What does it take to bloom?
For GRAMMY-nominated vocalist-songwriter Somi, the answer is not found in one place, one moment or one version of herself.
It is found in the journey.
With the release of her highly anticipated new album, What Does It Take to Bloom?, Somi turns inward. Her latest collection explores what it means to remain faithful to yourself while life keeps changing around you.
Released via her label Salon Africana, the album is her first collection of original songs since her award-winning work as a playwright and Broadway actor.
And this time, the map is deeply personal.
A journey across cities — and into the self
Co-produced by Somi and Benjamin James of Nigerian highlife duo The Cavemen, What Does It Take to Bloom? was written and recorded across Dakar, Lagos, Paris and New York City.
Those cities bring different cultural textures to the project. Yet the album ultimately travels somewhere much closer to home: the self.
Somi describes her music as an ongoing act of place-making. Her catalogue has explored migration, memory, Africa and America, with work rooted in Nigeria, Harlem and the spirit and political inheritance of Miriam Makeba.
On this album, however, the destination changes.
The focus is no longer a city, a country or a collective memory.
It is the self.
The result is an intimate meditation on uncertainty and change. It asks a deceptively simple question: do we recognise growth while it is happening, or only after we have already become someone new?
Music shaped by loss, movement and becoming
The album grew from a period of movement and personal reflection.
In her mission statement for the project, Somi writes about creating the body of work while travelling through many places and losing many people.
That sense of searching runs through the album.
Rather than presenting transformation as something neat or finished, What Does It Take to Bloom? embraces the uncertainty that comes with becoming.
It is about finding where to take root when life refuses to stand still.
Somi hopes the songs can offer listeners a sense of home — or, at the very least, allow them to witness her own journey towards coming home to herself.
Three singles opened the door
Before the full album arrived, Somi introduced listeners to its world through three singles.
“We’re All Falling” confronts mortality with striking clarity, becoming one of the project’s most affecting songs.
Then comes “Sometimes Love”, featuring The Cavemen, a groove-heavy love song recorded in Lagos. Its sound carries the heat and energy of the city where it was made.
The third single, “So You Want to Be a Woman”, featuring acclaimed saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin, takes on the unspoken expectations and burdens placed upon women.
Together, the three songs offered different windows into Somi’s introspection.
The full album now opens those windows wider.
A sound that refuses to fit inside a box
Somi has spent years within the global jazz scene while also existing slightly outside its boundaries.
That position has allowed her to resist easy categorisation.
Her sound draws from jazz, soul and her African heritage, creating a musical identity that moves comfortably between worlds without needing to belong entirely to one.
On What Does It Take to Bloom?, that freedom becomes even more apparent.
Somi takes greater vocal risks. She trusts her instincts more deeply. And she moves away from the pressure to fit neatly into an artistic category.
That refusal to be boxed in becomes part of the album’s central idea.
Blooming, in this case, means allowing yourself to become.
An album about belonging
At its heart, What Does It Take to Bloom? is about belonging.
But Somi does not treat belonging as a destination with a clear finish line.
Instead, the album explores wholeness as something that is continually being shaped.
Life brings experiences beyond our control. Womanhood carries its own embodied realities. Loss changes us. Movement changes us. Love changes us.
And somewhere within all of that, there is the ongoing work of discovering who we are.
Somi invites listeners into that process rather than pretending she has already arrived at the answer.
That may be what makes the album’s central question so powerful.
What does it take to bloom?
Perhaps it takes the courage to stop forcing yourself into places you have outgrown.
Perhaps it takes trusting your own voice.
Or perhaps, as Somi’s music suggests, blooming is simply the act of continuing to search for home until you realise you have begun building it within yourself.
The full tracklist
What Does It Take to Bloom? features 13 tracks:
- Throw Something
- Sometimes Love (feat. The Cavemen)
- What Does It Take to Bloom?
- Mama On Blooming
- So You Want to Be a Woman (feat. Lakecia Benjamin)
- Aiwah
- Sugar
- Mama On Tradition
- Ngayaya
- Lay It Down
- Interlude: Skin To Skin
- We’re All Falling
- Love Could Be Anywhere
From its dynamic opening track, “Throw Something,” to its closing song, “Love Could Be Anywhere,” the album traces an emotional journey through change, uncertainty, identity and connection.
It is a journey that does not promise easy answers.
Instead, Somi offers something perhaps more meaningful: a chance to listen, reflect and recognise pieces of ourselves along the way.
As The New York Times has described her, Somi brings together African grooves, supple jazz singing and a compassionate social consciousness.
On What Does It Take to Bloom?, those qualities meet a deeply personal search.
And perhaps the most beautiful part of that search is that it is still unfolding.
