REMI x Sampa - Fire Sign Tour
Poet and singer songwriter Sampa The Great is coming back to Darwin. Off The Leash caught up with the artist ahead of this month’s Fire Sign Tour, which sees her performing with Melbourne hip-hop act REMI.
Interview with Chelsea Heaney.
You were born in Zambia and raised in Botswana, how has your childhood inï¬uenced your music?
Growing up there was so much laughter, so much music, so much traditional stuff that has very much seeped into my music and into who I identify myself as.
You were up here last year for the Darwin Festival, what was that like?
Darwin was really special. We didn’t get to spend a long time there but I am excited to come again. It is very, very beautiful and the heat is something that I am used to!
What is it like working together with REMI?
It is amazing. They’re some of the first people who gave me love and support when I started out. They told me ‘if it’s all too much for you’ or ‘if you need somebody to talk to, we’re here’. I thought that was very special. There is a lot of love and support, something that we want to bring to our shows.
As an up-and-coming young female artist did you ï¬nd the industry welcoming?
I think I was young and didn’t know who I was as an artist. When it comes to being a female it was more about being able to keep my voice and know that it’s valid, without it being deemed emotional – which we all are – or without it being spoken over. I needed to get to the point where I was more confident in my voice, to say yes to what I felt yes was and no to what I felt no was, and feeling like that was valid, regardless of if I was female or not. Getting good advice from other women who have been through it and learning from their experiences is important as well. Sexism is there, especially when you are in a genre that has more males than females. For me, it was more about validating my voice
to myself first and then making that voice known to everybody else, regardless of if they took it seriously or not.
What drives you to write lyrics?
I felt like it is the only way, especially when I was younger and I would stutter a lot, that I could truly get out what I wanted to say. I’d write it down and it would be slowed down. From then, spoken word [poetry] added to that and then writing songs for lyrics brought something else. So that became my output to express myself, when I thought that I couldn’t understand what was going on or I thought I couldn’t see, that was all done with music.
Sat 8 Jul | 8pm | Beachfront Hotel
