New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Among the myriad of things this pandemic has severely disrupted for so many people is travel, especially summer holiday plans. Singer-songwriter SY SMITH aims to alleviate our quarantine cabin fever with her scenic offering for her album's ethereal title track "Sometimes A Rose Will Grow In Concrete" (aka SRWGC).
Just like her most recent video "
Camelot", this latest was also shot in the East African nation of Tanzania and directed by her husband Shawn Carter Peterson. "We'd planned to shoot a visual for Camelot while we were vacationing, and we did that. But what I didn't know was that Shawn was getting lots of extra footage so that he could make a second video too," mentions Sy. "It was all a complete surprise to me when he showed me both videos after he was finished! I was in tears because both videos were just so beautiful!," she adds.
The beautifully-shot video for SRWGC takes viewers on a journey through Tanzania, inviting them to experience the beaches of Zanzibar, the northern regions of Arusha, and the bustling streets of the once capital city Dar es Salaam. Viewers come face to face with the majestic Maasai people, their presence made even more regal when they're seen doing warrior style jump. More Tanzanians are seen performing traditional dances, playing soccer on the beach and still other locals show up on the screen simply being... all as Sy sings "sometimes a rose will grow in concrete, sometimes a caged bird will sing... sometimes we never get no answers, but still the questions will remain." The visuals are enough to get pleasantly swept up in all of the beauty, captured all on an iPhone (that's right, the whole thing was shot on Shawn's phone!). Viewers may get so caught up, in fact, that they may not even notice that Sy herself is rarely seen in this video.
"Once I saw both videos (Camelot and SRWGC), I knew I wanted to release them as a two-part video postcard. I just didn't know when I'd release this one. But when the pandemic hit and went on for two months already, I knew that it was time to share part two... because so many of us just want to get away, even if just momentarily."
Sy's voice seems to perfectly follow every landscape/cityscape seen in this stunning visual. Especially when she hits her trademark whistle-tone at the end of the song as a Maasai man elevates himself into the sky flanked by his fellow men and the gorgeous sun setting on the Indian Ocean. Sometimes a caged bird will sing. Sometimes a camera will too.
Website: www.SySmith.com
Instagram: @Syberspace
Twitter: @Syberspace
Facebook: /sysmithmusic
ABOUT SY SMITH by Andy Kellman for Allmusic.com
Sy Smith has proven throughout her career that an R&B artist can be progressive while remaining firmly rooted in tradition. Foremost a singer with a vocal range spanning five octaves, Smith began an unending succession of background gigs with Whitney
Houston in the late '90s, and has since worked closely with Grammy-winning trumpeter
Chris Botti and Grammy-nominated group the Foreign Exchange, among dozens of other artists. After a brief period signed to a major, Smith established an independent label of her own, an outlet for compositionally solid and sonically adventurous albums including The Syberspace Social (2005), Conflict (2008), Fast and Curious (2012), and the entirely self-produced Sometimes a Rose Will Grow in Concrete (2018). She's consequently known for being a leading force in post-millennial indie soul.
Born in New York City and a native of metropolitan Washington, D.C., Sy Smith was studying piano at the age of seven and continued into her early teens. She started singing in sixth grade, performing in choirs and eventually in classical competitions, and during high school was part of a go-go band called Royalty Queens. After attending
Howard University -- where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology with a minor in music therapy (and sang in an a cappella group called EnTyme) -- Smith relocated to Los Angeles and soon filled an assortment of touring, acting, writing, and recording roles. The year she hit the West Coast, she landed her first songwriting credits with Adina Howard's "Swerve On" and Gerald Albright's Lalah Hathaway-fronted "Live to Love," and began a long-term recurring role backing
Vonda Shepard on Ally McBeal. Just as significantly, if not more so, she toured extensively with Whitney Houston, and through the next couple years also worked with the likes of Macy Gray, Ginuwine, and Brandy.
Smith made her solo debut in 1999 with an Ali Shaheed Muhammad-produced cover of Edie Brickell & New Bohemians' "What I Am," included on the soundtrack for the animated television series The PJs. Signed to that album's label of release, Hollywood, Smith issued her first single, "Gladly," later that year. It impacted Billboard's R&B/hip-hop chart, peaking the following January at number 79, and was followed with another single, "Good N Strong." Although parent album Psykosoul was shelved -- despite the circulation of advance promotional copies and Billboard coverage -- Smith's career nonetheless gained momentum. Her "Welcome Back (All My Soulmates)," which appeared in the televised movie Dancing in September, was nominated for a Primetime Emmy in the category of Outstanding
Music and Lyrics. She and
Al Green duetted on the Babyface-written theme song for the TV series version of Soul Food. Smith also busied herself with continued work on Ally McBeal and in other background capacities, such as musical director for the BET talent showcase Lyric Cafe and more soundtrack placements. In 2002, she launched her independent Psyko Records label with One Like Me, an EP of five songs she wrote and produced with input from a small cast including Curtis "
Sauce" Wilson. During the next two years, Smith was featured prominently on
Brand New Heavies' We Won't Stop and Ali Shaheed Muhammad's Shaheedullah and Stereotypes.
In 2005, Smith began a several-season run as a background singer on American Idol, having reconnected with Whitney Houston's musical director, Rickey Minor. The Syberspace Social arrived later in the year as Smith's second album. Muhammad and
James Poyser took part, as did Nicolay, thereby initiating a deep affiliation with the Foreign Exchange family. Shortly thereafter, Smith gave Psykosoul a proper and expanded release as Psykosoul +. Between proper full-lengths, Smith also made featured appearances on projects from Nicolay and Meshell Ndegeocello, earned NAACP Theatre Awards nominations for her work in the stage productions If You Don't Believe: A Love Story and Body Language, joined trumpeter Chris Botti's ensemble (through cousin Mark Whitfield), and put together a live DVD entitled Worship at the Temple. All of that and more preceded the 2008 release of Conflict. Her third LP, Conflict was highlighted by "Fly Away with Me," which registered on Billboard's Hot Adult R&B Singles Airplay chart. Featured appearances on material from fellow major-label refugee/indie soul front-runner Eric Roberson, as well as Foreign Exchange associate Zo!, closed out the decade.
Smith anthologized her early Psyko releases in 2010 with Syberselects: A Collection of Sy Smith Favorites, and across that year and 2011 added Mark de Clive-Lowe, the Foreign Exchange, and
Sheila E. to the list of artists with whom she has toured. Studio-wise, she appeared on a few songs by Zo!, including "Greatest Weapon of All Time" and a cover of
Everything But the Girl's "Driving," and on Phonte's "Dance in the Reign." Early in 2012, she fronted The Decoders' faithful version of Minnie Riperton's "Inside My Life," replete with whistle register, and a couple months later released her fourth album, Fast and Curious. Billy Ocean's "Nights (Feel Like Getting Down)" was updated with guest vocals from Rahsaan Patterson, while Smith and de Clive-Lowe radically recast Teena Marie's "Lovergirl" as a slinking slow jam. Smith didn't release another album for several years but between performance obligations greatly enhanced Zo!'s ManMade and SkyBreak, the Foreign Exchange's Love in Flying Colors, and Mark Whitfield's Grace, among other recordings. In 2018, she released her fifth album, the self-produced Sometimes a Rose Will Grow in Concrete, contributed to Chris Dave and the Drumhedz Grammy-nominated album (as a writer and featured artist) and John Legend's A Legendary Christmas (as a vocal arranger and background vocalist), and by the end of the year released her own seasonal title, Christmas in Syberspace.
