Soulliaa
Image by: @Pluto_Vinci
Soulliaa is a singer/songwriter and healer based in Houston TX, with a background in clinical therapy and trauma informed care. Soulliaa’s work pushes the boundaries between healing and art, building collective resilience through music. Her lyrics are an outstretched hand, offering empathy, vulnerability, and respite from the demands of our fast paced world. Sonically, the songs build on a neo-soul foundation, stretching into genre-bending sonic tapestries. As she records her debut album, Soulliaa is quickly building a following in Houston with a reputation for live shows that bring an audience together and offer collective healing. Her music is available to stream on her website: www.soulraez.com
Could you tell me about your practice?
Soulliaa: I refer to myself as a healing artist. All of the art that I create, the songs that I write, the events that I curate, the way that I express myself outwardly, is rooted in trying to be the most whole version of myself, and making other folks feel comfortable enough to do that for themselves.
Before I started doing artistic healing, I was doing direct clinical therapy. Going to school and learning the clinical lens of therapy from a practitioner perspective, I saw how talk therapy was not created for brown and Black folks. The structure of the therapeutic system was not designed for my mental wellness.
I started writing music for myself in 2020. I was going through a lot of things in my personal life, and talk therapy was not getting me over the loneliness that I was experiencing. I really had to listen to Spirit and think about what made me feel more connected to God and more connected to my community.
Music was the thing that I kept coming back to. I’ve always had these melodies and songs that I couldn't get out of my head, and I was like, why is this so comforting to me? That was the answer that I heard, and so I just leaned into that more and more. Writing songs helped me hear my own stories in a different light and helped me build restoration for other folks, because we are all unique individuals, but our experiences are similar.
I think the sharing process gives us a way to experience collective resilience. There is this ethereal process that happens when we share space with one another where that collective restoration can happen. It can be such an individually unique process that's happening for you, but it's happening for your neighbor at the same time. And experiencing that together creates this connection that strengthens our ability to recover and be resilient and to become more whole.
Everything that I create is about building space. People may only be with me for an hour, but I hope that it feels like you've spent a lifetime here. I want you to be so immersed in this and so connected to this moment that you're not concerned about whether it’s been an hour or if it's been three.
What can you tell me about your debut album?
Soulliaa: My first project is going to be a live recording album. We're going to be recording in August and so I hope that by the end of the summer, the full project will be mixed and mastered and streaming.
I tried to build this project in the studio several times, and for some reason, it just was not working out. The studio feels like a giant sometimes. There's all this energy that’s swirling in there, because so many different people have been in this space before me and will be in this space after me. So when I was trying to record there it just felt intimidating. I love this idea of live recordings and creating authentically, and just being open to whatever comes from being in the zone. We live in this world that is falsely structured, and so I love what we can create when we're just in flow.
Image by: Wura
I really want the final project to feel like something that was collectively made and recorded. I’ve been consistently working with a pianist named Chukwudi. He is self taught and his gift is amazing to me. I really respect his hustle and his grind, and how hard he works to perfect his craft. I’m also working with a producer named Calvin Venus. I'm really, really grateful for him. He's been able to work with a lot of people before they were who they are today. And so the fact that he sees my potential is really a blessing, especially because I'm so new to this process.
I really feel like you can hear it when there are more people working together on a song. I want people to be able to feel that communal aspect in my music. I think it enriches the healing process when there are more people telling their stories, whether they're doing that through words or notes on an instrument.
Can you describe the aesthetics of your music?
Soulliaa: I feel musically influenced by the mothers of music, Ella, Nina, Billie. I am in love with their God given ability to manipulate sound, especially during that time period when technology wasn't like how it is now. They were really just working with instrumentalists, but the big band type performance and rhythmic differentiation that was able to come out of that is amazing.
Genre wise, I would say I make neo soul music. Soul music is my favorite kind of music. I think it just speaks to this innate thing that we all have that connects us. I want my music to speak to something deeper in you and I feel like Neo Soul is this new way to speak to this intuitive part of ourselves.
Really though I would rather you call my music Healing Music. Because in America, in the world that we live in, I feel like we focus too much on these labels and trying to make people fit into these boxes. And I feel like as human beings we're created to be more expansive than that.
I've been communing with a lot of metal artists lately. That music is starkly different from what I grew up listening to, but communing with these folks and hearing their stories has been an awakening experience. I’m realizing how close it is to the things I’m talking about in my music, even though they sound so different. I could really see myself going on a metal track now.
How do you find time to make music with all of the other things you’re working on?
Soulliaa: We live in a fast paced society where we're constantly constrained for time. Being an artist is a full time job, but I'm not getting paid yet as a full time artist, so I need to make some full time money doing other things.
It used to be that in order to get into the creative flow, I had to be in a specific room at a specific time of day with my incense going. As time goes on though, I’ve gotten better at finding pockets of space to create in that fit into the regularly scheduled programming. I'm doing this healing work and teaching and doing these things to feed my family, and I'm just not always in a space where I can have it my way when I'm creating.
The conditions are not so specific now, but I am still tapping into that introspective space. I can do it anytime of the day as long as I'm alone with my notebook. I’ve found it’s really just about taking some time to connect with myself and ask myself how am I really feeling? What is the root of this emotion that I'm feeling? That has been a way to tap into the creative Holy flow without having to be so meticulous in the ritual that I keep. I’ve really been embracing the creativity that lives within me.
What do you think a younger version of yourself would be proud of seeing where you are today?
Soulliaa: I would be the most proud of how I am stepping out and opening myself up for criticism, even with all of the fear associated with that. I’d be proud of the confidence I have now in standing on what I've made and not allowing the people pleasing nature that I had when I was growing up control me. That’s still something that I'm growing out of, but my younger self would be so proud that I'm able to confidently and unapologetically stand in the skin that I'm in and the goals that I have. I’d be proud of knowing who I am and not being who everybody else is telling me that I need to be.
I think my younger self would be cheering for that because I didn't believe that I would ever be in this space. 12 year old me would definitely be like, yes, that is who I want to be when I grow up.