Listen to Salome Datong’s Effortlessly Soul Touching Song ‘Star Friends’
After releasing her debut EP in 2020 and a few singles, one of which was featured on Spotify owned playlists like Fresh Finds: The Wave, Mood Ring, Fem and more, Salome Datong is back with another heart-opening EP titled Shelly, aiming to extend understanding and hope to the ones among us that are written off as too soft or too nice or simply put, weak. She does this by singing each song, no matter the genre, with the softest vulnerability that somehow, comes off as fortitude. The EP portrays a contagious sensitivity that metaphorically hides behind a shell of vulnerability and bravery, which the artist believes are one and the same; It is a roller coaster of unexpected tempos, genres, and emotions, featuring lyrics about spirituality, love, self-empowerment and losses.
The artist wrote ‘Star Friends’, the first song on the EP, during a solitary period in her life that caused her to crave company she couldn’t have, thereby forcing her to really appreciate the stars, just for their presence and their ability to actually make you feel surrounded by potential friends, hence the name ‘Star Friends’. The song is dreamy at first, then suddenly gets real, talking about mistakes and finding strength after being knocked down, or especially, after self-destructing. It’s a song of resilience, really, and it’s effortlessly soul touching. The fans can connect to this song because of the shameless honesty in the lyrics and the unquestioning belief in a higher place or presence.
Salome would describe her sound as soulful or melancholic. Recently she has tried to branch out into other genres like afrobeat, which vicariously grounds her in her home country, Nigeria, and trap, which just happened by chance, because the artist randomly fell for the chaotic nature of a trap type beat, which somehow made her pour out lyrics. However, she decided that trap is not for her.
Salome’s songwriting process is usually a melody first, then lyric syncing, because that way, she is not forcing her natural rhythmic reaction to a beat into a box of lyrics she already wrote. However, the artist likes to express herself through writing and can hardly help but rhyme.
Some of the artist’s musical influences are Asa, Sade Adu and Ari Lennox. She is currently listening to Bellah’s ‘The Art of Conversation’.
Listen to ‘Star Friends’ on SoundCloud.
