Driven by Sound, Not Success

Written by: Jennifer Ward

It’s hard to find artists who stay authentic to themselves and don’t conform to the music industry standards. Samori is one of these artists, an upcoming musician looking to break that cycle.

Born and raised in Freeport, New York, Samori is a student at Five Towns College for business and audio engineering. He is also an artist who doesn’t fit into one genre and makes songs that challenge him.
He also doesn’t go by an artist’s name, helping him stay true to himself. “For me personally, I’ve never been into having other people call me an alias, I like to just be myself,” Samori said. “The music I make is just a representation of myself and my experiences.”

Samori got into music at a young age, playing the trumpet in the school band in elementary school, citing his band teacher as one of his inspirations growing up. Since then, Samori got into creating music himself in high school and hasn’t stopped.

Samori had to learn how much goes into making music when he first began. “Originally, I thought it was just you recording into a microphone and you’ll just sound good enough, and you click upload. I thought it was that simple,” said Samori.

Photo by: Tyler Thompson

He began creating in the genre Meme Rap, joking around with his friends and raping over random beats for fun until he decided to get serious.

“You don’t know how much it takes to get something to sound balanced sonically. It’s really hard to make yourself sound good, and it’s really hard to listen to yourself saying things over and over again and trying to keep a non-biased perspective on it because obviously, you’re listening to yourself so you want yourself to sound a certain way,” said Samori. “It took me, and this is kind of embarrassing for me to say, it took me nine years to get to this point. But I feel like it was worth it. I learned a lot about myself, and a lot about music in general and how it has its effects on other people. I think it was a very formative experience.”

Samori released his first song, “Deku Forest” in September of 2020, alongside his friend Gabe, also known as twotonychoppas. After releasing a few songs with twotonychoppas on SoundCloud, “Deku Forest” was their first attempt at making a real song, gaining thousands of streams.

Since then, Samori has been making music true to himself. Getting himself out of the meme rap genre and leaned more towards hip-hop, jazz, drum and bass, and rhythm and blues [R&B] music. When views went down on “Deku Forest” Samori had two options. Make music he wants to, or make music that people tend to lean towards more, choosing the former.

“Don’t take this to heart, this statement might be controversial for some people to hear, but the average listener doesn’t listen to good music. A lot of people, for lack of a better word, be listening to that bulls**t,” said Samori. “I had to get out of that mindset of having to please the average listener and just make something that I’m passionate about and I actually enjoy. Now I’m making music that I like. I feel like that was a necessary transition I needed to go through.”

The writing process for Samori is not as difficult as it tends to be for other artists. Sometimes only needing 15 minutes to write a song, Samori knows what he wants when working on new music. He writes songs focusing on experiences he has had, and whatever he feels he needs to say.

“My process is just I find the beat I like, I’ll have a topic in mind, and I’ll have a notepad out,” said Samori. “I also like to mix a little bit of philosophy in there because I personally enjoy philosophy. It’s a mix of a lot of things.”

Samori released his most recent Extended Play [EP] “MUNDUS” in October of 2024, featuring two songs “I JUST WANNA KNOW” and “IWYTD” [I want you to die]. Both songs are on opposite ends of the spectrum, one being a jazz song and the other more “gritty.” Ironically, Samori wrote both these songs on the same day.

The idea of this came from the Latin term Unus Mundus, meaning “As Above So Below.” Samori tends to make EPs that follow this format of two differing songs on the same album.

“If I have two songs that I really like, I’ll try to find a way to get a little opposite vibe going on, that’s what Mundus is. A really nice smooth jazz song, and then right after it’s just a gritty disgusting very vulgar song,” said Samori. “I really like it personally, and I genuinely think it’s so funny the two songs were made in the same day.”

Samori has had many artists he’s looked to as inspiration over the years, two being the producer Downtime and the artist Swerzie. However, most of his inspiration comes from his friends and the people he makes music with. “I feel like I’ve made some of the best music I’ve ever made in my life just based off of that. I got some cool people around me, we make very cool music. I’ve been listening to my friend’s music and my music more than I’ve been listening to the industry music,” said Samori.

Samori remains proud of the music he and his friends have made, and although he admits his bias, he also leans towards his friend’s music and his being his favorite. “Honestly, it makes me happy, I feel like I’m not wasting my time, I’ve done something meaningful,” said Samori.

Samori has many collaborations he has done in his years releasing music. Although the experience is tough having to “match somebody’s wavelength” while creating music together, he also aims to represent other artists the best he can in collaborations. “My goal when I collaborate with someone, this is going to sound weird to say, I try to make other people sound better than me on my song,” said Samori. His main goal is that one of his listeners will love the artist he’s collaborating with when listening to the song, and go listen to them. Samori said, “When I have other people on my songs, I kind of make it like a showcase about them.”

For future collaborations, Samori hopes to continue to work with his friends, as well as his inspirations such as Swerzie and Downtime. He also hopes to work with other artists he loves such as Jacob Collier, The Marias, Men I Trust and Isaiah Rashad.

On top of his own music, Samori also is part of IXVOLT. Starting as a group with his friend twotonychoppas, the two of them created songs together for three years before bringing other people on. The albums “VOL 1”, released in December of 2023, and “VOL 2”, released in June of 2024, are a mix of collaborations with other artists. Samori shared that “VOL 2” may even be his album of the year.

IXVOLT is a group Samori is very proud of and hopes to continue working with in the future, hinting at a “VOL 3” release coming soon. “It’s going to be more concert-themed, music you’ll want to jump to. It’ll be the hard-core stuff. It’s going to be cool. I think Side A is going to be just as good, if not better than VOL 2.”

In the future, Samori also hopes to just continue making music that makes him happy, and that he can remain proud of. “Creating experiences that I’ll remember when I’m an old fart and I can tell my kids ‘Did you know I used to make music?’ I can show my music and they’ll go ‘No way, grandpa used to be goated,” said Samori.

You can find Samori @suhmoree on Instagram and Samori or Samori Archived on Spotify, Apple Music and SoundCloud.

Link to Samori’s Music

Samori

Driven by Sound, Not Success

Ethan Famodu

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