World Renowned New York based Ugandan/Rwandan Singer-Songwriter Somi Kakoma releases her live album Holy Room – Live at Alte Oper with Frankfurt Radio Big Band on
Friday, July 24th, 2020.
The release of Holy Room – Live at Alte Oper with Frankfurt Radio Big Band arrives as an homage to the sacredness of cultural space. “Since the pandemic, I’ve been thinking a lot about the intersection of live storytelling, public assembly, and the choice we all have to be an active witness. What does it mean for an African woman to stand on a European stage and shout the stories in her heart? What does it mean for a cultural institution to hold space for those stories to be heard and celebrated?” Somi asks.
Vocalist and writer Somi was born in Illinois to immigrants from Uganda and Rwanda and has built a career of transatlantic storytelling.
Her last studio album, Petite Afrique (Sony/OKeh, 2017), a song cycle about African immigrants in the midst of a gentrified Harlem in New York City, won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Jazz Album. It was also the highly anticipated follow-up to Somi’s widely acclaimed major label debut The Lagos Music Salon (Sony/OKeh, 2014), which was inspired by an 18-month creative sabbatical in Lagos, Nigeria and featured special guests Angelique Kidjo and Common landed at the top of US and international jazz charts. Both albums earned her ECHO Jazz Award nominations for Best International Jazz Vocalist.
Recently becoming a playwright, she was named a 2019 Sundance Theatre Fellow for her original musical about the great South African singer and activist Miriam Makeba that was set to premiere in Spring 2020.
Somi is also a Soros Equality Fellow, USA Doris Duke Fellow, TED Senior Fellow, and has held residencies at Park Avenue Armory, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Baryshnikov Arts Center and UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance. She is also the founder of Salon Africana, a boutique cultural agency that celebrates her fellow African artists. Mentored by the legendary Hugh Masekela, Somi performed with him at Carnegie Hall in celebration of South African democracy. She will return to Carnegie Hall with her own band in Spring 2021 as part of their inaugural Voices of Hope Festival that features a program of artists who use their music to raise awareness around social issues. In her heart of hearts, she is an East African Midwestern girl who loves family, poetry, and freedom.
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