After the breakthrough single ‘I run’ from 2017, Salomé Dos Santos (27), akaBlu Samu, moved from Antwerp to Brussels, precisely because she resonated withthe open, limitless mindset of the capital. “I never wanted to put myself andmy music in a box,” she says on the terrace of the Monk, one of her favoritecafes when she worked across the street at pizzeria Nona and fully enjoyed thebustling city life.
At the beginning of her career, the singer was constantly told: but who is BluSamu and what genre does she perform? “I thought that was a useless question.People wanted me to believe that I had to choose between genres, but I neveragreed. Blu Samu is Salomé Dos Santos and what’s going on with her when shemakes her music. I create all my EPs from the awareness, the authenticity andthe tools I have at that moment in my life. So don’t expect me to tell you nowwhat Blu Samu will be in the future. Brussels matched so much better withthat attitude than Antwerp.”
MIX OF STYLES Her first EP was called moka , after the pet name her Portuguese grandmothergave her because her daddy is African and her mom is Portuguese. The recordmade it immediately clear in 2018 that music is her therapy. her second ep,ctrl-alt-del (2019), was created in Brussels when her career took off underthe wings of hip-hop crew Le 77. In the midst of the energy that city lifegave her, some ancient demons were tamed. on the new ep 7 she comes closerto herself again. A mix of styles with fado and Cape Verdean influences alsopushes the familiar hip-hop sound into the background. For this she likes toput a feather in the hat of her French producer Sam Tiba. “My Parisianmanagement put me in touch with him and there was an immediate click. We likedthe same things – anime, melancholic beats… – and he didn’t push me to makeanother hip-hop record.”
Tiba pulled her out of her lockdown bubble, which she had filled with> chilling, gaming and skating, “all things I did when I was 16 if I wanted to> escape reality.” Her producer not only helped to lift her writing block, he> also made sure that the mix of traditional and electronic styles never> sounds forced. “He also told me that no one overnight that it always takes> at least ten years of preparation, and often also an underlying struggle.> I’m attracted to that. I realize now even better than before that without> the dark moments and setbacks I would not have stood so firmly in my shoes.”
ASSERTIVITY TRAINING The difficulties she experienced in her youth and her first, reluctant stepsin the music world, turned out to have been a good learning experience andassertiveness training. “Record labels are obsolete. Sometimes I get thefeeling that they are still trying to sell their music the same way they didin Elvis Presley’s time. But every growth process is different. Take all thosedeadlines now. You can’t order an artist to have a single ready within twomonths. That detracts from the creation process. As a young artist you stillthink that people in the industry know better, because they have studied forit. But once you realize that that’s exactly why they try to put everyone inthe same mold, it comes down to finding your way back to yourself and takingthe things you can do better into your own hands again.” In her case, forexample, it was specifically about her striking video clips, of which sheagain took over the direction.
Also on a personal level, Dos Santos made a clean sweep by returning toAntwerp during the pandemic. “I was very well surrounded in Brussels, but Istill felt alone. It looked good from the outside. Inside I realized thatsomething wasn’t right.” And so she returned to the house where she oncewalked (see first single ‘I Run’). “That felt strange, but at the same time itwas liberating to go back to sleep in my childhood room in my single bed,among all my old stuff.”
DIALOGUE WITH YOURSELF When she lived in Antwerp for two months, she learned of the death of herfather, with whom she had little contact. “I cried the first day. I lockedmyself in my room and started writing down everything I wanted to say to him.I hadn’t seen him for a long time, although he wanted to, but I didn’t want tomake me feel guilty either. My daddy wouldn’t have been happy about that and Iwould have just eaten myself.” The result of the grieving process can be heardin the homage ‘Pai’, which she sings in softer Portuguese. “With music we telleach other things that we don’t say out loud, but that we are thinking orfeeling. If you enter into an honest dialogue with yourself in your music, itautomatically becomes therapy.”
She recently experienced this after a short stay in the French countryside,which was intended to work on new songs in isolation in nature. But beingalone brought out so much in her that it didn’t come out until she got backhome. It turned things around.
“As a starting artist I wrote slam poetry. It wasn’t until I started> working more with Le 77 that I started writing in sixteen bars and choruses,> as is usual in hip-hop. Then everyone started calling me a rapper or hip-hop> artist. Without really being aware of it, I put myself in that straitjacket> for a while. After my trip to France I started to compose differently. I> wrote down a first sentence – “Why do I feel so sad about meeting people?” –> which I thought about for a while before writing a second sentence – “Why is> it so important for me to be a strong independent person?” That is how the> new track has built up organically.”
VULNERABLE AND AMBITIOUS The song about the social pressure to always stand up for yourself (and notneed anyone) is a foretaste of what we can expect in the future. “In wantingto be strong and independent, I have long pushed aside my vulnerable side andmy need to have someone by my side. But what if you see an emancipated Beyoncéin her music videos constantly beating cars when confronted by her boyfriend’scheating.” That tough attitude is over 7 already somewhat shaved off andpromises to be pushed even more to the background on her first full-lengthlong player, planned for 2023.
© Ivan Put
Before her breakthrough, an ambitious Dos Santos told us about five years agothat she would like to collaborate on that first real album with top namessuch as Kaytranada, Flying Lotus and a handful of jazz musicians. Now herdreamcast leans more towards Thundercat, Ashley Henry and preferably also someCape Verdean musicians from Cesária Évora’s entourage. “More concrete (laughs ) my producer is staying on board and I am collaborating with JosephSchiano di Lombo, a classical pianist from Paris. Then we look for othermusicians. Apart from that, my message has to be clear on that first album.The challenge is to explain why I am who I am and love the way I love.”
BOOM PATAT France is also looking forward to that debut. “Here my relaunch seems to beslowing down a bit in the wake of the pandemic, but in France it is boomfries. At the end of August I was on Rock en Seine, coincidentally just atthe same time as Stromae. I was like this proud that about 400 festival-goers did not go to see him. I wouldn’t have known myself if I would have donethe same in their place. ( laughs ) So congratulations to the French fans.”