Sango on Rhythm, Melody and Everything In Between

For more than a decade, Sango has occupied a space between musical worlds. From his early days within the Soulection community to his distinctive fusion of hip-hop, R&B, house, techno and Brazilian baile funk, the Seattle-born, Michigan-raised producer has built a sound rooted as much in curiosity and connection. Long before some of those influences found their way into the wider musical mainstream, Sango was digging deeper, finding the threads between the cultures and sounds that shaped him and bringing them together on his own terms. Now, with his new album RHYTHM & MELODY he finds himself looking both backwards and forwards. He's revisiting the ideas, collaborators and instincts that have defined his career while presenting them with the perspective of an artist who has spent years refining his craft. We caught up with Sango to talk about his musical upbringing, discovering baile funk, the early days of Soulection, SoundCloud and the importance of community and collaboration.

Sango by Abdi Ibrahim @abshoots

NW: Hey Sango! How are you doing?

Sango: I'm good. I'm right here with my wife and we're hanging out. I'm trying to restore myself from the time difference from London. But I'm blessed. I'm happy.

NW: How was the Soulection show?

Sango: Man, it was a long day, but everybody had their moments. It was good seeing everybody perform. Honestly, they could have done two days of that. That would have been amazing - a whole weekend. The production was crazy. But yeah, it was great, to answer your question.

NW: I just wanted to mention that this is kind of a full-circle moment for me, because I think I first discovered you around 2014 or 2015. And then I saw you DJ for the first time in 2017 at KOKO.

Sango: Wow, okay. That's crazy.

NW: I know. It was really cool. At the time, you were still super up-and-coming, and I couldn't understand why you weren't blowing up because it was unlike anything I've heard around that scene - the SoundCloud era, the DJ era at the time. It just wasn't something I was really exposed to. When I started tapping more into DJ culture and trying to find underground music, that's when I heard your music.

Compared with now, especially when it comes to Brazilian funk and baile funk, it's blown up massively. London had a major moment with it maybe two or three summers ago, and I think now you've definitely been getting your flowers because people are asking, 'What artists can I listen to who are already making this music?' Then everyone kind of found out about you, which is great, because obviously I want you to win.

You were making music way before then as well, so compared with when you first started out up until now, what do you think your personal growth has looked like over the years?

Sango: I feel like I've grown more sonically than artistically, really, because my artistic vision hasn't changed. You just need the tools as you grow. My sound has gotten technically better. I know more. Things that would take a week to figure out now take one minute, literally.

Technically, I've gotten a lot better, especially with making an album - knowing the breakdown of it, prepping an album, what to look for, how to cultivate things when you're in album mode, file organisation, and keeping track of your ideas. That can go bad real fast if you're just creating and creating and not looking up or prepping the right way.

Sonically as well, it's about being exposed. I was listening to Da Rocinha 2 and I was like, 'Wow, these songs are so quiet. They're mixed so quietly.' I would definitely want to go back and maybe remaster the album or something like that, just to give it an even better sound. But that's all part of the journey. So yeah, I would say sonically I've grown a lot - night and day, honestly.

NW: So you're Seattle-born, right? I'm curious: what did the city give you musically, and what did the world look like when you were growing up there?

Sango: Yeah, I was born and raised in Seattle, and then I moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan. It's a drive away from Detroit, so it's a Detroit-influenced city. I'm pretty much influenced by Seattle and Detroit culture - West Coast and Midwest culture at the end of the day.

I'm trying to paint a picture because I know the States are so vast, with so many different cities and regions. The two cities shaped my sound. In Seattle, people don't really realise it's a cultural city - heavily East African, heavily Asian American - and the Black American culture is small but niche. People don't know we have people like Jimi Hendrix from there, or that Quincy Jones grew up in Seattle. Ray Charles played a lot of clubs in Seattle early in his career too. I'm talking about old Seattle.

Then Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a gospel hub. We have people like Marvin Sapp and the DeBarges - Chico DeBarge, El DeBarge - soul music. The list goes on when it comes to people from here that people don't know about.

With Grand Rapids and Seattle as my home bases, it allows me to soak up a lot from the world. If I was in L.A. or New York, I might be so L.A.-coded or New York-coded that I would never want to seek more. Sometimes overexposure can make you just like the next person. When you're underexposed, you're curious, and it leaves room for someone like me to dive super deep into other cultures and find out they're similar to things I grew up listening to.

NW: Was there much of an underground DJ scene that you participated in as well?

Sango: Oh, absolutely. Where I'm from in Michigan, it's a techno and ghettotech hub. This is where techno was born. My family is from Chicago too, and Gary, Indiana, and that's the house-and-techno corridor. I grew up listening to house music and techno music as a kid, in skating rinks and all of that.

I feel like I'm a Bronx kid who grew up around hip-hop - to grow up around techno and house your whole life is super important. I wasn't necessarily part of the scene because I was a little too young, but I was still part of it as a listener, as a young person. That was before I even knew how to DJ.

NW: I wanted to talk about your influences, Brazil, baile funk, and Da Rocinha. For a lot of listeners outside Brazil, myself included, you were a gateway into that world and that space. When you first encountered that sound, what was it about the rhythm and energy that grabbed you straight away?

Sango: Like I said before, it reminded me of house and techno music. A few years later, doing my homework, I was like, 'Oh wow, I didn't know these artists making baile funk were directly drawing from Miami bass records.' And Miami bass was influenced by house and electro from New York, Detroit and Chicago. So in a sense, baile funk was born out of that sound, and then they took it and reinvented it.

That draw was just my childhood ear hearing what I've always known. If you listen to older hip-hop songs, a lot of them have beatboxing in them. Baile funk was born through beatboxing and dance records - electro dance records, Miami bass records - and all of that is Black American music. It's one big umbrella. So yeah, it was a natural draw.

I feel like I was lucky enough to catch it early, in a more raw form, because a lot of Brazilians play heavy defence on outsiders. They want to make sure the sound doesn't dilute itself.

NW: How has it been watching this sound travel globally now, knowing that you were one of the tastemakers helping bring it more into Western culture?

Sango: It's been important, because throughout the journey I've been working alongside Brazilians since I started doing it. That's unique. A lot of the time when people stumble upon a genre, they're kind of isolated. When I stumbled upon it, it was still very regional. It had made its way to Europe at one point. Diplo and M.I.A. were among the first non-Brazilian gringos to really touch the sound, but they touched it in a way where they were playing the music as it was.

Whereas me, I wanted to blend it. I wanted to take it and marry it with rap samples, loops, 808s and R&B chords. To see it grow is amazing because now it's taken on a life of its own. I'm just a small speck in the math with that. It took thousands of people to uplift that sound.

That sound is still very important to me today. It's absolutely part of my life forever; it's not just an era. People say, 'I'm obsessed with Brazilian music, I'm in my Brazilian music era,' or, 'I love Japanese jazz, I'm in my Japanese jazz era.' That's not an era for me. It's something I came up with and grew with.

NW: Definitely. You mentioning the way you mash up hip-hop sampling with baile funk makes becoming part of Soulection seem like such a natural evolution of you and your career. You became part of their story super early on as well. What do you remember about first connecting with Joe Kay and the rest of the community?

Sango: It's interesting because I was talking to Joe about it backstage at the Soulection 15-year anniversary show in London. One thing I mentioned to him was, 'Joe, don't ever think you're overlooked for what you created, because that was your idea. You thought of this, the name, what it could be, and you cultivated something online.'

I look back now and we're almost reaching 20 years, two decades of music, and you can see the trends and patterns. I would say we're post-blog era. We went from the blog era to the Tumblr era. During the blog era, it was MySpace. In the Tumblr era, it was SoundCloud. You had remnants of MySpace, but it was mainly Tumblr. Soulection was a Tumblr thing first - purely. Before anything, before SoundCloud, it was a Tumblr thing.

Looking back, Joe Kay, Andre Power and a few other people - I don't want to miscredit anyone - were creating something that was globally visible. People wanted to be part of it because they had similar interests and tastes, but they didn't know how to speak it. Honestly, Soulection was a word people could use like a definition: 'What's this feeling? Oh, it's Soulection.' You could attach yourself to that. It was like, 'That's the word I've been looking for my whole life. That's the emotion.'

NW: You obviously speak so highly of Soulection, and I agree that the name is such a perfect explanation for that feeling. Music is so integral to our lives - it feeds your soul. How important was finding community within that during your rise as an artist?

Sango: I think finding the community - I'll echo what I said earlier - is about having an emotion or being excited to show somebody something and hoping they're just as excited as you are. Sometimes that's not the case. You're like, 'Look at this,' and they're like, 'Oh, it's great. Cool.' With Soulection, it was the opposite. It was mind-blown after mind-blown after mind-blown.

It was like, 'Who are these people? Where are you from? How are we all into the same stuff? You're me, but you're from Ukraine. You're me, but you're Palestinian. You're me, but you're from London. You're me, but you're from L.A.' You're seeing yourself over and over in other people's music, and then we're influencing each other.

I remember Mr. Carmack dropping something, Kaytranada dropping something the next day, and then I dropped something after that. At the time, who cared about actual platform drops? During Soulection's growth, we weren't able to freely upload our music to Apple Music and Spotify. It had to live on Bandcamp and SoundCloud because that was the only way to stream that stuff.

NW: Speaking of blowing people's minds, you've got an enormous catalogue and so much music built up over the years. For a lot of people, some of it feels completely new even though you released it ten years ago. When you played your set at Soulection, did you play a lot of that older catalogue? And did you play anything unreleased as well?

Sango: Absolutely. Some of my favourite stuff to play is older material. I always find myself going back to Da Rocinha 2, and I would also say a lot of my work with Xavier Omär has to be in my sets because that's the origin of my career.

Working with him - he was the first artist I worked with vocally who kind of transcended R&B and hip-hop. It was this new thing. He was like the Soulection singer. If I could put a singer to the sound of Soulection at that time, Xavier Omär was the one. We put that album out with Soulection initially.

NW: With your new album, Rhythm and Melody, do you think this gives listeners and partygoers a fresh perspective on you and your sound?

Sango: Yeah. It's reintroducing people who haven't heard me in this way in a while, and also giving new people an update on what I've been doing and what my sound is. I wanted to create an album that felt like old me - something I always wanted to do but never had the tools to do.

I wanted to get a Big Sean record and then turn around and work with Xavier on the same album, bringing in things that feel like they should have happened years ago, but in my own way now. With Rhythm and Melody, imagine looking through a photo album and taking those photos to make a scrapbook instead - updating it, making it look nice. You can still see the origins of what the sounds are, but it has a nice presentation to it. It's well thought out.

https://youtu.be/sqcmCuVSLDM?si=QOiOpT7AlI7PojdD

NW: I love that you mentioned a scrapbook, because even the album cover feels like junk journaling - collecting little things from different places and sticking them all on a page. It feels like an exploration of all the influences you've had over the years. It's a reintroduction, but also a continuation because you've been doing this for such a long time. Do you have any standout tracks that feel really special to you - either from this album or your whole catalogue?

Sango: I would definitely say a standout record from my career - and it's funny because it's not necessarily my favourite track I've produced, but it defines my career in one song - is 'Middle of Things' with Xavier Omär from North Vol. 2. It came out on Soulection. It's a song I've always played and he always plays. That's like my magnum opus.

On this album, a standout song for me is probably 'Be the Light That You Are.' It's instrumental and sits right in the middle of the album. My grandma named that song because she left a voicemail on my phone saying, 'I just want to get a hold of you, baby. I miss you. You need to be the light that you are. You just shine bright, baby. Keep shining bright.'

I was like, that's amazing, I'm about to name the song that. It's just a beat, but it reminds me why I do things the way I do. It was also the song I chose to announce my album with. It's just beat culture. That's what it is - total beat culture from the album.

NW: I love the tie with your grandma because there seems to be such a family element to your releases. The people around you inspire you; you treat collaborators like family, and you have repeat collaborations. It ties into your whole career with Soulection and the way you mash and mould all your different influences together. I think that's a really nice touch that people will realise the more they delve into your catalogue.

Sango: Yes, that's very true.

NW: With the collaborations, you've got repeat collaborators, but then you also have artists like Boldy James featuring. You're always in tune with what's happening in hip-hop as well. Do you ever discover something about yourself when collaborating with different artists, or returning to the same ones, that inspires you to think in a different way?

Sango: When I make music, one thing I've had to adjust is the phrase, 'Treat people how you want to be treated.' I feel like that's outdated. It should be: treat people how they want to be treated, not how you want to be treated.

With that same sentiment, people say, 'I make music for myself and I just happen to have fans who support me.' I do believe that's true, but I also believe you should make music for your fans. At one point I had no fans, so I made music for myself. Now I have fans, and I have to keep them in mind because there's a story to tell.

This is entertainment as well. To be entertained is to invoke a thought, throw somebody into an imaginative state, get them in a gym or get them dancing. Music is more than, 'Here's my life story. This is about me. This is my self-expression.' That's amazing, but music is about the world. The next person listening to your music might also make music and be super inspired by it.

The reason I keep bringing people back is because I know my fans want to hear that. These are people I've worked with for years, and we grow together. You can look back at what you've done with each person and see the growth. That's very important to me.

NW: How did you and Boldy James end up collaborating?

Having Boldy James on my album for the first time came through people I've always worked with, like Chuck Inglish, because Chuck Inglish and Boldy James are cousins. I had a session in Detroit with Robb Bank$, who's on the album, and it's like a never-ending telephone game with how everybody on my albums is related to one another, literally or through their careers.

I was at an Airbnb having a session with Robb Bank$ in Detroit and Boldy James showed up. Robb and I had been tapped in on SoundCloud forever. If you go back to his old page, I'm one of the few people he followed. He's always supported my music and I've always supported him. Boldy walks into the session and I meet him for the first time, but we don't make anything. Later I circle back and think, 'Man, I need Boldy James on the album.' I have a beat that's perfect for him. I had played it for him at the time, but he just wasn't writing. Then I remembered Chuck Inglish, who I've worked with forever from The Cool Kids, is his direct cousin. So I'm like, 'Can we get Boldy James on the record?' Long story short, Chuck helped make it happen, and now Boldy is on the album.

Those are the kinds of things you love to hear as a fan: 'What? That's how that verse got there?' And then you add Ab-Liva to the song. I've listened to Ab-Liva, Clipse and Re-Up Gang since I skateboarded. I still skate today. Clipse was my background music when I skated at 16 or 17. Having a Philly legend like Ab-Liva on my album is crazy.

Near the finish line, I played the record for Nas in New York. My homie Elliott, who's also my A&R for this album, said, 'You gotta get Ab-Liva on this song.' And I was like, 'Yeah, you're right.' He gets on the record. So every brushstroke is meaningful. It's not just to do it. There's meaning, essence, a tie and a story behind everything I do on this album - and anything I do, for that matter.

NW: For my final question, after all these years, what part of being a DJ or performing still feels like it did at the beginning?

Sango: That's a great question. I would say that first song - figuring out what song you're going to play. Some people start their sets with a different song every time. I tend to spam one song for years as my first song, and then it changes.

Right now it switches sometimes, but I've been starting my sets with 'In My Room' by Frank Ocean, the record I produced for him. Just boom - right in there.

I think that never changes because you want to make a first impression on the crowd, whether they're seeing you for the first time or they've seen you many times. It's like, this is my signature. If you've seen Sango for the past three years, at least once a year, and I play that song, you know that's a signature.

It's like LeBron James about to take a shot, or in football terms, Rio Ferdinand - a legend with a certain touch to his game. That's why it never changes. It's your signature when you hop on stage: that first song.

Listen to RHYTHM & MELODY here!