Somi's Jazz

Somi flirted with music as a child. Sometime in her young adult life, she played music some more while pursuing a degree in Anthropology from the University of Illinois and later a Masters degree in Performance Arts from New York University. But nothing can stop destiny. Her music—which she dabs “New African Jazz and Soul”—has taken her to places such as the deep of Siberia, where no one understood what she sang but her sincerity and vulnerability allowed them to connect to her (and someone even gave her a fish; which she took with her to Rwanda and shared with her sister).

Somi was born Kabasomi (meaning “child of a scholar”) to diplomat parents in the U.S. Shortly after, her parents moved to Zambia to work where she attended primary school. While there, she started singing at the age of six and participated in school plays. Her family then moved back to the U.S. when she was eight years old.

Back in the U.S., she continued singing. At that tender age, she wasn’t immune to the teasing and mockery that follow people that are different; and her teachers were no exception—in fact one of her teachers mocked her about her accent and her quiet demeanor (which in the aggressive American culture often translates to meekness or a lack of passion). Also, raised to be a proud African girl, she told her schoolmates and teachers that she was a Princess (her mother, a Ugandan, is from a Royal family), a cause for further mockery. But with the support of her parents, she studied the Cello from the age of eight and all through college, and also learned to play the piano by ear.

Singing was a fantasy for Somi. As a child of African parents who greatly believe in the need for a good education, it was a given that she had to get some kind of career, the path not necessarily being music. But they encouraged her pursuit of the arts, music especially, as a means of becoming cultured.

She grew up on classical music, top 40s, Opera and Chamber music, as well as folk songs. When she started singing, people often categorized her music as jazz, which she embraced because it’s the one genre that allows improvisation.

Her Journey Home

Like most Africans born and raised in the Diaspora, Somi always had a longing for home. At 20—as young, idealistic, and shrouded with romanticism as it gets—she packed her bags and went to Kenya for a research fellowship, where she worked closely at the Nyumbani AIDS orphanage (teaching Art) and also did outreach with children at WAMATA (people in the fight against AIDS in Tanzania). Meanwhile, she was also trying to reclaim what she missed as an African growing up in foreign lands. Working in Africa made her lose all the romantic baggage she carried about the continent; helped her embrace being both African and American. It also made her lose her preoccupation with culture.


Her Philanthropy

Somi views Art as a means of social change and is committed to it. African Art, in her view, is always related to initiation; it’s not Art for Art’s sake. “We [Africans] must reconceptualize our Art and curve out a cultural space of belonging.”

To promote African Art in America, she founded New Africa Live, a new African music series that uses a theatre space off broadway.
“In Paris and other cities in Europe, they have lots of African scenes, why not New York? Europe has a history with Africa … perhaps that’s why.”
She’s also helping African artists put together press kits and helps educate them on available resources.

She’d much rather be in Africa where there’s so much going on culturally, but for now, she’s content creating a space here.

Her Most Favorite Place to Be

Where in the world is this globetrotter’s favorite place?
Zanzibar—the land of thousands of spices.
“They have 10,000 spices. The food is ridiculous. On one trip, I paid ten dollars to see all these spices; everything is like an aphrodisiac,” Somi says.

She believes in God; and keeps a keen spiritual perspective on things. For the future, she is writing a lot for her next CD. In the meantime, having met and worked with a lot of artists and individuals walking the same walk as she, she knows that she'd never again walk alone.