GRAMMY-nominated singer-songwriter Somi is back with her upcoming album, What Does It Take To Bloom, coming out on August 7 via her own label Salon Africana. It’s the follow-up to 2022’s Zenzile: The Reimagination of Miriam Makeba and her first collection of original songs in six years. This album is a reflection on the journey of finding your place in the world and what it takes in order to get there.
Somi explains, “I wrote this body of work while traversing many places and losing many people. This album is a mirror of searching for where and how to take root in spite of that. I pray these songs offer each listener a sense of Home or, at the very least, a witnessing of me coming Home to myself.”
True to her word, this album was written and recorded between Dakar, Lagos, Paris, and New York City – leading into the sense of finding your place in the world. Somi’s work has historically followed this trend of place making, but with What Does It Take to Bloom? Somi is not mapping out a city, country, or collective memory. She is mapping out the self.
Her single, “We’re All Falling,” is a confrontation of mortality during a period of personal loss. It displays the sobering awareness that life is fragile, and time is finite. This song shows that despite this, life is not consumed with despair, but calls for grace and an invitation to live in the moment.
What Does It Take to Bloom? is a meditation on uncertainty and change, blending multiple genres such as jazz, soul, highlife, and spoken word.
What Does It Take to Bloom? is preceded by the singles, “We’re All Falling” and “Sometimes Love.”
