Moses Sumney is a Ghanaian-American singer-songwriter. His self-recorded EP, ''Mid-City Island'', was released in 2014. He released another five-song EP in 2016, titled ''Lamentations''. His first full-length album, ''
Aromanticism
A person's romantic orientation, also called affectional orientation, is the classification of the sex or gender with which a person experiences romantic attraction towards or is likely to have a romantic relationship with. The term is used a ...
'', was released in September 2017. His second studio album, ''
Græ'', was released in 2020. Sumney has performed as an opening act for
James Blake,
Solange Knowles, and
Sufjan Stevens
Sufjan Stevens ( ; born July 1, 1975) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He has released nine solo studio albums and multiple collaborative albums with other artists. Stevens has received Grammy and Academy Award nom ...
.
Early life
Born in California, Sumney was raised by pastor parents, and moved with his family back to Ghana at the age of 10. He described his childhood as "Americanized" by this age and had difficulty adjusting to the culture of Ghana, especially the rural nature of his new environment. There he grew up on a goat farm in
Accra
Accra (; tw, Nkran; dag, Ankara; gaa, Ga or ''Gaga'') is the capital and largest city of Ghana, located on the southern coast at the Gulf of Guinea, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean. As of 2021 census, the Accra Metropolitan District, , ...
and commuted by public bus to school.
His family returned to Southern California when Sumney was 16, settling in
Riverside.
He did not learn to play any instruments until he was older, writing
a cappella
''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...
music for years instead. Sumney did not perform his musical compositions publicly until he was 20.
After high school, he moved to Los Angeles in 2010 to attend the
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the Californ ...
.
He majored in creative writing and studied poetry, which helped him improve his songwriting.
Musical career
In 2014, Sumney broke into the Los Angeles music scene and caught the eye of many record labels. He said at the time it did not feel right because labels were trying to conform him into a certain image and he was still trying to discover the artist that he wanted to be. He decided to turn down these labels and move to Asheville, North Carolina.
His resistance to labels is reflected in his later album, ''
Græ.''
Sumney's 2014 debut project, ''Mid-City Island'', is a five-song EP that was self-recorded onto a four-track recorder given to him by
TV on the Radio
TV on the Radio (TVOTR) is an American rock band from Brooklyn, New York, formed in 2001. The band consists of Tunde Adebimpe (vocals, loops), David Andrew Sitek (guitars, keyboards, loops), Kyp Malone (vocals, guitars, bass, loops), and ...
's
Dave Sitek. The self-released EP was described by ''
Pitchfork
A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves.
The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to ...
'' as "primarily composed of first-takes and improvisation; the music is stirring but purposefully incomplete". Sumney joined
Terrible Records
Terrible (formerly Terrible Records) is a Los Angeles-based record label and artist management company founded by Chris Taylor and Ethan Silverman in 2009. Originally based in Brooklyn, New York, the label operated as a joint venture imprint o ...
after the release. He considers his songs to be performance based, and that many of his recorded compositions derive from fleshing the songs out through live performance.
He has performed at venues such as the
Hollywood Bowl
The Hollywood Bowl is an amphitheatre in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It was named one of the 10 best live music venues in America by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine in 2018.
The Hollywood Bowl is known for its distin ...
and alongside artists such as
Dirty Projectors
Dirty Projectors is an American indie rock band from Brooklyn, New York, formed in 2002. The band is the project of singer-songwriter David Longstreth, who has served as the band's sole constant member throughout numerous line-up changes. The ...
,
Junip
Junip is a Swedish folk rock band. The band is made up of the duo of José González ( vocals, guitars) and Tobias Winterkorn ( organ, Moog synthesizer) with various accompanying musicians in recordings and in live gigs. Their songs "Far Away" ...
,
St. Vincent
Saint Vincent may refer to:
People Saints
* Vincent of Saragossa (died 304), a.k.a. Vincent the Deacon, deacon and martyr
* Saint Vincenca, 3rd century Roman martyress, whose relics are in Blato, Croatia
* Vincent, Orontius, and Victor (died 305) ...
, and
Local Natives
Local Natives is an American indie rock band based in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. The band consists of Taylor Rice (vocals, guitar), Kelcey Ayer (vocals, keyboards, guitar), Ryan Hahn (guitar, backing vocals), Matt Frazier (drums) and Nik Ewing ( ...
.
Sumney sang on the opening track of
Beck
Beck David Hansen (born Bek David Campbell; July 8, 1970) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He rose to fame in the early 1990s with his experimental and lo-fi style, and became known for creating musical colla ...
's album ''
Song Reader
''Song Reader'' is a book of sheet music by the American alternative music artist Beck released on December 11, 2012. The book includes 20 songs worth of sheet music and more than 100 pages of art. The book's publisher, McSweeney's, also announced ...
.''
On September 30, 2016, Sumney released ''Lamentations'', an EP which featured a guest appearance from
Thundercat.
Sumney's first full-length album, ''
Aromanticism
A person's romantic orientation, also called affectional orientation, is the classification of the sex or gender with which a person experiences romantic attraction towards or is likely to have a romantic relationship with. The term is used a ...
'', was released on September 22, 2017 by
Jagjaguwar
Jagjaguwar is an American independent record label based in Bloomington, Indiana, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Berlin. Jagjaguwar is a label included in Secretly Group, which also include ...
. It received acclaim from ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
'', ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
'', and ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'',
which also named it one of the best albums of 2017. He stumbled across the term "aromantic" when he began writing it back in 2014 and found the term resonated with him. Several songs from the album have been featured in the soundtracks of various television shows. His 2017 single "
Doomed" appeared in the Season 6 finale of Netflix's ''Orange is the New Black'', and appeared again in ''Westworld'', Season 3, Episode 3, "The Absence of Field". His 2017 single "Quarrel" appeared in Netflix’s ''Dear White People''. His 2017 song "Plastic" and his 2020 song "Keeps Me Alive" both appeared in HBO's ''Insecure''.
Sumney played himself in Season 1 episode 4 of HBO's ''Random Acts of Flyness''. He also appeared in the movie Creed and worked on the soundtrack alongside Ludwig Görannson and Tessa Thompson.
Sumney released his second studio album, ''
Græ'', in two parts in 2020. The first part was released on February 21, 2020, and the second part was released on May 15, 2020, accompanied by a physical release of the double album.
In March 2020, he released the self-directed music video "Cut Me". In May 2020, Sumney released "Bless Me" as a single from the second part of his album, ''
Græ''.
In December 2020, Sumney's single "Me in 20 Years" was featured in a special episode of the HBO drama ''Euphoria''. Sumney contributed a cover of the Metallica song "
The Unforgiven" to the charity tribute album ''
The Metallica Blacklist'', released in September 2021.
On December 8, 2021, Sumney released a full-length concert film, ''Blackalachia'', recorded over two days in the Blue Ridge Mountains. An accompanying live album, ''Live from Blackalachia'', was released on December 10.
Awards and honors
In 2018, Moses Sumney's self-directed music video "Quarrel" won a
SXSW Film Festival
South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, T ...
Special Jury Award, and was nominated for a
Camerimage award and UKMVA. In 2020, his self-directed video for "Cut Me" was nominated for a UKMVA for Best Alternative Video - International. Both of his albums have topped the year-end lists of Pitchfork, NPR, New York Times, Stereogum, and more.
Discography
Studio albums
Live albums
Extended plays
Singles
As lead artist
As featured artist
Other charted songs
Guest appearances
Filmography
Awards and nominations
References
External links
Official website ''The New York Times'', October 20, 2014.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sumney, Moses
Living people
1991 births
African-American male singer-songwriters
American people of Ghanaian descent
Jagjaguwar artists
Musicians from San Bernardino, California
Singers from Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles alumni
21st-century African-American male singers
Singer-songwriters from California