Elvis Blue has become one of South Africa's most successful performers, with each of his albums since 2010 winning an award. Most recently the Idols SA 2010 winner won an SA Music Award in the category best contemporary music album for his 2015 Afrikaans release. Blue released his fifth album, Optics, this weekend.After two Afrikaans albums, it was time for him to reward his English fans."The songs pile up as you go. I had a lot of songs that I wanted to release and it just happened that they were English."The track The Tide on his latest album was inspired by the time he spent with someone close to him struggling with alcoholism.The music video, which he released the morning after he won the Sama last week, has already scored more than 12000 views on YouTube.Blue said: "We all struggle with something and it feels like it's difficult to overcome - that's what this song speaks to."My goal is to make you feel something. Ultimately, my songs are about my story, but a good song will also resonate with people."The singer from George spends a lot of time travelling and is now preparing for a national album tour. He said his love of travelling and of music made touring "not taxing because I really enjoy it".The tough part, he said, was being away from his family but he made up for his absences by making sure he was 100% "present and in the moment" when he was at home. Optics has no collaborations because "sometimes you just want to keep it to yourself".But he said he would love to work with Nathi, Johnny Clegg, Mango Groove, MiCasa and Beatenberg...