For GRAMMY-nominated vocalist and songwriter Somi, blooming isn’t about arriving at some perfect version of yourself. It’s about learning how to take root while everything around you keeps changing.
That idea sits at the heart of What Does It Take to Bloom?, her newly released album via Salon Africana — and her first collection of original songs following her acclaimed work as a playwright and Broadway actor.
Recorded across Dakar, Lagos, Paris and New York City, the 13-track project turns geography into something deeply personal. Rather than simply documenting where Somi has travelled, the album asks a more intimate question: where do you belong when the person you were is constantly becoming someone new?
A Sound Built Across Continents
Somi has long operated between worlds.
Her music draws from jazz, soul and African musical traditions while resisting the pressure to fit neatly into one category. On What Does It Take to Bloom?, that freedom becomes even more pronounced.
Co-produced by Somi and Benjamin James of Nigerian highlife duo The Cavemen., the album carries a distinctly global identity without losing its intimacy.
The Lagos-recorded “Sometimes Love”, featuring The Cavemen., brings a warm, groove-driven energy to the project, while “We’re All Falling” confronts mortality with striking vulnerability.
Then there’s “So You Want to Be a Woman”, featuring jazz saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin, which turns its attention to the often-unspoken expectations and burdens attached to womanhood.
Together, the songs reveal an artist increasingly comfortable with leaving the boxes behind.
The Episode: Coming Home to Herself
The album’s journey begins with “Throw Something”, setting the tone for a project that moves between introspection, groove, tradition and emotional release.
From there, What Does It Take to Bloom? unfolds almost like a series of chapters.
“Mama On Blooming” and “Mama On Tradition” bring family, inheritance and cultural memory into the conversation, while “Aiwah,” “Sugar,” “Ngayaya” and “Lay It Down” expand the album’s emotional and sonic palette.
The sequence eventually arrives at “Interlude: Skin To Skin”, before “We’re All Falling” and closing track “Love Could Be Anywhere” bring the project towards a softer sense of possibility.
There is no neat resolution — and that’s part of the point.
What Does It Mean to Bloom?
Somi describes writing the album while travelling through different places and experiencing loss. Instead of treating those experiences as something to overcome and forget, she turns them into material for understanding herself.
That makes What Does It Take to Bloom? particularly resonant in a world where young Africans are constantly negotiating movement, identity, ambition, home and belonging.
For Somi, every album has been an act of place-making. This time, however, the map isn’t Lagos, Harlem, Nigeria or America.
It’s the self.
And perhaps that’s the album’s most powerful invitation: you don’t have to have everything figured out to be growing.
Sometimes blooming simply means choosing where you want to put down roots — and having the courage to keep becoming.
Stream / Download: https://orcd.co/whatdoesittaketobloom
