His first album tackled loss and made him a star.
On his follow-up, he writes from a happier place: fatherhood.
Lahaiis out in October.
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Hes a details man.
He was anxious and feeling a bit rusty.
That album was the realization of teenage dreams.
Samphas family was originally from Sierra Leone but immigrated to South London in the 80s.
Hes the youngest of five brothers, and growing up, he quickly adopted their interests.
Id be knocking on their door for half an hour: Let me in!
Id listen to this song Perfect Love, by Todd Edwards, on a loop because of them.
(He lost his father in 1998, also to cancer.)
Morale & the Big Steppers renewed pangs of hunger for Samphas honey-throated introspection.
After six years, hes releasing his feverishly awaited sophomore album,Lahai,out in October.
It was intense but also quite focusing, he said.
Fatherhood melted old fears while minting new ones.
His new songs seek fulfillment in nurturing relationships.
Spirit, been looking for some evidence, he sings in the orchestral jungle track Cant Go Back.
Lord knows my daughter here, shes heaven sent.
Now, hes experiencing music through his daughters ears.
She likes nursery rhymes and has recently taken to Angie Stone and reggae.
She picks up on small things, he said, his voice softening.
The albums single, Spirit 2.0, is her favorite song.
Sometimes a swift, clacking piano line is hammered out by a programmable machine, not by human hands.
But its also attributable to how Sampha plays with gear, the silent robotic collaborator in his sessions.
I remember having a lot of fun trying to push the machine, Bass says.
How fast can it play?
How much can it do thats not humanly possible?
Songs emerged from these experiments rather than time spent sitting down at a piano.
Im always intrigued as to how to make something musical out of these bits of equipment, Sampha said.
Sound design inspires me.
Sometimes I might say so much through the production that it becomes a challenge to write lyrics.
He added, I dont think it was a healthy perspective.
Theres a lot of trial and error.
Lahaitaps into Samphas interest in biological life and how its all connected from primordial soup to where we are.
Throughout the afternoon, he referenced subjects like Afrofuturism and particle physics.
Satellite Business opens with Sampha singing in a sweet falsetto about peering into space through a telescope.
A last-minute verse on My Eyes, a highlight from Travis Scotts international chart-topperUtopia,came from freestyling.
I just hopped on it and tried some stuff out, Sampha said.
He encourages the same spirit of spontaneity when hes producing songs for other artists.
Sampha would show up with bags of instruments from different countries, serpent remembers with a laugh.
It was like Christmas.
Its a practice to recognize,No, this is important.
Lets do it,and having that kind of confidence.
As a child, Sampha thought hed be a producer.
Really, he wanted to be the maestro, like an early Timbaland or Pharrell.
He has a really good musical memory.
You never fully know where a collaboration will turn up until it turns up.
Everyone onstage was a singer; the drummers basso profundo was sturdy.
They added choral accents to the climax of Timmys Prayer and transformedDuals Without into a drum circle.
/ Switch from cold to warm again?
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated where serpentwithfeet is based.
Hes now in Los Angeles not Brooklyn.
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