Song Exploder - Sudan Archives - Selfish Soul

Episode Date: July 27, 2022

Sudan Archives is a singer, songwriter, producer, and violinist. She grew up in Cincinnati before moving to LA. Her music has been called "viscerally gorgeous" by The Guardian, and "stunning" by Pitchfork, who gave her in ‘Best New Music.’ This year, she’s releasing her second album, and one of the tracks on it is "Selfish Soul." She told me the idea for this song started when she asked her boyfriend, James (who is the rapper Nocando) to shave her head. Cutting off her hair made her reflect on her whole hair story, from experiences she had as a kid, to the cultural and racial issues that have historically surrounded Black women's hair. For more, visit songexploder.net/sudan-archives.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway. This episode contains explicit language. Sudan Archives is a singer, songwriter, producer, and violinist. She grew up in Cincinnati before moving to L.A. Her music has been called Vicerally Gorgeous by The Guardian, and Stunning by Pitchfork, who gave her best new music. This September, she's releasing her second album, and one of the tracks on it is Selfish Soul. She told me the idea for this song started

when she asked her boyfriend James, who's the rapper No Can Do, to shave her head. Cutting off her hair made a reflect on her whole hair story from experiences she had as a kid to the cultural and racial issues that have historically surrounded Blackwood. It's Sudan Archives. So I cut my hair on New Year's Eve

because I kind of feel like the hair holds energy and maybe if I cut my hair off, I can become like this brand new. woman on New Year's. I had these braids in my head, and normally when you have braids, you cut them, and then you unbraid them, and then you take your hair out of it, and you take the extensions out of it. But I am extreme. I just went for it, and I just chopped the braids off right at my head.

And I was just, like, looking at myself, like, oh, my God, I really just did that. And then I remember unbraiding the remaining extensions. and then I was just like, James, help me cut my hair off. And then he just shaved my whole head. I actually liked it a lot. I was like, I'm sexy. I just couldn't go to sleep. So when I can't go to sleep, I just mess around in the studio.

So I just like started with that loop. And I like build the song off of the clap. I really wanted to make something more upbeat that you could like move your waist to. And then after the claps, I just added the bold and then I remember I really liked that and I wanted like a response to that. And a lot of Ethiopian and Sudanese violin traditional music, I'm super inspired by the way they arrange violin and vocals.

It's not about violins being tucked in the back on the bridge. It's about a conversation between violin and vocals usually. I was like, Like, I've never heard that approach before. That's so cool. I was like, maybe I can do that because it's just me and my violin, you know? When I started writing lyrics for the song, I just remember just thinking, like, if I cut my hair, hope I grow it long.

Back long, back time, like away before. If I wear it straight, will they like me more? Like those girls on front covers? And then I remember feeling like it had a reggae vibe. And in that music, their vocals have this reverb delay, like it's kind of. coming back left and right. our hair done. So we had our hair out. It was like huge afros. And I remember that Barbara was like, y'all can just wear y'all hair like that, you know. I remember stuff like that to stuff like

my big sister working at the Marriott. Jobs like that are big deals in Ohio, you know, like corporate. But I remember her coming back from work and her saying, they told me that I can't wear my hair out and I have to wear it straight because it's unprofessional. And I was like, that's so stupid. And I was just thinking, like, them white girls there wearing their hair down, how it comes out of their head. But, like, my big sister, when she wears her hair naturally, they're like, if you do that again, you're going to get fired. It's unprofessional.

And that was, like, my first experience of noticing the racism that goes on with black hair specifically and specifically in corporate America. I feel like our texture is so different and unique. It's like they want to control it because they don't understand it. I don't want no struggles, I don't want no fears. I don't want no struggles, I don't want no, doesn't make sense to you, why I cut it off? The whole hook is about, does it make sense to you?

Why I cut it off? Okay, one time if I grow it long, am I good enough, am I good enough? About time I embrace myself and soul, time I feed myself and soul. I had everything written up until the second verse, and then I was mumbling. Like the flow.

After that, I was looking for like a female engineer because I've never worked with a female engineer specifically for this song. So I met LaFembeer, who's the black female producer, engineer artist. And then she's in the basement and we're basically trying to re-record these selfish soul stems. She added this. 8-0-8 sub-drum, and that really made an ignorant sound in which I was happy about,

because I love her sense of rhythm. She had a jimbae, and I played it. And I remember I was in the studio like, yeah. We even made a vocal booth out of moving blankets and re-recorded some vocal parts. But I kept the first verse in like the background vocals, I kept them all. She was like, that's going to affect the quality of the song, you know. And I was like, exactly, because we don't want nothing to polish. That's how I envision my music, like a huge sound with like really cool textured lofi elements.

But I just wanted to bang. So the second verse is basically like talking about the nervousness you get when you date anyone. Like I met this guy, you know, we're chilling. And right now I have some clip on extensions in my hair. and just getting late, and I think we might go home and stuff together, but I'm scared. I was worried about the clip-ins in my hair coming out, couldn't even catch a vibe.

The lyrics are like, I hope he doesn't know that this weave is getting old. Hope he still loves me if he knows that this weave is getting old, the extension that I had to offer. He said, baby, don't you bother, but when it's gone, just don't act surprised. So when I say, but when it's gone, just so I'm speaking to him. I can tell that he just doesn't really care about what's on my head or not. But I'm basically saying, but you know, when it's gone, though, just don't like surprise. Like, as a joke, I'm going to look different without all this hair if I shave it off.

But that person that I met ended up shaving off my head. So are you talking about James there? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Were you nervous at all to share that part of the song with him? No. I was nervous to share some other parts of the songs on the album because I'm talking shit about him. But this one, I'm just like, you accept me for who I am.

Usually James comes down and I'm like lyrically asking him what he thinks because I'm always open to help, to criticism, to advice, to like anything with anybody that I love. But he was just like, this is just your story, you know, like this is like, this is going to be a special song to little black girls. After this, I was like, I'm feeling like I need a bass. I need like a funky bass, but everything I'm doing, it sounds weird. But basically, Dexter's story, I reached out to him because we both have the same interest and passion in, like, East African music. So we're always, like, sending each other demos, like, can you add something? So he sent me a bass and, like, some really pretty sounds to match with it. I dragged the bass in there, and I was like, this is perfect.

But it's, like, washed out now. Ben Dickey's my manager and basically he helped produce the album with me. We've been working for a while, but this is the first time we're making music together. It was his idea to wash out that bass. And he washed out like my backing vocals. I ended up liking everything he did. I felt like he really understood what I wanted and like it was like no pressure. It was like with Ben, with my engineer that I was working with, with.

my friends that were adding stuff to the record, I just felt like I was a part of, like, a family, and we were all just, like, making a really good meal. About time I embrace myself and soul, time I feed myself is soul. On this song, I was just trying to, like, tell my hair story, and hopefully everybody would be like, yeah, I relate to it in this way,

and not just about hair, but just cutting off toxic people in toxic ways, you know? I remember one of my first jobs at McDonald's, and I started wearing my natural hair. The manager was like, I like your hair better that other way, you know? It's like even the barber and how he basically was like, you know, you don't got to wear your hair like that.

That was like really cute and empowering, but in a way, it's like, yeah, but you don't need to tell me what to do with my hair too. Hair is just so weird for black women. It's always like, like people always want to say they like this, they like that, you can't do this, you can't do that. we kind of like always take that history and make it in our own. You know, it's not like getting perms now is a bad thing. That's like what I'm saying in the song.

Like even if you want to wear your hair straight now, that's not a bad thing. But don't let people decipher what to do with your hair and when you want to wear straight and when you want to wear afro. Like, it's not up to them. It's up to you as a person. And now here's Selfish Soul by Sudan Archives in its entirety. To learn more, visit songexploder.com. You'll find links to stream or download this song, and you can watch the music video.

I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishi Keesher Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists. and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast,

like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabond, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Robe. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzukas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage,

and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, Rishikash.co, or just go to SongExploder.net, slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. Song Exploder and the show's theme music were created by me. I produced this episode with Craig Ely, with artwork by Carlos Lerma, music clearance by Kathleen Smith, and production assistants from Chloe Parker and Nick Song. Song Exploder is a proud member

of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia. fm. You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Rishi Hereway, and you can follow the show at Song Exploder. You can also get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexplloter.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi-Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening.