"I wanted to create a little paradise for Black girls, where everything's okay and nothing is a problem" - Seinabo Sey
On June 4th, Seinabo Sey releases her Sweet Life EP, the perfect soundtrack to your 2021.
The project sees the singer-songwriter craft a new sonic world, one that draws on her new reflective post-pandemic mood. Its central message is one of peace, an ode to nature, self-love, defiance, and ambition. She channelled the mood of old r&b, afrobeats, and the tranquil surroundings of her quarantine on the island of Gotland off the coast of Sweden to make songs that make you "move your body" and "catch a vibe".
Threaded through Sweet Life is a tale of how connected Sey has become to her true self and the world around her. On 'Blue', she sings about accepting her circumstances and gaining a reverence for herself and a slower pace of life as she connects with different surroundings as she sings: "Treetops over these white rocks tell me go slow baby, slow/ real life tells me to stand up I be like no, baby, no". 'Rom-Com' sees her recounts a love story she’s been too scared to dive into ("I'm all yours to take but I’m scared to come your way"). Meanwhile, 'I’m Just Mad (Bitch)' is a defiant anthem where the singer stays strong in the face of a break up declaring “hell no that bitch won’t see me cry”. And finally, 'Sweet Dreams' is an ode to her pandemic state of mind, reflective and focused on achieving her goals amid the chaos happening elsewhere. Sey declares she’s: “got what I need rum beats and weed keys if u play”.
Sharpening her curatorial eye, Sey assembled a team of confidants to bunker with as they experimented with sound. "When I listen to these songs what I hear is friendship, and a group of young people at the beginning of their careers really giving their all to be true to themselves," she explains. The bold cover art is the name of the EP braided into her hair by one of her childhood friends. Meanwhile, she entrusted one of her other best friends Isak Alverus to write four demos for the EP, which is a swift departure from her other projects where she has mostly penned the songs.
Sweet Life is written by Seinabo Sey, Isak Alverus, Carli, Emmanuel Hailemariam, Rasmus Lindelöw, Hannes Jonsson, Marcus White and Kendra Egerbladh.