Moses Sumney
A singer, songwriter and actor raised in Southern California and Ghana, whose Aromanticism (2017) and Grae (2020) made him a critical favorite, and whose "Doomed" is a near-a cappella falsetto lament over synthesizer.
Ghana, Riverside and UCLA
Moses Sumney was born on May 19, 1992 in San Bernardino, near Los Angeles (MusicBrainz says 1991). The family moved to Ghana when he was about 10, and by The Fader's account he lived there for six years, writing lyrics on buses in Accra, a habit that stayed with him; he returned to Southern California at 16 and settled in Riverside. He taught himself to sing by copying Beyonce, Justin Timberlake and Usher, began writing songs at 12 and kept them secret, wrote a cappella music for years before learning instruments, and did not perform publicly until about 20. He studied creative writing (poetry) at UCLA from 2010.
In 2014 he drew label interest in Los Angeles but declined those who wanted to shape his image and moved to Asheville, North Carolina. He self-released the EP Mid-City Island on April 7, 2014, recorded on a four-track given to him by Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio, and sang on the opening track of Beck's Song Reader. Lamentations (Jagjaguwar, September 30, 2016) featured Thundercat.
Aromanticism and Grae
Aromanticism came out on Jagjaguwar on September 22, 2017, 11 tracks and 34:46, produced by Sumney with Joshua Willing Halpern, Cam O'bi, Gueorgui Linev, Matt Otto and Ludwig Goransson. It is a concept album, about lovelessness as a sonic dreamscape, questioning the idea that romance is normative and necessary; Sumney told The Fader that romance is very obviously a political tool, and a capitalist device. He has said he made his entire album before he signed. Metacritic scored it 85; Pitchfork gave it 8.6 as Best New Music, calling it a musical detoxification, and it was Bandcamp Daily's album of the year. He played an NPR Tiny Desk Concert on November 29, 2017, with Sam Gendel and Brandee Younger on harp.
Grae was released in two parts, on February 21 and May 15, 2020, 65:44, with producers including Adult Jazz, Ben Baptie, John Congleton, FKJ and Daniel Lopatin, recorded partly at Echo Mountain in Asheville. Metacritic scored it 90, and it was Pitchfork's third album of 2020. He also made a Tiny Desk (Home) Concert in August 2020, covered Metallica's "The Unforgiven" in 2021, and released the concert film Blackalachia on December 8, 2021 and the live album a few days later. He appeared in HBO's The Idol (2023), MaXXXine (2024) and in 2025 played Feste in Shakespeare in the Park's Twelfth Night. Sophcore followed on August 2, 2024. He has sung on Solange's "Mad", James Blake's "Tell Them" and Bon Iver's "U (Man Like)".
Albums
- Aromanticism 2017 · Jagjaguwar
His debut album, a concept record about lovelessness, made over three years of travel.
Songs
- Doomed Aromanticism · 2017
The lead single from Aromanticism: near-a cappella falsetto over sustained synthesizer chords, with no drums.
Sources
- Moses Sumney, Wikipedia
- Aromanticism (album), Wikipedia
- Moses Sumney on Aromanticism, The Fader (2017-09-04)
- Grae, Wikipedia