[music]

Somi: I chose Kenya and Tanzania because it was close enough to home but also allowed me the space and independence to experience it for myself. But in many ways, that trip is what answered the question of, "Who am I?" And once I could feel grounded in an East African context and value who I am in an American context, suddenly, it was so apparent that music was where I was supposed to be.

Helga Davis: Our experiences in early childhood can be so powerful as to mark the very ways we feel our bodies are allowed to exist in the world. I'm Helga Davis, and welcome to my show of Conversations with Extraordinary People. My guest today is the dynamic ascendant jazz singer Somi, who has been celebrated for her artistry as much as her activism. She became the first African woman ever nominated in any of the Grammys' jazz categories last year, and she has performed at the United Nations General Assembly by invitation from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.

She describes herself as an East African Midwestern girl who loves family, poetry, and freedom, and yet hers is a story of survival, adversity, and transformation. In our conversation, she discusses what happens when a teacher steals your joy, the power of a meditative practice that connects her to her ancestors and how she is still finding her voice. So I'm about to ask you the question you just asked me. How are you doing in this strange time? What are you doing in this strange time to take care of yourself and to still feel like yourself?

Somi: Oh, wow. Well, I am, you know, taking every day by day.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: And I am, you know, trying to commit myself to the work as much as I can, and that's what keeps me moving forward.

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Somi: You know, and seeing other work and seeing other people moving forward.

Helga Davis: Ah, uh-huh. And what does day by day look like for you?

Somi: Well, I always find that if I don't meditate at some point midday, I go off, all the way left. [laughter] So, um, my day usually starts with meditation, getting really clear about my intentions of what I want to accomplish for the day-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: -how I want to present myself and show up in the world for the day, and then I just get to it. I'm a list person. [laughs]

Helga Davis: Me too. I love a list.

Somi: I love a list.

Helga Davis: I love a list. And what I do with my list usually is I make it and then see where life takes me.

Somi: Exactly. It's very rare that I get through the list. I mean, I don't actually know the last time that ever happened that I got to the bottom of the list.

Helga Davis: [laughs]

Somi: Like, yeah, my whole day, I got it all done, no. But, um, no, I just move through, you know, move through. I think that's the thing. Move through.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm. Is there a thing in particular that's exciting you right now that leads you back to your work?

Somi: You know, I think-- last night I had a conversation with a friend about, um, being present, and I think we're just always making these choices of being present, how to be present-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: -how to surrender, because I think that's been the big thing through these last three years, right? Is just like, it's a constant exercise of surrender. And, you know, I would say the most recent work that I was doing was working on a play about Miriam Makeba for the last seven years. And finally, you know, it opened and I've been touring there for the past year. But that in itself, when you decide to speak the name of an ancestor, not only speak the name, but embody an ancestor like Mama Miriam, it is an effort in surrender as well. There's no choice but to do that, especially when you have to get on stage.

So yeah, I think that journey of storytelling and also everything else that we do as performers, how do we be present? I know that if I get into my thoughts on stage and start thinking about, "Oh, there's homegirl, hey," you know, like-- [laughter] suddenly, like, something else-- something happens that pulls me back in.

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Somi: You know, so surrendering to the moment, really trying to be intentional about that.

Helga Davis: What about in your upbringing do you think got you there?

Somi: You know, when people ask about growing up or my childhood, it's perhaps a very typical immigrant story, you know, uh, growing up in a family of immigrants, the idea of choosing a path that is not guaranteed with education, with all the things, with opportunity, and that you choose the thing, something that is not quote, unquote, "guaranteed" to make a check, to feed a family, to, you know, all the things, right?

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: So I think it has never been lost on me, the profound sacrifice my parents made, leaving home and building a life here for their family, for our family, but also leaving so much family. You know, there's so much information that's implicit to my parents that becomes explicit to us.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: What is that? There's an-- a kind of a cultural erosion that actually manifests or that shows up with migration. And what does that mean? We're actually really sacrificing. It's like you can't even put a cost to it.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: But then also, what are we gaining? And I know I can say that just having access, I-I mean the-the privilege of being in a place that I can actually do the work that I want to do, that there are institutions in place that support work, that there are grants and funding in place to encourage work. Yeah, I-I-I think that's how I got here, or the-- to the there that you were mentioning. [chuckling] Yeah.

Helga Davis: One of the themes that has come up a lot this season for me personally, and then in many of the conversations, is the idea of choice, and that that choosing is a kind of freedom. I think it's implicit in choice, freedom. What is freedom for you?

Somi: Choosing to be an artist, obviously, is one thing.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: Choosing to live wherever I want to live. Choosing to create sabbaticals for myself when I need them to be quiet and still, and write and connect with place, space, culture, people, language, food. [laughter]

Helga Davis: Ah, yes.

Somi: You know? Um, yeah, so for me, freedom is about personal agency, you know?

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: And I definitely feel that that's what has propelled my whole journey, not only as an artist, but literally just through my life. And I -and I-- again, would just thank my parents for saying-- for not saying no.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: Uh, which is, you know what I mean-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: -is very different from saying yes, but they didn't say no when I said, "Oh, this is the path I wanna take," or "These are the things I wanna do," or-- and also recognizing interests. I think people always try to act surprised when they're-- when their just children become somebody else that they-they say that, "Oh, how-how did this happen?" whether you're talking about profession or sexuality or whatever it is.

I mean, I see that in my tribe of nieces and nephews. They're the same person they were when they were a newborn. And so I have a lot of gratitude to my parents for recognizing my interest in music, recognizing my interest in writing, recognizing those things and encouraging those things. And-and-and inspiring a certain type of a personal agency that you can follow an intuition, that you can follow a feeling, right? To me, that is freedom.

Helga Davis: That's yummy. [laughter] I was in Senegal last year.

Somi: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: And one of the things that was most strange to me about those visits is that I've never felt more American-

Somi: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: -in my life. And I wasn't looking to have some "I'm home" experience.

Somi: Sure.

Helga Davis: But I felt that every time I opened my mouth, there was some kind of betrayal of an origin story-

Somi: Mm.

Helga Davis: -that I-I didn't even-- I didn't know. And so I wonder what your journey here did for your experience, and do you feel at home both here and there?

Somi: Yeah, I mean, so my journey here, I was born here when my father was in school.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: We left when I was three. Um, moved to Zambia for primary school and-- well-well nursery school and primary school. And then came back and I was the last-- the end of primary school, the end of elementary school, and um, I've been here since. And that initial return to the US was jarring because people had the worst perceptions of Africa in the 1980s for sure, just really small-minded understandings. And that was from everybody. Didn't-- It was Black, white, everybody was like-- I would say that my-- that when they would be like, "Oh, did you guys live in trees?" Literally, even my dad would be like, "Tell them we lived in the biggest tree on the block." [laughter] Like, I would be so upset and he would just laugh it off.

But it was something he was basically saying like, you don't have to engage that sort of ignorance, right? You know the answer. But at the time--

Helga Davis: But was that a [crosstalk] thing for you?

Somi: What was what?

Helga Davis: That you could just sort of laugh it off?

Somi: No, it wasn't.

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Somi: I would come home in tears, you know, and he would try to get us to laugh about it, you know. Um, it was very hard. But I think children are sponges, you know, and we are malleable and can code-switch and find new way-- our- our hard palate isn't that hard yet, so suddenly you can change the way you're even talking. You know what I mean?

Helga Davis: And did that happen for you-

Somi: It did.

Helga Davis: -that you--

Somi: For sure. I came over here with a British accent and at some point it shifted. I would say the idea of feeling at home-- I mean, I definitely felt out, I've always felt outside of something. You know, I grew up in East Central Illinois, in a Midwest coll-- college town, you know, Champaign Illinois University town. And I learned from an early age to compartmentalize my identity with my family and the extended East African community we were part of in this country. And my friends in Illinois, I learned from a ver-very early age. Um, so I didn't even know I was doing it.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: I remember one of my closest friends in high school our senior year said to me, "You guys celebrate Christmas?" I said, "Girl, what? Yes." And I realized, no fault of her own, you know, this is also like a 16, 17 year old Midwestern young white woman who-- her whole family was from that area. You know, like all those years we'd been friends, she did not know that we went to a church in the neighborhood. This was part of that, like, "Oh, I don't really talk about these things," like my grandfather was an Episcopalian reverend. Like all these different things. Yeah.

And I said, "Well, what did you think I celebrated in the holidays?" And she was just like, "I don't know. I thought--" she literally said, "I don't know. I thought maybe Buddhist or," which is also so random. Cause I'm like, "I'm sorry, what?" Okay. But anyway, it was so random. And-- But for her, she's choosing something that's so foreign.

Helga Davis: Right.

Somi: You know what I mean?

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: What? Like, you know, we're-- so that was a real realization for me. I was compartmentalizing. I was like, "Why doesn't she know that?" right? And that's when, you know, I realized I should also take ownership of what am I not sharing with people who are supposedly close to me, right, and why am I not feeling that I can share that with them? So that was sort of the beginning of me reflecting on why or how or whatever I needed to also be respon-- take responsibility for. And anyway, I don't know if this is relevant or not, but a whole moment my senior year where these folks who I had grown up with were caught on tape saying some very vile, racist things.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: And somebody turned in the tape to like everybody, to like the superintendent, to the media, to the student council, to everybody. And, um, we could recognize their voices, and it was this whole thing, and it was a real shocking thing for me also because these are people I grew up with. And what was also interesting about it is I remember who they were before they were that person.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: I remember the-- I'm thinking about a very specific young white man now, but at the time when we were children, I remember him saying he couldn't play with me or he would have to like sneak over to my birthday party, like-like just-- and I'd be like, "But why?"

Helga Davis: Hmm.

Somi: He'd like, "Oh, my mom says I can't play with you," you know. And so that really broke my heart because he was then on this tape saying these things and it was the reminder that people are taught hate, people are taught ignorance. That's not how any of us come into the world. I remember his innocence. I remember when he was, like, basically being taught to hate, and 10 years later to hear his voice, even though I still thought we were friends that whole time, which we were.

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Somi: Right?

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Somi: And then, I mean, at least I thought we were. [laughs] So-- But then--

Helga Davis: But it felt like you were friends?

Somi: It felt like we were friends. And then to hear his voice on there, to be like, "Oh." So that was a big shift where I then felt, "Who is actually true?" you know, and "Oh, I'm not really a part of this community. I'm seen as an exception." Sometimes people had very-- also very small-minded ideas of like, "Oh, you're African, you're not Black," which was like, "Actually, no, I'm actually Black too." [laughs] You know what I mean? Um, I mean, I had people's parents telling me these things sometimes, and what do you do with that? Because in my family, my parents being a part of a university community, everybody was very open-minded, cosmopolitan.

I had aunts and uncles that-- you know, from all over the world, from Europe, from Latin America, from South America, from Africa, different parts of the- of the world. These are people we would be calling auntie and uncle. And my parents encouraged love, they encouraged pride in oneself and our heritage, but they also encouraged an openness. And I think especially at that time, my parents, you know, they-they were learning what-- how race is experienced in this country for themselves as adults. So what do you say to an 8-year-old or a 10-year-old or whoever comes home and says, "This person's parent just had said this to me or this"?

Helga Davis: So what did they say?

Somi: You know, they-- I didn't always tell them 'cause I-I always wanted to still play it with my friend, right? [laughs]

Helga Davis: Hmm.

Somi: But I think I would tell them about adults. I would tell them if a teacher said something negative to me. I, um, always think about my fifth-grade teacher. So I have freckles on my tongue. My whole family has-- My mom--

Helga Davis: Me too.

Somi: Yeah, okay. [laughs] Freckleton crew. But- [laughs]

Helga Davis: In the house.

Somi: No, so, um, my mom's clan, everybody has dark gums and these freckles, and she's from a very specific clan in western Uganda, the Babiito from Banyoro, Batooro, um, people, and she would always say the clan is a royal clan and you're a princess, and, you know, she would teach us all these things about my heritage on her side. And I was talking to some other two-- there were two friends of mine, two Michaels, and they were- they were like, "Oh, you have, um, freckles on your tongue. What? Why?" "Oh, it's because I'm a princess." Literally, that was my answer. [laughter]

Helga Davis: Take that.

Somi: "I'm a Ugandan princess." And they were like, "Really?" And I was like, "Yeah." And I'm just telling them very matter-of-factly because that's what my mother told me, right?

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: So we were in the middle of, like, quiet work hour, right, where everybody's just doing their little home-- you know, whatever, paperwork or coursework, and she's kind of calling us up one by one individually to give us like, "Here's a note to take to your parents for the rest--" for, like, how-- you know, a reflection on what you did that week. So it was my turn and she calls my name, and my first name is Laura - Somi is part of my middle name, Kaba Somi. So she was like, "Laura, Her Highness," like this-this woman, the teacher, she does this whole, like, "Her Highness, Her Royal Highness, Laura Kakoma, please come to the--" and I was, like-- I was confused.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: Because she was making-- it was a very performative, grand thing. She was--

Helga Davis: And you knew that she was making fun of you.

Somi: Yeah.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: I didn't even understand it, and I think because adults were always the safe space, right? So I was like, "What is she doing?" I was confused. So she brings me up to the front of the class. She was like, you know, "Attention, class, everybody just give me your attention. Laura here seems to think that she's, um, a princess from Africa," and she laughs. And she said, "But we know that's not true. There are no princesses in Africa." Yeah. [laughs] And I-I was just sitting there because I'm also taught respect your elders. So I'm standing there confused about how to respond to her.

And she says, "Is it true that you told the two Michaels-- Is it true that you told them that you're a princess?" And I said, "Yes." And she was like, "Why would you say such a thing?" I said, "Because I am." And she literally gave me this whole thing. She reprimanded me, told me I shouldn't lie, I shouldn't make up stories, and that there's no such thing as princesses in Africa, and whoever told me that was not telling me the truth. Had me sit down. So of course I was very upset. I just went and I was quiet. I didn't say anything. I went home, I told my mother I was so upset.

My mom called the school. And, like, my mother is, like, the stereotype of the, like, very sweet African lady, you know. [laughter] She never-- She doesn't wanna ruffle feathers, but if you came to like her children, she becomes like the mama bear, you know. And so she literally called and was like, "You have no idea where we're from-"

Helga Davis: Mm.

Somi: "-you have no right to take my child's joy, to have her-- to-to try to steal her sense of pride in who she is. You don't know anything about us. How dare you," you know. And even if I didn't get an explicit apology, I remember feeling very protected in that moment. I remember standing next to my mother when she was on the phone going off in her very polite, but to the point, "You don't know who we are." And I think even in that moment when I think back-- you know, I think back and I think it makes me a little emotional.

I think that she must have also been considering all that she sacrificed. "You don't know anything about us." And the idea that she was, of course, probably navigating those things in her own way, in her world, in her life, you know, in her professional career and journey and all of those things, and-and seeing that in my father's experience too, and knowing that here is somebody, a child that you're-- you as an adult, you're going to personally attack her and try to humiliate her.

So I think that outsider thing, and that's also probably the-the beginning of that compartmentalization, right, of saying, "Oh, I'm only sharing things about self." This is like-like feeling like therapy, Helga. [laughter] Anyway. Oh, my, oh my God, that actually makes sense [unintelligible 00:21:30] the beginning- the beginning of that, like, compartmentalize myself, my home life with my public personal circles. And yeah, I had all those questions about well, like, "Who would I have been, especially on the heels of my final year in college when I realized there all these people who I thought were friends were actually racist?" [chuckles] You know?

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: Yeah, endorsing a certain kind of hateful ideology. And, uh, I was like, "Who would I have been had I grown up at home? Who would I have been if I had been like, you know, in the in Uganda, or in Rwanda, or just even in-in-in somewhere like Nairobi, like, still an East African environment?" Um, so, you know, leaning into that and realizing that these are all the questions I think I just spent-- undergrad was about, "Who am I?" and I began to meet other Black people on-on campus. Of course, I-- once I started college, like, suddenly, it was like, my world was starting to open up and open up.

And then I had this-- when I thought I was going to be a medical anthropologist, I-I went-- after college, I went and spent time in Kenya and Tanzania, and so I remember, when I was getting ready to go for that year, just over a year and a-- about a year, year and a half, I remember a mentor saying, you know, "Hope for the best, expect the worst, and take what comes."

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: Which was like amazing advice because then you just surrender. And I just wanted a non-romantic, non-like holiday safari energy. Like I just wanted, like, "What is the reality?"

Helga Davis: [laughs] Did you just say safari?

Somi: [laughs] Yes. You know what I mean? Yeah, like, people [unintelligible 00:23:17] when they just show you like touristy stuff.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: So I just wanted, like, "What is the truth? What is that implicit information that has become explicit to me?" I just wanted to experience it in a- in a certain way, and I chose Kenya and Tanzania because it was close enough to home, close enough to like my huge family just across-- you know, a 45-minute flight away, but also allowed me the space and independence to experience it for myself, discover those things for myself. And I discovered like, "Yeah, I'm actually also American. And-and it's okay to be from both. It's okay to be two, to be bicultural." But in many ways, that trip is when I answered the question of, "Who am I?"

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: And once I could put all of those questions down and feel grounded in-in an East African context, and value who I am in an American context without this longing for like, "What is it to go home?" Once I was able to, like, have peace with those questions, suddenly, it was so apparent that music was where I was supposed to be.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: It was like then I was unburdened by-by those questions.

[music]

Helga Davis: You're listening to Helga. We'll rejoin the conversation in just a moment. Thanks for being here.

[music]

Helga Davis: And now, let's rejoin my conversation with singer-songwriter Somi. I wonder if you would talk about your relationship to your ancestors. So my first music teacher was my piano teacher, um, and she was born in Newport News, Pennsylvania.

Somi: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: Her father was the Black doctor and she wanted to be a doctor and that choice was not available to her.

Somi: Mm.

Helga Davis: But she could play, so she went to Curtis-

Somi: Mm.

Helga Davis: -and then came back to Harlem, as she would say, to teach the Negro children.

Somi: Mm.

Helga Davis: And she was really my first love because when I came into the studio for my first piano lesson, she didn't move from the piano, but somehow I felt it was okay to go close to her.

Somi: Mm.

Helga Davis: And she died when she was 93.

Somi: Mm.

Helga Davis: And for all of those years she was the one constant in my life, even though I was never going to be a great pianist.

Somi: Mm.

Helga Davis: But she was someone who-- and I've spoken about this before, who said to me, "You have something I cannot teach."

Somi: Mm.

Helga Davis: I had no idea what that meant.

Somi: Mm.

Helga Davis: Um, I do now.

Somi: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: [laughs] I didn't know then. And I wanted to ask you-- So when she died, I always thought I would have some feeling that she was here with me and that some door would open and she would be speaking to me secretly, but I've not ever felt that-

Somi: Mm.

Helga Davis: -though I understand her to be a person who made me.

Somi: Mm.

Helga Davis: I miss her every day. And I wonder what-what it means for you to be connected to your ancestors. Who are they? Who-- How do you-- Do you feel them? What's your experience of being in relationship with them?

Somi: Well, um, I mean, my ancestors are people I know and do not know.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: But I would say my experience with ancestral presence-- the most impactful or strong or most present, I would say. One of them's my father. He was the first person that I lost. It was the first death I experienced of-of someone who I loved, but I still feel his presence. I still speak to him. I feel very fortunate when he appears in a dream. Doesn't happen often. I feel very fortunate when, um-- yeah, when I really feel like I can see, feel, hear him, and I try to speak to spirit and ancestors as a part of my meditation practice, at the end of my meditation practice.

Helga Davis: But how did you come into that relationship with your father who's-who's physically gone?

Somi: Mm.

Helga Davis: And was it part of a belief system you grew up with?

Somi: It was not. Like, as I mentioned, I grew up in a Christian home and I-I there's not really a conversation about ancestors inside of that. My father's side, which is my Rwandan side, I don't know so much about if they ever practice traditional beliefs and what they were, but they are also Christian now, not as like actively as my mother's side is, or has been, but they do go to church and they consider themselves Christians, identify as Christians.

So I think it comes from-- I mean, in terms of the conversation with ancestors, I would say is not necessarily a part of that religious upbringing, but I will say that I think this-- an-an introduction to the idea that there's something larger than ourselves, but their spirit, is-is-- was the beginning of that-- I think, my own spiritual kind of point of view. I don't identify as a Christian. I identify as a spiritual-- somebody who believes in spirit, I'll say that.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: I think it was also-- I think coming to the conversation or the relationship I now have with my father and others is realizing that, you know-- and it's like the only thing that I know is true, and this is really what I offer to anybody who loses anyone now. The only thing I know for sure is that the love remains, right? That's the one thing. Like, time heals, love remains, you know? And sometimes I'm like, "Wow, I'm still breaking down."

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: You know? And not that that's a measure of love, but it's a measure of connection to me, proof of-of-of connection, and that the love was a real thing. I just remember really feeling like I could see him in small ways. Sometimes- Sometimes it could be in-- like, a stranger's hand might look like my father's hand, or something in the- in the wind might remind me of a voice.

Just small things, very private things, but very small. And I just began speaking in a way that I felt like I need-- if I-- you know, sometimes I just literally will speak out loud. And so that has sort of, um-- yeah, that's been-- I just-- I fully believe that they're present, and-and also the people I don't know, the people I don't know, but who I'm here because they were here.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: You know?

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: I honor them. I am curious about them. And then there are people I didn't know. I mean like, I didn't know Miriam Makeba, but I feel a very deep connection to her spirit. Even my journey of this larger kind of cultural memory project about Makeba was-- in many ways, it started with when I was grieving my father and I suddenly felt like he was in this place, that he could see everything.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: He could see the challenges of who I was as an artist in New York. Like, okay, you're choosing this very hard path when you have education when you have--

Helga Davis: Paper?

Somi: Well, yeah, when you have options.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: And I remember feeling so exposed, and that I couldn't speak to him. It wasn't like all this time passed. I think it's also this idea of like he didn't just disappear like his whole spirit and heart did-- just like, he's still present, right? But then feeling like I couldn't face him-

Helga Davis: Mm.

Somi: -initially, 'cause I was like, "Oh my God. He's seeing, like, my life is a mess. I'm here in New York. I'm, like, hustling. I don't have money." Like, I just was so stressed, you know, and stressed that he was seeing all these things that at some point in our adult lives, we decide we're not gonna ask our parents, we're gonna figure it out ourselves. But suddenly I felt like he was-- had this omniscient vantage point, you know what I mean?

Helga Davis: Mm.

Somi: And I-I literally felt like I couldn't face him.

Helga Davis: Mm.

Somi: I couldn't speak to him, but I felt like he was watching. The spirit shows up in ways that we don't necessarily understand that it's showing up. And by spirit, I-I mean, ancestors, spiritual energy or presence. So I don't know that I have the answers, I just know that I'm-I'm-I'm--

Helga Davis: Yeah, I just was curious-

Somi: Yeah.

Helga Davis: -to-to understand that connection-

Somi: Yeah.

Helga Davis: -with someone who has that connection. You know, we can't not talk about singing.

Somi: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: And when you started to sing and when-when that became part of the way in which you were going to express all of these things that you've spoken about in this conversation.

Somi: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: Did you have a singing teacher for instance?

Somi: I always say that my first teacher was my mother and my cello. [laughter] Um, my mother is a beautiful voice and song maker. She really inspired a love of song. She's one of those people who just remembers every lyric from every song she has ever heard.

Helga Davis: [laughs]

Somi: I'll just be like-- So she'll, like, you'll say something and she'll burst into song and then be like, "You know that one?"

"No, mom. I don't." [laughter] Um, which is lovely. You know, she's a wonderful keeper of traditional Ugandan folk songs as well as like all this like 50s and 60s pop and she's a lover of opera and just-- she exposed me to this voracious musical appetite that she has.

Helga Davis: And your cello.

Somi: And the cello. I started playing the cello when I was eight. I wanted to play the bass, and like-- it's like somebody came into the-the school and was like, "Here are the four different stringed instruments. Uh, any of you guys wanna play?" And I was like, "Ooh, I like that big one. [laughter] The one with the-the low end." And they were like, "Mm, you're a little too small."

Helga Davis: Mmm.

Somi: I know-- I know small-town Midwest. I know this is what happens. They said, "You're a little too small. You should play the cello to start." Which honestly, if they wanted something that was more-- I think they were thinking I was so more-- much more caught up in the size, you know, and a lot of-- like, it's-- it may have been easier to-to-- I don't know, like there's more of a relationship between the violin and the bass, but I think a child wouldn't have understood that. Like, "You're giving me the tiny one?" Like-- [laughter]

So, but anyway-- Um, but the cello, as many people say, has the same timbre as-as human voice, or closest to the human voice. And I would spend hours in my room playing, like listening to the vibration, like feeling it, of the different notes on the cello, and then try to imitate it.

I learned about vibration and body and like how sound creates these things in our bodies in these different places from the cello, from playing it. And, um, I also learned that one can get lost in sound and music. You can-- and not in a negative way-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: -the-the good way. [laughs]

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: 'Cause I would-- I remember just going in there in the, like, early afternoon and then suddenly it was, like, nighttime and I hadn't come out. I hadn't eaten, I hadn't-- and it's funny, cause I can still be that person now. [laughs]

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: Right? Where you're like, "Wait, I have not eaten. Let me stop," you know? So, yeah. I think I-I would say between my mother and the cello, you know-- I say my mother cause that was like my whole life, and then I didn't really have a voice teacher until I moved to New York. I was not planning on being a singer even though I fantasized about it for most of my childhood. I was obsessed with Julie Andrews. I watched Sound of Music every Sunday. [laughs]

Helga Davis: I'm sorry, I'm gonna stop you right there. The first film I saw-

Somi: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: -at Radio City Music Hall-

Somi: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: -was The Sound of Music.

Somi: Wow.

Helga Davis: And I wept and wept and wept after because I was convinced that I was really Helga von Trapp-

Somi: [laughs] Oh, my God. That's adorable.

Helga Davis: -and that I had been stolen from the-the people-

Somi: Mm-hmm.

Helga Davis: -on the screen and that they were my real family [laughter] and Julie Andrews was my real mother.

Somi: Oh, that is funny.

Helga Davis: And Georg was mean.

Somi: Georg. [laughter]

Helga Davis: But he would let me sing. He would see that I was like-- I was one of the kids and that I would take my place in that line.

Somi: In the line. [laughs] That's hilarious. And also adorable, though.

Helga Davis: Welcome, sister.

Somi: [laughs] Oh, my God. I was obsessed. My-- There's a friend of mine-

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Somi: -she's a vo-- she's an opera singer now, but the two of us would literally every Sunday watch The Sound of Music and sing all the parts and say all the lines. And it was just-- when I think back, I'm like--

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Somi: [laughs] It was like-- it's funny. And those are the moments where you're like, you know, you can't act like you didn't see that coming. You can't act like you didn't see the music or the-- that thing coming, you know, later on in life. But I didn't think it was possible, and I think that was also part of the immigrant-immigrant frame.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: I didn't think-- First of all, I thought I had a voice that was from a different time.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: I didn't feel like I sounded like what was on the radio or what was-- so I was like, "Oh, if I had been born, like, earlier, maybe I would be able to be, like, a singer." You know, when I would hear that other, like a different kind of approach. And I think again, the immigrant frame, just like there was nobody who was an artist in my family and my, like, the community around. I didn't see it.

Um, my parents let me study the cello and I remember my father saying to me, which, you know, as educated and as worldly as he was, I remember him saying, "If you keep practicing, you can, like, be in the symphony in New York while you're in medical school at, uh, [laughs] in-in-- at Columbia or something." And I-- And I reme-- I remember at the time him saying that, but obviously, like, that doesn't happen.

So anyway, [laughter] but I think he-he-- they were interested in making me a well-rounded person, right? They thought the arts will make you well-rounded. Here are things that they didn't get-- have the opportunities to do when they were growing up. So here I am interested in the cello and creative writing. They're like, "Yeah," but I will tell you, in terms of the voice, I had that same teacher, who I talked about earlier about the princess, you know, anti-princess, anti-African princess person. [laughter] She was so against me.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: I had so many experiences in Illinois of some-- there were like three teachers who were actively against my success, who could not deal with the fact that I was standing in my power, the fact that I wasn't afraid, the fact that I had friends, the fact that, like, there was this-- you know, this is maybe the beginning of that hashtag #Blackgirlmagic. I don't know. But like, that thing was-- it was intimidating. That's all I can think about now. And actually, one of them was a Black woman, but I would say that particular teacher, I remember I had won a local-- like a-a local writing contest.

It was about personification was supposed to be like the thing you were supposed to do in your-in your-- in the work. [laughs] It was crazy. It was like, I wrote about a football in a locker room that came to life. Anyway, [laughs] it was so random. Anyway, I won. The bottom line is I won.

Helga Davis: There we go. Okay.

Somi: Yeah. [laughs] And she was like, "Come and read the story be-before class." Now, one of the things I didn't say is that, when I came over to the country-- when I came back to the US and I had this British accent, and I had had this second grade teacher who just-- you know, the ignorance was just there. It was there, and I kind of shied away, and I became afraid of speaking in public because I felt like I was gonna have this barrage of questions. I felt like people didn't always understand my accent. I felt like all of these things.

Now, prior to the US, in Zambia, I was, like, the child performer person. I was in all the musicals, I was-- but then suddenly I came here and I became much smaller-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: -in terms of how I would show up publicly. I was still very much a social butterfly, but if you asked me to be on a stage or just stand up and to speak, I became very afraid of what I was going to receive. And so I still was dealing with that like two, three years into being in the country. I just did not wanna talk publicly. And-and in many ways, I hid behind a cello.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: Like literally that became my access- my access to music, because I just didn't wanna sing anymore in front of people, because it was just always full of, "How are you saying that?" You know? And, um, anyway, and I remember I got up, I started reading, and I was very quiet, you know, "Once upon a time," I don't know, whatever it was, you know, I started reading it and she was like, "Can you speak up louder? Can you-- Laura, can you this? Can you--" And I literally-- Finally, she-- I couldn't- I couldn't speak loud enough. And the more she kind of shouted, the more withdrawn I became.

So finally she said, "Never mind, forget it. We don't wanna listen." Right? Yeah. It was pretty harsh. And I-I developed this severe anxiety of using my voice in public. Like for years, I did not sing in public, I did not do public speeches. I'd be like, "No, not me." For a long time, the choir director at church would be like, "Oh, do you wanna take a solo?" And I'd be like, "No. No, no, no, no, no." But with friends, if I had safe space, I would always be like the performer. You know, I'd always be like, singing whatever. I'm Every Woman, Whitney Houston.

Helga Davis: No. So Long, Farewell.

Somi: "So long, farewell."

Helga Davis: "Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye."

Somi: Exactly. Exactly.

Helga Davis: We know what you sing.

Somi: Yeah, I sang that too. Exactly. [laughter] With all the choreography. Um, and so- [laughs] and so I always think about kind of moving from a place of voicelessness to the idea that my voice sort of has curated my life, right, um, or guides it, or is-- you know what I mean?

Helga Davis: Yeah.

Somi: But it was a-- it was the real work of reclaiming that voice and reclaiming space in this country, because I felt very much silenced, not only in that moment, which was a clear and very violent kind of, "Okay, be quiet. We don't care. We don't wanna hear it," and that was really about her not liking the idea that I had won something, that I was having this moment, right, and that was all rooted in the othering, right?

And so it wasn't until I came to New York I knew I wanted to sing, but I was terrified of it. And, um, I studied with this woman, [unintelligible 00:45:13], what she went by at the time, a Scandinavian woman, and she was talking about a yogic and holistic rediscovery of the voice. And I-- actually, I'd been studying with a person who was teaching classical voice and only wanted me to sing opera, but I knew that's not what I wanted. I was interested in the technique, but I wasn't interested in like, "This is what I'm gonna do."

And so when I saw this other advertisement that was about holistic and your truth and all these other things, I was like, "That's interesting." And I went to see her. And she basically is, in many ways, the beginning of my meditation practice. That began through these teachers that I then began to study with, where they were about centering oneself and reconnecting to those vibrations in different parts of our body and understanding where the sound lives in each of those bodies, in the chakras, in the-- like, in every-- just, there was a-an entirely different approach to what I had been experiencing through the, um, other-- the other, um, classical voice teacher. And my very first lesson with [unintelligible 00:46:20], I wept.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: I literally-- it was an opening, you know?

Helga Davis: Hmm.

Somi: It was this-- it was a breaking open of all of those years of silence, of the-- you know, just seeing myself like realizing this is actually my truth. This is actually-- I've been, like, holding all of this sound inside, you know? And so that became-became my journey with-with voice and studying voice, and I went on to study with this woman, Marie Alfonso, who was an original member of Zap Mama. I don't know if you remember when-

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: -they were still in the acapella group. Beautiful Portuguese, um, woman who taught me so much. She would just give me so much to listen to and then, again, had this very yogic approach and about, "Where is the sound? How do-how do you find it? How does it-- where does it live in your body?" and also that same kind of-- as I said, I had all these yogic principles about centering oneself, the meditation, and I had to do a lot of meditating to get on a stage because of my anxiety. I really had severe anxiety about it, you know? Um, and over time I have been able to let it go.

But it's even funny-- Even now I'm saying-- because it's like, there's still this small voice or this feeling that I-- like, "Am I really, like, totally free of that?" Not entirely. But I think sometimes the vulnerability is-- I-I think vulnerability's always a beautiful thing inside of art, so I hope that it, um, it's still-- I don't-- I won't say, I hope that it still shows up, because of course, I don't like the feeling of anxiety [laughter] when you're trying to perform. But I-I will say that-

[music]

-when-when I don't have that kind of restlessness or those questions, then what am I doing, autopilot? I don't know.

Helga Davis: Mm-hmm.

Somi: I-I think it's just still means-- it means something to me, you know?

Helga Davis: Thank you, Somi.

Somi: Thank you, Helga. Thank you so much.

Helga Davis: Thanks for listening. That was my conversation with Somi. I'm Helga Davis. Join me next week for my conversation with dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones.

Bill T. Jones: I was offering what I thought I had, and I was offering it inappropriately to the very people that I was told to be suspicious of, 'cause they will kill you. Was that the ultimate freedom, to look at your oppressor, to look at the person and-and seduce them?

Helga Davis: To connect with the show text Helga to 70101, and we'll send you a link to our show page with every episode of this and past seasons, transcripts of my conversations, and resources of all the artists, authors, and musicians who have come up in conversation. We'd also love to hear from you, so drop us an email anytime at helga@wnyc.org. If you want to support the show, please leave us a comment and rating on any of your favorite podcast platforms. And as always, thanks for listening. Season 5 of Helga is a co-production of WNYC Studios and the Brown Arts Institute at Brown University.

The show is produced by Alex Ambrose and David Norville with help from Lucy Jones. Our technical director is Alan Goffinski, and our executive producer is Elizabeth Nonemaker. Original music by Meshell Ndegeocello and Jason Moran. Avery Willis Hoffman is our executive producer at the Brown Arts Institute, along with producing director Jessica Wasilewski. WQXR's Chief Content Officer is Ed Yim.

 

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