Magnolia Swords: Samara Cyn Interviewed
Samara Cyn is making a concerted attempt to recontextualize rap music. The Los Angeles via Murfreesboro, TN native’s sound is so cathartic it daydreams in ‘The Score’ and ‘Food & Liquor’, favoring authenticity to create a catalyst for healing and coping that is more alert, more complex, and more attuned to messy feelings and being “a cold piece of work”. Her odes to neo-soul differ from the summertime S&M of ‘Hood Hottest Princess’ and ‘Sugar Honey Iced Tea’ because just like her peers, Cyn’s busy running fades with one-off loosies (‘Moving Day’, ‘Magnolia Rain’) that tap into the hidden dimensions of imagery, interpolate ‘Supa Dupa Fly’, and skate around pockets with ease. Her debut project, ‘The Drive Home’, is an extension of her boundless versatility but it is also an essay on the ABC’s of self-care and why freedom is a valuable commodity in hip-hop.
For a 10-track EP, ‘The Drive Home’ is dangerously accessible – mostly because the 26-year-old is as confident as a Jill Scott record. ‘Sinner’ name drops Harbor Freight and “serves face” over Ronson pop ideals because “lil bitch, we mobbin’”. ‘Chrome’ meditates on space whips, sliding on a D’Mile loop that blends ‘telefone’ and ‘CARE FOR ME’. ‘Rolling Stone’ clips insecurities with a rose-colored nod to ‘Innanetape’ and Cyn’s Poetic Soul days while ‘100sqft’ finds her threading heartache like a ‘House Of Balloons’ demo — airing out past wrongs, a desire for affection, and feeling adrift amidst the distortion: “Wasn’t like this ‘fore I’d known you / Maybe I ain’t fall in love, I just tripped and fell up on you”. Even when she’s retracing her deepest anxieties about love, Cyn is audibling cadences, creating liminal spaces for flows, and floating through an appreciation of ‘50s and ‘60s jazz structures to selectively blur limitations and use rap as a form of escapism.
With co-signs from Nas, Doja Cat, Rapsody, and Alicia Keys, we caught up with Samara Cyn to go into detail about ‘The Drive Home’, her obsessions with Erykah Badu and Tyler, The Creator, her upcoming ‘Kountry Kousins’ tour with Smino, and why it’s important to be true to yourself.
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In a recent tweet, Doechii addressed the growing importance of hip-hop — noting it has always been deep, complex, and soulful, and that communities ‘use hip-hop to evolve’. How has the genre influenced your own personal evolution in the last two years?
I feel like for a lot of people who get into hip-hop, it’s because they were raised listening to the genre. Hip-hop comes with a culture behind it and just like Doechii said, it’s soulful, it’s real, it’s raw. Hip-hop teaches you how to dress – it teaches you code and morals and stuff like that, and going into my past two years of releasing music, I really wanted to pull from the fact that it’s raw and authentic. All of my messages are about being authentic and they are more of a reminder for myself, you know what I’m saying? It’s definitely pulled from all of the unique styles that are under the umbrella of hip-hop – like how can you forge a way that’s unique but is still raw and still has code and makes you dress nice, but is authentic to you.
I don’t know… it’s just a natural part of cadence and the way that I create. I don’t think I have ever been like, “I’m going to be super hip-hop this year”. It’s a third parent for me; it was literally a part of how I was raised and what I was inspired by growing up.
Was music your first passion project?
Yeah, actually. Honestly, I used to be really sad before I had music. Because I didn’t start making music until I was a sophomore in college and I really struggled with feeling purposeless for a lot of my early college years and especially high school. Like I didn’t have a knack for anything. I had hobbies but they weren’t things I was really passionate about. I just did a lot of separate things. I played a lot of different sports. I really struggled with feeling like “why am I here” – I work and I go to school, and it’s like are these the only things I’m supposed to be doing? When I started making music, it was the first time that I really felt free doing something. Like I could never be bored.
I never felt purposeless after that and even though I didn’t initially recognize that music ‘was my purpose’, it was like “Oh, I have something to do now”. It felt productive and I was feeling better getting my feelings out after making music so I had never felt that before – not with painting or roller skating. I tried so many different hobbies [laughs]. Even going to bible study… I tried religion. It was definitely music that was the first thing to make me go “Oh snap, I really enjoy doing this and I can fill all of my time doing this and I won’t get tired of it”.
Being someone who grew up as a military kid and wasn’t given time to become attached to a specific culture or vibe, how long did it take you to create your own identity?
Oh my gosh… eight or nine years [laughs]. It took a long time. Definitely all of high school, which is normal as I feel like a lot of people in high school are trying to find their vibe, and then college was the first time it was less structured and me figuring out independently what it is that I like to get into, which crowds do I like to be a part of. You have different cliques and clubs and so you’re trying to find where you mesh well and what feels the most authentic, and that’s like a really difficult process for some people. For me it was really difficult because I feel like when you’re not doing something that feels natural but you don’t really know who you are yet, you feel bad in your body – do you know what I’m saying? Because it’s like “I thought this was my thing but I don’t feel good here, I don’t feel good at this event or I don’t feel good around these people” and it’s hard to recognize that’s authentically what I don’t want to be a part of or what I want to be about.
Moving around as a child, I jumped to and from different areas that were predominantly black to hispanic, Hawaiian, and Asian-cultured, and even predominantly white. As one that doesn’t really have an identity yet, it can be really easy for survival purposes to assimilate. My parents used to tell stories of me going to my first day of second grade in El Paso, Texas, as I came home with a whole accent and they’re like, “Which child did I just get back?”. Even though my household was always consistent, my family was born and raised in Tennessee and I was born in Tennessee, so we have always had southern accents and southern culture and food in the house. But just as your parents raise you, your own environment raises you. The music you listen to raises you and your friends help raise you, and when you have so many different cultures raising you, it can be easy to get lost in the sauce and when you finally become independent and you are on your own, you have to rekindle what feels natural to you. That’s why it took me such a fucking long time to feel comfortable in my body and about who I am.
Were you ever worried that you wouldn’t be able to find your voice?
Absolutely. Do you know what highlighted that for me? It was music. When I first started creating music, it really, really helped me navigate that feeling and pinpoint that feeling of “This is why this feels bad”. Because even now when I’m in the studio – if I don’t feel good that day or if I don’t feel comfortable that day, even if the record comes out amazing, I won’t like the record. And it’s the same thing when you’re trying to navigate these spaces, like I don’t feel good while in this and so I don’t feel good about the situation. Even looking back on college and high school and while I did have some great times, I don’t have fond memories because I felt shitty the whole way through it.
Music really highlighted that. When I first started off, I was making very ‘rah-rah music’ which is what I thought it was supposed to be based on what my friends were consuming and what I was doing – which was college shit. I was partying and hanging out and drinking, and all that type of stuff, and it didn’t feel like good music. It took me a while to find my true voice and my delivery and even how I approach songs. Because at the same time I’m navigating college and how I feel as a person so for me, it was a lot of “this doesn’t feel good”, “that doesn’t sound like me” and “that outfit… that doesn’t look like me, that’s not my vibe”.
There were times, especially being confronted with music, where identity is such an important thing. I think it’s changing as a lot of people are genre-bending and have stories like ours where they’ve moved around a lot and it’s not just “I’m Atlanta all the way” or “I’m New York all the way” and this is my whole personality, and it’s because I’m from this place and do all these things and sound like this. It’s changing a lot more, but trying to be a serious music artist was the first time where I had to ask myself “Okay dude, what is your style? What’s your identity?”. You didn’t know anything about me from listening to my earlier music and there were definitely times where I was like “I don’t know who I am”. You’re talking to people and you’re trying to convey what your music is and what your style is about, and you can’t do that when you don’t fucking know [laughs].
Do you think you have found your vibe and your style?
Absolutely! I feel like I’m still finding my style, fashion-wise. But my music feels authentic to me now and that’s why I make such a big point about it at my shows and to my friends. People can feel when you’re not being sincere and when you’re not being raw, and I think that’s why music kind of feels the way it does right now. So now, if I feel like something came out and it wasn’t me, I’m able to pinpoint it and acknowledge that “this doesn’t really feel like me” or “I put that outfit on and I tried to do something that was like this, but… I didn’t feel good in that”. I feel like my radar is better now; it’s more sound. I’m able to communicate better and understand these are the things that I want and these are things that I’m not a part of or down to do. I definitely feel like I’ve found my stride in the past two years and I’ve gotten more confident while standing in it, you know?
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Because of your style, would you consider yourself a rapper or a neo-soul artist?
Both. I would say both. My style jumps a lot but I feel like at the base of it, it’s rap music. More so alternative rap is at the base of everything that I do and the neo-soul flavor and indie pop flavors and other alternative flavors come in on top of it.
When did you first fall in love with the neo-soul genre and the concept of writing songs that explore love, relationships, and social consciousness?
It was the first time I heard ‘Mama’s Gun’, which is Erykah Badu’s album. That was the first time I fell in love with neo-soul, and then after that, I became like obsessed with Erykah Badu [laughs]. I loved her but specifically the ‘Mama’s Gun’ album really resonated with me for some reason. It was about authenticity and love and shit like that. With indie pop and other genres, that naturally came out of me in the studio and that just ties back to my childhood as I was raised in different places and there’s just a lot of influence that happens there. Like I listen to all types of music.
Even thinking back, with my dad I listened to a certain type of music and with my mom, I listened to a different type of music. My dad was more old school hip-hop, R&B, and those types of vibes and my mom was into Coldplay, The Fray, and The Script. She had more of an alternative, soft rock-type of situation going on – and I love that music too, like Florence And The Machine, all that type of stuff – so I think naturally, again, it was what I was listening to growing up so when I’m creating music, it’s just the natural different sides that come out of me. I like experimental shit. I like artists that push the boundaries of creativity and aren’t stuck in one style or dimension.
As far as introspection and that type of thing, I don’t know if it’s because I fell in love with it. I think I was trying to heal. Those songs are me talking myself through my own emotions and that’s why I talk about that stuff – it’s more of a reminder to myself instead of me trying to tell everybody else “this is what you should do”. It’s more so this is a reminder to me about the conversation that I’m having with myself this week about pride; this is the conversation I have been having with myself and my friends about fucking ego or how I fucked a situation up because my ego was getting in the way of seeing both sides. Like I feel insecure about this so this week I’m going to talk about insecurity because this is how I’m feeling right now. So I feel like with the introspective stuff, the music is going to reflect what’s going on in my life. It’s the best way for me to do it because it’s the easiest way that I can feel the music and convey it, and it often helps me therapeutically to get out the emotion and the logic behind why it is that I’m feeling the way that I am.
I also feel like genres are kind of pit against each other sometimes, especially in hip-hop. It’s like “conscious music” versus modern rap shit and oftentimes it’s people just saying “I don’t listen to ignorant music” or “I don’t listen to conscious music” and people be trying to think too hard as it’s just music. The reality of it is we have different moods for different vibes and all of hip-hop needs each other in order to convey the messages it needs to convey – like in order for it to be hip-hop, there’s all of that. People forget there was a time when Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill and Goodie Mob, Common, Talib Kweli, Kanye West – where they were at the top of the top of the rappers. And then there was also a time when fucking Juvenile and Too $hort and Three 6 Mafia were at the top of the top of what was going on. It’s just different vibes. Yes, I listen to Glorilla on the way to the club and yeah, I listen to Kendrick Lamar and ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ when I’m in the vibe to listen and receive that music, not when I’m ‘rah rah’ or turnt up right now [laughs].
When I want to feel confident, yes, I’m putting Glorilla on but when I’m feeling introspective, it’s going to be J. Cole, Kendrick, J.I.D. – give me the stuff that’s chill, that I want to think to. We are different all the time. We have so many different roles as people and I question people who listen to one thing all the time, their whole life, whatever mood they are in. Like imagine being sad and throwing on… nah, let me stop [laughs]. But imagine being sad and throwing on Sexyy Red, like let me cry to this real quick. Like no, that’s not what I’m trying to do right now [laughs].
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What inspired the title ‘The Drive Home’? And what influenced you to release a new EP and project that symbolizes the journey to self acceptance?
So I can’t even take credit for the name ‘The Drive Home’. My friend Nov, who is a producer and a really good friend of mine, deserves the credit as he’s like a big brother to me and he had been doing music for way longer than I had when I first got the concept to even make an EP. My music reflects what’s going on in my life and at the time the topic was “identity” and learning to accept myself and the place where I was at in life, and trying to find peace within myself and who I was in every situation and in every room, and Nov was like, “Why don’t you call it The Drive Home?”.
And I remember being in those sessions, we would talk for like an hour before we even started the session, which shows how great of a producer he is because he really tries to understand where you’re at in the moment and create music based off of that feeling. They were basically therapy sessions before we even touched the computer. I remember crying in the studio while I was talking about some of the stuff I was going through and how I was feeling, and ‘The Drive Home’ ended up being a reminder that “home” means peace and self-acceptance and feeling comfortable, and ‘the drive’ is just the journey to get there. At the time, I was still in the thick of that journey and ‘The Drive Home’ made me realize that I’m always going to be on that journey.
We always think there’s the ‘other side’ or that I’ll be able to move forward once I’m healed, and I don’t really think that’s a realistic destination as you’re always kind of on this journey to becoming a better person and being more accepting of yourself and not giving a fuck. It takes a while to get there and that’s really where the concept came from. It was Nov’s idea and as time and years went on, the meaning of it changed, and it ended up being what it was. I think it’s perfect that it took three years to mold the idea of it but I’m really proud of it and happy with how it ended up.
What inspired the songs ‘100sqft’ and ‘Entry#149’ and their shifts in style and melody?
Similar to how what I consume and what I listen to is based off of a mood, what I create is based off of a mood. So if I’m feeling cocky one day, we’re going to make a song like ‘Sinner’ and if I’m feeling reflective and angry, we’re making ‘100sqft’. They’re real life experiences and specifically ‘100sqft’ and ‘Entry#149’, they were both about the same breakup. They are all about the same relationship and finding peace with that situation. I feel like ‘100sqft’ was me kind of being mad at myself for the way that I was in a relationship and what I allowed in a relationship for myself to be doing. It was me getting out that anger with myself. ‘Entry#149’ was me looking back and trying to find peace with the situation. Obviously, I created those months and months apart, and it took me a minute to move into that space but it was also like finding gratitude for the people that have been taken out of my life, do you know what I’m saying? Or at least being okay with that.
I cried making ‘100sqft’ and I cried making ‘Entry#149’ as well. With those two songs, it was like evaluating the attachment to somebody else and figuring out how to let go. I had that break-up in February and this past year of making music was me trying to process and grieve who I thought I was going to be and how it wasn’t a reality anymore after how that situation ended. It ended really abruptly and without a lot of explanation, so it was me trying to make sense of what happened. I have noticed that I can get into relationships a little quickly and I lose my individuality while in the relationship, and it was kind of like me slapping my wrist saying “you know what happened”.
One of the more interesting qualities about your energy and artistry is your attention to detail when it comes to writing. When did you first become interested in how cadences and literary devices are used in hip hop and other genres of music?
Oooh… I feel like that’s way earlier than when I started making music. A really well-written song has always piqued my interest in music and being raised on old school hip-hop, it’s very playful and with cadences and rhyme schemes, you kind of realize that everybody has their own style with how they do that. Biggie and Tupac were both great but their music sounded so differently, like with what they talked about and how they expressed the feelings they were trying to get off.
My mom is also an English teacher so I got into poetry before I got into music. I remember my mom would teach a lesson in her class every year that was about Brave New Voices, which is basically a reality show about inner city kids that would do these workshops and spend a whole semester or a whole year or whatever working on a slam poetry piece. They would perform them in these tournaments and these end-of-the-year shows, and I remember being so blown away by the poetry, the messages behind them, and the cadence because poetry comes with cadence. I think poetry as a whole and just getting into poetry first taught me rhythm better than when I first started music and songs because punchlines have to fall a certain way. Like if you’re performing in front of a crowd and you have a punchline or a bar and you don’t give it the space to be a bar or you don’t set it up the right way, people aren’t going to get it. Like your cadence matters.
It’s like a puzzle – how do you get out what you’re trying to say but make it sound cool as shit by using literary devices and trying to figure out how many different clever ways can I say the same thing and have it fit the rhyme scheme that I’m going with. There’s a lot of people that do that so well. Like I was really interested in breaking down Lupe Fiasco’s rhyme schemes when I was in high school and college as he’s one of my favourite artists. If we’re talking about more modern names, there’s also J.I.D – people recognize J.I.D but they don’t give him enough credit for how he’s able to fit certain things in and still make it swaggy with a cadence that’s very percussion-y. He’s really dope and he talks about shit too, which is always a plus. Like when you can have a really dope delivery, a really dope rhyme scheme, and you can also be cool and not too far left like what is this person talking about, and on top of that be saying something that can resonate with people and isn’t just about nothing – that’s talented to me. A really well-written song or a well-conveyed song will pique my interest over melodies and production nine out of ten times.
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Are there any artists or producers you would like to work with in the next year?
I’m always and forever going to have Tyler, The Creator on my list. Obviously, I would want that to happen naturally but I would so love to work with Tyler, The Creator in an artist-sense or also in a production-sense. Even if he doesn’t rap on the song, I would love to work together with him as a producer. He’s incredibly talented and it would just be cool to experience his creative process.
Smino recently praised you, calling you ‘a raw artist who represents the future’. How did you two meet? And how excited are you for your Kountry Kousins tour next year?
I’m so excited. We had spoken briefly on the internet and I had a lot of stuff going on at the time with social media, and he had hit me up and was like “Oh this fire, gang”. It was just a very brief conversation and then I was in London for a press run and he had a show there so we went and it was amazing. It was pouring rain out – like my shoes were wet and I was squeegeeing around afterwards when we had to walk back to the hotel – but it was pouring rain and nobody left. Like his fans are diehard fans and they’ll just stand in the rain and still have an amazing fucking time. It was so fun. Afterwards we went backstage and I wasn’t expecting to see him walking around, but we were kind of just getting drinks with the people that invited us to the show, and he came out and I was just like, “Dude, I have to go talk to him”. That’s all it was. We just had a cool ass conversation and I think that was in the summertime of this year. That’s when I first met him.
With 2024 coming to a close, how important is it to be true to yourself?
Super important. I’m just trying to measure it in some type of way [laughs] but I think it’s the most important thing. We as people would be happier and more content and more at peace if we only did things that are true to ourselves, and I think it would make life a little bit lighter and not feel as heavy. Everything feels so fucking heavy nowadays and I think that’s because of how we make it – how we are and how we treat other people. Just do things that are true to you and try your best to not be an asshole, and I think we’ll all be alright. Things would be more enjoyable if we weren’t all anxious-ridden so just do the things that make you happy and don’t feel like you can’t because people are watching or you have to be a certain type of way ‘cause you don’t want to embarrass yourself. The way to be is free and the easiest way for us to do that is to be as true as possible.
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Words: Joshua Khan
