{"id":1525,"date":"2021-11-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sofarsoundsblo.wpengine.com\/blog\/articles\/new-music-alert-featured-artist-solosam\/"},"modified":"2024-06-10T17:33:51","modified_gmt":"2024-06-10T17:33:51","slug":"new-music-alert-solosam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sofarsounds.com\/blog\/articles\/new-music-alert-solosam","title":{"rendered":"New Music Alert Featured Artist: SoloSam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When we think of being stuck in traffic, it doesn\u2019t bring the most pleasant feelings to mind. Ironically, <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/artist\/45hmyXoTVMtPASGkZwUqY7?si=73bff8e2c0f14d15\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SoloSam<\/a>\u2019s song \u201cTraffic Jam\u201d is the opposite\u2013 full of sonic movement, the kind that helps us transcend and feel lifted. For the Chicago rapper, the song is both things in a way, acknowledging being stuck, then letting go of trying to control it. We featured SoloSam&#8217;s song in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sofarsounds.com\/blog\/articles\/new-music-alert-november-2021\">this month&#8217;s New Music Alert<\/a>, and got to chat with SoloSam about that freedom, along with how just being himself has helped him grow personally and musically (and, a little info on his new cooking show, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=h-MJJGVAAik\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Principles to Dine By<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Sofar: Your bio mentions your multicultural background ignited your exploration within music\u2013\u00a0can you elaborate on that process?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>SoloSam: Essentially growing up in a very diverse household, that changed my perspective on creativity. My mom\u2019s Korean, my dad&#8217;s from Ghana, [he\u2019s] also an artist. Seeing the cultural takes both of them have really opened my mind from a young age. Through becoming an artist and growing up, I was always willing to have an open mind, whether it be my approach sonically, how I brand or market\u2013 I try not to be so one dimensional. In my household there was a universal understanding and that translates to music\u2013\u00a0when you speak to people, you wanna make sure that you can reach everybody on a base level.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>In terms of SoloSam, how did that start to develop for you?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Me, or the project?<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Well, that\u2019s up to you how you define it.<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I think for a while I felt in music in general people need to have identities. You go through stages where you separate yourself from the music as a superhero or something\u2013\u00a0\u2018I put on the mask\u2019\u2013 and I think my authentic self was removed from my music because of that concept. When I broke down that construct in how I approach art, I realized there is no, \u2018I\u2019m Sam and this is SoloSam,\u2019 I am SoloSam, and in doing that I was able to have a level of honesty and authenticity I feel was missing from a lot of my music.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>I love \u201cTraffic Jam\u201d, it\u2019s so vibrant and feels like this sigh of relief, even though a traffic jam is the opposite. The song is a really personal one for you, what was going through your head as you wrote it?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Through the pandemic what really helped me get through was to realize things are very situational moments in our life. It\u2019s easy to be caught up in the idea that you\u2019re so in control, so when something like this happens you\u2019re like \u2018oh my gosh, I can\u2019t believe they\u2019re shutting down everything!\u2019 But in reality, that can happen to us, whether it be through a death experience, your own uphill battles\u2013 the pandemic was just one of those things. \u201cTraffic Jam\u201d was kind of a song admitting, \u2018I&#8217;m stuck, but it\u2019s out of my control, and all I have to do is wait until I\u2019m unstuck and keep going.\u2019 You can\u2019t get upset about it, be defeated, you just have to acknowledge \u2018I can\u2019t control things I\u2019m not in control of.\u2019 Throughout the pandemic, dealing with everything, I\u2019m just glad I made it through.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=HNnSAFXFpjM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">music video<\/a> was so unexpected\u2013\u00a0how did you decide on the concept?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>That was a concept [from] Peripheral Projects, they\u2019re a shooting company. We wanted to approach the video without being too cliche. What is the best way to symbolize being stuck? Your car breaking down in the middle of nowhere and just having to wait. You got somewhere you have to be, you don\u2019t just be like \u2018I guess I die here in this field,\u2019 you get to walking, and sooner or later you\u2019re gonna get something that\u2019s gonna help you get to where you need to go\u2013 that\u2019s the red truck.\u00a0 At the end I wake up in a traffic jam, and that plays into the idea that it all seems so real but it can really be in our head. In that scene where I woke up it was like,\u2018huh, I\u2019m the reason I\u2019m in traffic.\u2019 That\u2019s what the video plays into.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sofarsounds.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/1665185563featuredimage.avif\" \/><span class=\"sc-kpOJdX jVJdyv\">SoloSam in &#8220;Traffic Jam&#8221; music video, via YouTube<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>What\u2019s your experience been like performing at Sofar?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I did one Sofar with LuluLemon at their temporary activation site. It was a great experience, it\u2019s a great way for people to get genuine turnaround support. I think personally Sofar\u2019s a very creative idea.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>I need more info about the upcoming cooking show, <em>Principles to Dine By<\/em>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>We\u2019re in season 1. The first episode was poke bowls, second is kimchi fries. It\u2019s been a super dope experience. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.darkmattercoffee.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dark Matter<\/a>\u2013\u00a0a lot of it wouldn\u2019t have been possible without them. I just enjoy cooking and over time that\u2019s something\u2013 this is what I\u2019m saying in the sense of \u2018stop trying to separate a person from an artist.\u2019 At first I was like, \u2018no I won\u2019t do that, that\u2019s my personal stuff.\u2019 But in doing more and putting it out my story, people were \u2018like this is awesome, we wanna see more of it.\u2019 My last project, I actually dropped a cookbook and a drink with Dark Matter, that\u2019s how the relationship started. This time around, releasing episodes of the show, I wanted to present it in a way that can highlight cooking, but also who I [am] as a person.<\/p>\n<p>Photo credit: SoloSam, photo by Cooper Fox<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sofarsounds.com\/\">Check out SoloSam and other great Sofar artists at a show near you!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When we think of being stuck in traffic, it doesn\u2019t bring the most pleasant feelings to mind. Ironically, SoloSam\u2019s song \u201cTraffic Jam\u201d is the opposite\u2013 full of sonic movement, the kind that helps us transcend and feel lifted. For the Chicago rapper, the song is both things in a way, acknowledging being stuck, then letting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[426,658],"class_list":["post-1525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-music-alert","category-artists","tag-listening-room","tag-solosam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sofarsounds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sofarsounds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sofarsounds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sofarsounds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sofarsounds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sofarsounds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sofarsounds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sofarsounds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sofarsounds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sofarsounds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}