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Born in Illinois to immigrants from Rwanda and Uganda, acclaimed vocalist & songwriter Somi has built a career that dwell to her transcontinental experience, using original design in the craft of her art as storytelling. Her debut album, Eternal Motive, appeared in 2003 from SanaaHouse Productions. In 2007, her label licensed her next album, Red Soil in My Eyes, to Harmonia Mundi's World Village imprint. The single "Ingele" had a longstanding run on Billboard's world music chart and peaked in the Top Ten. After touring in the U.S. and Europe as well as Africa, she returned to the U.S. and
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signed with ObliqSound. Her third album, If the Rains Come First, was released in 2009 and hit the number two spot on the world music chart. The set was notable for its display of her vocal overdubbing techniques and use of Swahili and Ugandan dialects. genres.
In 2011, Somi released her first live album of performances at the venerable Jazz Standard in New York City. The result of which JazzTimes hailed as “stunning…natural fervor and naked magnificence. Petite Afrique Somi's 6th album produced by Sony Music, is a bold move, a daring attempt to bring to the Jazz a fresh breath inspired by her African heritage. The album tells the story of African immigrants in the midst of a gentrified Harlem, New York. Petite Afrique won a 2018 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Jazz Album and features special guest Aloe Blacc. Petite Afrique is the highly anticipated follow-up to Somi's last chart-topping album and major label debut The Lagos Music Salon which was inspired by an 18-month creative sabbatical in Lagos, Nigeria and features special guests Angelique Kidjo and Common. it landed at #1 on US Jazz charts. Somi is our guest this month in the line that follows she tells us more about her music and career while giving her opinion in some topics she bravely deals with in her music creation.
Hello Somi we are happy to have you today as the guest of this month Issue.
So, to start a question you have answered before may be, but none less still relevant. How did you get involved in the business of music?
Somi: Hello, it’s a pleasure to be yours. It was and continues to be an organic journey of listening to and following my heart.
music
Somi VERVE AND RHYTHM IN JAZZ
Interview