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Artist
Moses Sumney
12+ albums
soulart popsinger-songwriterfolkindie
about
Moses Sumney (born 19 May 1990) is a Los Angeles-based singer and songwriter. Born in California, Sumney was raised by pastor parents, and moved with his family back to Ghana at the age of 10. He described his childhood as "Americanized" by this age and had difficulty adjusting to the culture of Ghana, especially the rural nature of his new environment. There he grew up on a goat farm in Accra and commuted by public bus to school. His family returned to Southern California when Sumney was 16, settling in Riverside. Growing up, he was so shy that he would write songs avidly but hide them inside his mattress. At 20, he moved out of his parents' house to study creative writing at UCLA and finally gathered the courage to start performing music. After purchasing a beat-up guitar from a friend, he taught himself to play and accompany himself. He grew quickly as an artist at UCLA, soon performing weekly alongside the university's most esteemed musicians. Now graduated, he creates soul-infused folk music using guitar and unique arrangements built on loop pedals. Sumney's 2014 debut project, a self-recorded EP, Mid-City Island, was released in 2014. Mid-City Island is a five-song EP that was self-recorded onto a four-track recorder given to him by Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio. The EP was described by Pitchfork as "primarily composed of first-takes and improvisation; the music is stirring but purposefully incomplete". He released another five-song EP in 2016, titled Lamentations,
