Scope: Rwandan Somi’s Grammy nomination and what it means to Rwandan Music
Who is Somi?
Somi (born Laura Kabasomi Kakoma on June 6, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, and actor of Rwandan and Ugandan descent.
Somi was born in Champaign, Illinois, while her father was completing post-doctoral studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. When Somi was three years old, her family then moved to Ndola, Zambia, while her father worked for the World Health Organization. In the late 1980s when her father became a professor at the University of Illinois, they returned to Champaign, where Somi spent the rest of her childhood. She attended both University Laboratory High School and Champaign Central High School, and earned her undergraduate degrees in Anthropology and African Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. She also holds a Master's degree from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in Performance Studies.
Somi has built her career while developing an original and hybrid sound she coined as "New African Jazz." [1] In 2007, she licensed her independently recorded album Red Soil in My Eyes to the Harmonia Mundi/World Village label for her first international distribution deal. The record received wide critical acclaim with the hit single "Ingele" that maintained a Top 10 position on U.S. World Music Charts for several months.
In 2009, Somi signed with independent record label ObliqSound.[2] Her label debut If the Rains Come First was released in North America on October 27, 2009, and subsequently debuted at no. 2 on Billboard's World Music Chart and no. 21 on Billboard's Heatseekers Chart. The album features South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela, Somi's long-time mentor, as a guest on one track. In March 2011, Somi recorded her first live concert album at the legendary Jazz Standard in New York City. It was released on Palmetto Records in August 2011.
In 2013, Somi signed her first major label deal with Sony Music to become one of the first artists on their relaunched historic jazz imprint Okeh Records. Her album and major label debut The Lagos Music Salon, which features Grammy-winning special guests Angelique Kidjo and Common and debuted at #1 on US Jazz Charts, was inspired by an 18-month sabbatical she took in Lagos, Nigeria. On the heels of much critical acclaim and a rapidly growing fan base, The Huffington Post and other publications dubbed Somi "the new Nina Simone".[3] In March 2017, she released Petite Afrique as her second album on Okeh Records. The album, which won a 2018 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Jazz Album, is a song cycle about the large West African immigrant community in Harlem, New York City in the face of rapid gentrification. It features special guest Aloe Blacc.
Somi is a TED Senior Fellow, a 2018 United States Artists Fellow, a 2018 Soros Equality Fellow,[4] and an inaugural Association of Performing Arts Presenters Fellow. She is also the founder of the award-winning non-profit organization New Africa Live.
Somi currently lives in New York City.
The Grammy Awards, which recognises achievements in the music industry of the United States, is organised by the Recording Academy, an American learned academy of musicians, producers, recording engineers, and other musical professionals.
The Grammy shortlisted singer’s latest album ‘Holy Room’ for the award in the Best Jazz Vocal Album category, alongside four other albums including Thana Alexa’s ‘Ona’, ‘Secrets Are the Best Stories’ by Kurt Elling Featuring Danilo Pérez, Carmen Lundy’s ‘Modern Ancestors’ and Kenny Washington’s ‘What’s The Hurry’.
With this Grammy nomination, the singer, born Laura Kabasomi Kakoma, becomes the first African woman to ever be nominated in any of the jazz categories and the first African artist to be nominated for a jazz vocal performance.
Your album made it into the Grammys nominations for the first time. What does this mean for your career?
Only time will tell what it means for my career, but I’m grateful to have my work become acknowledged by my colleagues and the Academy in this way.
More than anything, a Grammy nomination provides more visibility to the work. I’m especially humbled by the visibility given the devastating effects of COVID-19 on the global cultural economy and the way most of us make our living.
You represent Rwandans at the Grammy. What do you think it means for Rwandan music?
I started my career in New York City at a time when people only spoke about African artistes through the frame of “world music” and without much nuance even though we are wildly and beautifully diverse.
As a result of that narrow way of seeing us, I have tried to avail myself towards empowering African artists both on the continent and throughout the diaspora.
I definitely believe there is a need for the Rwandan music industry to grow into a more competitive market regionally and internationally. I’ve always dreamed of establishing a jazz festival there (Rwanda) that would bring more international artists, industry professionals, and audiences to connect with the artistes at home.
I truly hope this nomination draws more visibility and resources to the arts in Rwanda and across the continent.
I salute individuals like Popo Murigande (an accomplished artist in his own right) for the extraordinary work he has done to establish Nyundo School of Music. The last time I was home, he invited me to visit the school, and I was deeply moved by the exceptional talent of the young artists. Arts education is paramount, and I look forward to more actively supporting those efforts as well.
Was a nomination at the Grammy something you ever thought you could accomplish in your career?
It is definitely something I hoped for, but it is a futile effort to overly focus on or wait for that validation as an artist. The journey of any artist requires resilience to disappointment and rejection, but a lifelong commitment to your truth is the best reward you can give yourself.
Take us through the ‘Holy Room’ album. What are the main themes and inspiration behind it?
The album is the result of a performance I did in Germany last year as a guest of the Frankfurt Radio Big Band that was recorded for national broadcast. Thankfully, at a time when touring had ceased, I had that recording on hand and decided to release it.
The music on the recording is mostly from my last two albums - Petite Afrique (which was about the African immigrant experience in the U.S.) and The Lagos Music Salon (which was inspired by my time living in Nigeria).
Like everyone else, I had other plans this year. When things got shut down, I began thinking a lot about the different spaces we believe to be sacred. Theaters around the globe are sitting in silence, artists are unable to perform, and people are unable to gather. Our homes have suddenly become the most sacred spaces - to be protected from an invisible death at all costs.
We have been reminded of the fragility of human connection and the importance of sustained time with those we love. Each one of us has been holding on to our own version of a ‘holy room’. So the inspiration to release the album was about remembering all that I hold sacred while honoring the parts of myself that make me feel most alive.
What would you attribute this nomination to?
I cannot answer that other than to say that it’s all in God’s timing and I’m grateful. The journey continues.
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