing that they are different. Steven Elijah Neuhaus, born in Worms in 1989, has known this feeling since his earliest childhood. Autism, dyslexia and a visual impairment accompanied him - but they were never his whole picture. Where many expect retreat, Neuhaus found vibrant creativity: dancing words in notebooks, beats on a music computer, richly colored paintings on canvas.

In a system designed for uniformity and conformity, he repeatedly encountered resistance with his rough edges. But it was precisely there that he unleashed his creative energy and found his own way. At the age of sixteen, he became German champion and world runner-up in kickboxing, and a professional contract was already waiting for him when a serious illness brought his sporting career to an abrupt end. The force of the movement seeks a new outlet and finds it in music.

From school expulsion to the stage: the career of a "non-musician"

His musical career reads like a plot twist from a biopic: at school, he was regarded as a complete anti-Beethoven - "unmusical", was his music teacher's dry verdict. He was kicked out of the choir in a high arc, and on top of that he was expelled from school - for secretly selling Falco cassettes under the bench, of all things. The fact that Falco later became his greatest musical inspiration almost borders on poetic justice. Of the 41 pupils in his class, he is now the only one who makes a living from art. One of his teachers once orated with cutting certainty: "You'll never graduate - you'll end up on stage." Well, he was right. Just in a completely different way than he thought.

His first big successes

In 2009, Steven Neuhaus founded the band Soul-On, shortly afterwards he sang with The Wright Thing and gained a reputation as a singer-rapper with a velvety falsetto, especially in southern Germany. In 2018, he released his first solo EP "Federleicht" under the name ELIJAH. The title track climbed to number 10 in the German club and dance charts and took ELIJAH - his stage name at the time - on a 35-date tour across the country, including supports for Max Giesinger, Söhne Mannheims and LEA.

The single "Bei dir" (recordJet) follows a year later and collects over 400,000 Spotify plays. Industry great Willy Ehmann becomes artistic advisor, a publishing deal is signed with Sony ATV / Schallauge, and successful producer Ivo Moring joins the team.

Creative drive during the pandemic

Even the 2020 lockdowns don't slow ELIJAH down: he writes with Mark Smith, Christian Raab, Elias Hadjeus, Johannes Falk, Tobias Reitz and Claudio Pagonis and many more. - the song archive is growing rapidly. In 2021, the remix of "Mut machen" with the DJ duo Gestört aber GeiL (RTL2 / El Cartel) is released and already cracks over 670,000 streams; shortly afterwards, the club number "Karate Kid" (DJ Blondee) shakes up the dancefloors: No. 1 in the iTunes charts in Sri Lanka, No. 2 in Mexico and No. 22 in the Danish dance charts. In total, ELIJAH has more than 1.2 million Spotify streams in 2021 and is on all "New Music Friday" playlists (G/S/A) as well as numerous Amazon and Apple Music curation lists.

Creative nucleus

In 2024, Steven Elijah Neuhaus founded the Mannheim Music Lab - a creative collective based in Mannheim. Studios and artists from all over southwest Germany and the Rhine-Main-Neckar metropolitan region network here. Neuhaus formed his own production team in the midst of this vibrant network. His experience of working closely with Michael Herberger and Billy Davis - the long-standing producers of Söhne Mannheims and Xavier Naidoo - was a particular driving force.

Due to his deep regional roots, Neuhaus grew up in a music scene that is strongly influenced by American music. It left its mark on his musical self-image early on: open, cross-style, hybrid. It was clear to him from the outset that music could not be pigeonholed - whether singing, rapping, spoken word or chanting: for him, all these forms are equally valid modes of expression. This conviction still forms the foundation of his creative work today.

A growing project - "Being different is a superpower"

In 2022, Neuhaus is using his biography to create a multimedia statement: "Being different is a superpower". With this project, ELIJAH connects musicians from a wide range of genres to create awareness for inclusion, diversity and mental health - and to encourage society to meet people beyond all pigeonholes with open curiosity. After all, all participating artists share the experience of life's particular hurdles and detours with their individual life paths.

The musical core thrives on stylistic and linguistic diversity: German voices such as Cassandra Steen, Henning Wehland, Laith Al-Deen, Ferris MC and Die P meet English-singing guests such as Sarah Müller-Westernhagen (REEMA) and Iggy (Lionshead).