In July 2018 we warmly welcomed the acclaimed vocalist, composer, writer, and performer Somi Kakoma performing with Toru Dodo (piano) and Herve Sambe (guitar) for an unplugged concert at M.Bassy. Afterwards, the audience was invited to attend a personal conversation between the artist and the journalist, author and musician himself Musa Okwonga about the struggle of being a Black immigrant in the US, spaces of agency for African identities and giving voice to the community. Born in Illinois, to immigrants from Rwanda and Uganda, Somi has built a career of transatlantic sonicism and storytelling. Her music straddles the worlds of African jazz, soul, and pop.
Excerpt from the talk:
Musa:
First of all, if I may say most eloquently: Wow, thank you for that amazing performance! You have been touring this album now since last year. How have you managed to retain that freshness in the work?
Somi:
Thank you for saying that! I think tonight we were experimenting a lot because this is not usually how we tour. We are usually a quintet, so drums and bass feel different. There are a lot of things that are normally explicit that are now implicit. It is always fun to step outside of your comfort zone!
Musa:
This record (»Petit Afrique«): You are capturing Harlem at a particular point in its history, its evolution. What was it that made it so important for you to capture Harlem as you know it now for this record?
Somi:
Well, for me it was really just about gentrification. It was about all of these African bodies, Black bodies really, who were disappearing. One minute, you would see a mosque and everybody was there, Eid would happen and the streets would explode with colors and songs. There are all these things that were always happening - but then suddenly it would just dissipate and there would be a new condo going up. Conversely, if a major African American church was to be threatened of being closed, then people would probably feel a certain type of agency because they had been there for a number of generations and would say, “Actually we really need these spaces because of what it means socially, culturally, politically!” Whereas in an immigrant community - that is there for one generation or as the first generation -, they are just going to keep quiet. There is never this feeling as if it is your place to protest, right? You never really feel as though it is your home, even if you have raised American children, even if you have a green card or a citizenship. Who is actually going to create a space of agency for these African identities and experiences? And how tragic to think about people who have had to construct a home somewhere away from their home and then be threatened to have to do it a second time. Writing this music was about acknowledging their dignity and their own issues and the struggles that they are dealing with, the experiences that they are having.
Musa:
You are an anthropologist, aren't you? What I love about your work is it isn't just music. Pop music has its value, but there is always such a depth to what you are doing. And I was wondering where that sort of impetus came from to create work of this nature. Was it family or community? Where did that come from?
Many people don't know that in the US, the legal term for a foreigner is 'alien'.
Somi:
Yes, my undergraduate and graduate studies were Cultural Anthropology, African Studies, and then even in a field called Performance Studies, which is sort of an anthropological look at life and performance and the performativity of life. I have always been interested in cultural space and how we articulate our identities as African people in the world. But I think especially being a first generation American – being somebody who is deeply connected to who I am as a Western person - and then also being deeply connected to who I am as an African woman, it was always about how I find that space of belonging (in art and sound), that liminal thing where you really don't quite fit in. What sound and word have given me is the ability to construct a place of belonging in the imaginary and to be able to think about where home might be or what home looks like - and the home that's not always talked about when you talk about the Black experience or the African experience. I've always been interested in cultural identities and how a place informs who we become in the world. My last two albums - »The Lagos Music Salon« and »Petite Afrique« - ended up being these kind of strangely ethnographic surveys, which was actually quite rewarding for me to finally feel like my degrees had some contribution to what I was doing as an artist. It was rewarding that I was merging all of these things that I have always been interested in. Living in Harlem, for me, »Petite Afrique« wasn’t meant to be an album. It was meant to just be a song cycle that I was going to sing in some storefront, have a salon somewhere on the 116th sheet and just have this interesting conversation with the African community about their experiences, how they felt being displaced and what was happening in Harlem. But the more I leaned into that work, the more I wanted to make it an album. I wrote it because I had just come back from Lagos. I had been living in the States again for about two years when I started writing »Petit Afrique«. I think I was missing living on the (African) continent. I was missing Lagos. So I thought, “I'm just gonna look for Africa here!“.
Musa:
You bring across a sense of community in your work. There is a socio-political commentary in there. One thing that M.Bassy really tries to do is to talk about this concept of progressive art from the African continent, looking forward to a better, optimistic future for everyone. I couldn't help but see that you collaborated with the Great Hugh Masekela (South African Jazz musician). I was wondering how that experience was, what you learned from him - both as a musician but also as a person.
Somi:
That is such a loaded question in many ways, just because he really was and is my greatest mentor. I had the fortune of meeting him after a performance in Prospect Park in Brooklyn one day, and I had a demo in my bag, and he had just come back from a trip to Uganda. I was debating if I should give (the demo) to him, should I not? And I almost walked away, and my friend was saying, “No, give him the CD!“. He was as disarming and big hearted as he is, asking me where I was from, etc. I told him I was from Uganda, telling him about Uganda. Anyway, I gave him the CD, and he told me he would listen to it. Six months later he emailed me, telling me what he thought he heard in me and in my voice and then took an interest in my growth as an artist. One of the many things he said was about not being afraid. He always would remind me not to be afraid and not to take myself too seriously - because I think I was always in awe of him.
Musa:
Do you think he saw something of himself in you to an extent, maybe in terms of your just approach or your outlook?
Somi:
I don't know that I would compliment myself in that way. But I would say that he was really interested in new African voices. I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to get to know him and I feel like as though he saw my heart and he heard something that perhaps I don't know, it’s hard for me to speak on his behalf.
Musa:
Of course. Obviously a great man! The only reason I mentioned it is because I saw a comment you made in one of your interviews about there being no taboo subjects, and I thought that is quite a brave thing to say. A lot of people avoid difficult topics. But there is the fearlessness about it. Maybe that fearlessness is something that you gave him when you gave him a demo. That is brave by itself.
Somi:
Sure. When I talk about “no subject is a taboo“, it' is not that I don't believe that things are a taboo in some cultures, but I just feel as though the stage and cultural space should be a safe space for us to speak our hearts and confront and disarm each other and challenge each other.
I think that is something that he really did do for so many people: the ability to disarm so many with music. So I would like to believe that in some way he inspired or influenced me in some way.
Musa:
It has been an amazing experience to watch you not only perform, but to listen to your philosophy because I am always fascinated by the thinking behind the art. I was wondering if you could have one or two very quick questions from the audience?
Audience:
What inspired your song »Alien«? There was a verse that you actually sung in one of the local languages on Uganda, and I was wondering if you could elaborate a bit more about that song.
Somi:
Many people don't know that in the US, the legal term for a foreigner is “alien”, legal or illegal alien. I was born in the States when my father was in school there. All of my older siblings were born on the (African) continent, so when we were kids, they all had green cards that used to say “legal alien“ on the actual card. We used to find it very strange. Why were they calling us aliens? Before my parents had naturalized, they also had these alien cards. It was such a strange word when you think in the imagination of a child, what an alien is. I remember when Sting came out with his song »Englishman in New York«. I remember thinking, “Yeah, that is so funny!“ The fact that he was saying, “I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien. I'm an Englishman in New York.“ But I really wanted to call attention to the Black immigrant experience. Even in the national dialogue in the US, the immigration policy conversation tends to lean towards Latin America and Mexico specifically, which is totally important. But there are a lot of Black immigrants who are grossly underserved and completely cut out of that conversation. I wanted to talk about how being an immigrant is a struggle. I was singing in Rutooro and Kinyarwanda (languages spoken in Rwanda and Western Uganda) because I always try to honor my own parents and their own struggle, even if their experience is completely different from what it is to be a working-class immigrant in Harlem. New York City is very different to some little college town in the middle of the country, but it is still a struggle! That is really what »Alien« is about.
Musa:
I say goodbye now, and thank you so much. Let us have one more huge round of applause for Somi! It's been an absolute pleasure.
Somi:
Thank you, Musa. Thank you!