motel void

Sagə is a rising artist based in the southeastern United States. As a self-taught composer, jazz pianist, and multi-instrumentalist, he crafts a unique blend of classic jazz and neo-soul with modern bedroom production techniques. His music is characterized by rich layering, lush harmonies, and soulful vocals that tell stories of love, loss, and personal growth.

MOTEL VOID: As a self-taught composer and multi-instrumentalist, what has your journey been like in learning and mastering various instruments and styles? What initially drew you to jazz and neo-soul?

SAGƏ: I started Piano lessons young, around 7, but dropped them after a few years until I was 15. I played occasionally in that time – getting short bursts to go back and try what I would come to learn as improvisation – but would drop it again from my whole framework’s roots in classical music.

My dad always played Jazz and neo soul for me growing up, usual suspects like Miles, D’angelo, Erykah Badu, Jill Scot and the like, but also intertwined with every type of music you can think of on CDs that’d he’d burn himself – things like Jamiroquai, the Strokes, Jay-Z, Bob Marely, Oliver Nelson, Lots of world artists with one of a kind singles, and Hotel Costes.

In these younger years the jazz would be my favorite for its expansiveness in meaning – I would tell him stories about fantasy worlds to songs Stolen Moments. When I was 15, I saw the anime Your lie in April where the main character imitates that same process in a classical recital – instantly I went back to the piano. I realized this love had continuously made its home in my life. I didn’t want to start with classical again, so I used YouTube to begin researching music theory and never looked back. This coincided perfectly with a move with my dad to Austin, Texas later that year, where I serendipitously ended up going to a high quality fine arts school and joining their Piano Program. I kept deepening my knowledge and adding instruments over the years to keep pushing my vocabulary – melodica to learn melodies, now guitar to learn better expression. And my favorite way to internalize a new concept has been searching for and playing with my favorite recordings in that expression.

MOTEL VOID: Which artists and musical styles have had the most significant impact on your sound?

SAGƏ: My roots are eternally in jazz, with Miles Davis, Ryo Fukui, and Ahmad Jamal being the people who I consider enlightening me on the nuances of my expression. Then Erykah Badu, for helping choose my cadence. Roy Ayers is a huge one for letting go of boundaries in my improvisation and phrasing. On the technical side, Latin music is the first that comes to mind, artists like Natalia Lafourcade and Rita Payes. I also love punk and rock as a whole, Japanese grunge inspires my love for manga, and UK punk and grunge helped nurture my ear for distortion and grit. Rap and house developed my love for rhythm and harmonies respectively, with too many subgenres and offshoots to name, and experimental and electronica in R&B is what’s allowed me to view all of this as cohabitable with artists like Homeshake, Men I trust, and Mndsgn.

I love and place a deep importance in finding new music however, and these labels and artists are emblems of deep traditions that deserve more than a simple shout-out. That’s also not mentioning the deep pockets of regional music whose roots I’m less familiar with, artists like Teta Lando aiding with inherited syncopations.

MOTEL VOID: You’re from Atlanta, Georgia, how would you describe the current music scene there? Do you have any favorite local artists and venues?

SAGƏ: The Atlanta music scene is pulsating and vibrant with lots of the best musicians in the East vying for a big enough wave to call themselves the next “New sound” from Atlanta – with the title itself being a cosign to any artistic expressions. I have met more people actively pursuing their craft there than anywhere, and in line with the greater realities from capital based narratives, the vector’s of growth don’t always relate directly to the expression in question – high-quality production and effective promotion can significantly boost an artist’s visibility. With the sheer amount of artists though, there are shining examples of taking an established style as a medium and refining it with one’s voice – I’m a big fan of CaliBuckey and BunnieJack as rappers, and Reverence, both the band and the space, is the highest concentration of world class jazz musicians i’ve ever met.

MOTEL VOID: You’ve just released a new single Up2long. Will it be part of your new album? What was the writing and recording process behind it?

SAGƏ: Up2long will be part of an upcoming EP I believe, sometime before the end of the year. I search for ways to remove the barriers to authentic expression – as improvisation allows for endless creation that’s only good when I have nothing else to think about. I let my long time lover pass out of reach, which was heavy and hard to swallow for a long time. This song was inspired by the desire to express myself authentically and connect with someone I deeply cared about – She would sleep earlier than me and that was always a playful point of tension in our relationship. This song is asking for her ear one more time, promising not to keep her up too long.

MOTEL VOID: Do you plan any live shows?

SAGƏ: I do plan live shows, seemingly for next year. Marrying my live instrumentation with my sweeping stories has been a puzzle to solve for quite a while, however as I build a larger catalog of songs that really wrench my own soul, the idea of simply singing my heart out on stage is a much easier pill to digest. In trying to break the idea of style and genres as a descriptor, I want to be thoughtful about the audience experience of that break in their previous immersion.