INTERVIEW: SABRI

SABRI is a force of nature. Now a moving artist and powerful songwriter, she grew up in the Netherlands, loving R&B and soul music, but unaware for many years that she could translate this love for lyricism and melody into a career. In celebration of her recent single, ‘Ring By Spring’, we spoke to SABRI about her journey as a songwriter, the role of collaboration, and the value of focusing inward, both as a creative and a human.

Interview by PORTIA BRAJKOVIC

Hey Sabri, how are you?

I'm great. I'm blessed.

Why music? 


Music has always been my thing. But I never really figured out what that would look like. Not that I didn't believe in myself or anything, but I came from a small town in the Netherlands. If I was going to do music, I wanted it to be me writing music in English, so I had never explored that.I always light up when I talk about music, but it's something that I can't explain sometimes. What it is, I can't really tell. It just moves me. It's fascinating. My mum says that, she could see that music was my thing pretty early on. I would always be dancing and mumbling music.

WHEN do you think you realised that being a musician would be your destiny?

In my teenage years, maybe 15 or 16, I decided to try and write a song. Lauryn Hill was always my biggest influence in that. When I gave it a shot, it was horrible. I learned English pretty quickly, but it wasn't developed enough to write songs, and I didn't understand anything about melodies. I don't remember what I wrote - I wish I had a recording. I was like, ‘I'm never doing this again’, and I just let it go. Then in my early 20s, that’s when I got into music for real. I met these two songwriters who happened to be in Rotterdam. I was interning backstage at this music conference and I asked them what they did. They were like, ‘We're songwriters’. I knew what it meant, but I never knew the business behind it. I asked if they’d written anything that I should know. And they said ‘We just wrote ‘Man Down’ by Rihanna. I was going to college for media, and I went to my artist management teachers, and asked ‘Can you tell me how the songwriting business works?’ I was like, ‘So, I can make money? I can make music? I don't have to be like public-facing?’ I was like, ‘I'm going to be that.’ That's when my journey actually started. I used GarageBand for the first time. I’d look up instrumentals and just used the microphone on my MacBook. Everything was super low-key. I started to write and from there, I started to meet people. 


"I knew early on that I wanted to develop myself as a writer, and I saw R&B as the foundation of me as an artist, and also as a writer at the time. I just knew that if I really wanted to be one of the best songwriters, staying home wasn’t going to help me. I had already experienced going to college in the States. So, when I got back to the Netherlands, I was like, ‘Okay, let me save some money and move back and then really, solely focus on music’. And that's what I did.”

— SABRI, ON HER CREATIVE PROCESS

Can you describe the Sabri universe and sound in three words?

Modern, old-school soul, and outside the box.

What inspires you? 

Anything. Sometimes, a movie I'm watching. I’ll see a certain scene and think ‘Oh my god, this resonates with me so much. I've been through something similar.’ Then, the inspiration really comes out of my own story. Everything I write, I've been through. There is no better inspiration than writing your own story.Sometimes, I just hear something or read a quote, or I’ll just be talking to people, talking to friends. Sometimes me and my A&R, we’ll just be in the studio. We don't even write music, we’ll just be ordering food and talking about life. That's what I've learned too: there's a song in every conversation.

What is the story behind ‘Ring By Spring’? What did you learn through creating the song?

For context, my EP is about a relationship that I've been through, which was very traumatic. When I had written most the EP, I went to San Francisco to the headquarters of my label, to do some finishing touches. And the day before I was meant to go back to Amsterdam, I was telling my A&R that the project felt really incomplete without this one story. I had written the title in my notes, ‘Ring by Spring.’ It was about how I almost got married and it didn't happen.

 

I felt that if I was writing a project about how and why I got into that relationship, then I should also tell the story about why I got out, what happened - the middle part. I didn't have that yet. I wanted to tell people, ‘Hey, I was almost going to get married, but I ended up choosing myself.’ That came with insecurities. I was already in my early 30s. I never envisioned myself being unmarried and not having kids at 31. So it came with a lot of fear, but I learned that fear is really an illusion sometimes. It's not real.

What does your creative process usually look like?

It's so all over the place. Every record has a different blueprint. Sometimes, I'm not even intending to write, it just happens super organically. I'll just be in the studio, vibing, and then something great comes out. I think the reason why it doesn't have one blueprint, is it's soul music. It comes from the soul, and you can't force that. I have days where I know it’s not going to happen, and I don't force it anymore. I used to, and it's an awful feeling. I know myself well enough to know the importance of resting, living life, and taking a day off. 

You’ve worked with a long list of artists Yung Bleu and Olamide - what role does collaboration play in your artistry? 


Collaboration is very important. It exposes you to different genres. And when you work with other people, you learn from the way they create. I'm still R&B at the foundation, but to work with a hip-hop artist, or an Afrobeat artist, or even house, that showcases my ability to write in different genres. I started as a writer first, so I've never discriminated against any genre. I grew up with different styles of music. I grew up in Amsterdam which is very into EDM and house music. Then, I personally loved soul and R&B, and I grew up with my dad listening to a lot of reggae. I was always exposed to different genres and I love all kinds of music.


What role does creating with or for others serve you, as opposed to creating for your own projects?

 

With my own project, with this EP, I had to shut everything down, including contact with family and friends. It was really extreme. Working on other stuff or doing any outside writing was a no-go because I needed to get in that headspace of, ‘What am I writing about? What's the project about?’ I needed to get into the headspace of writing about stuff that I went through, which was a little traumatic, I'm not gonna lie. It was hard mentally. I had to relive certain things that I’d already pushed aside or dealt with. And I had to write about them. It brought me back into that whole space of feeling down again. But I knew I had to go through that again in order to write the music that I wanted to make.

 

When I'm working for another artist, the story's already written. For ‘Reading The Room’, Yung Bleu already had the idea of the sweetest girl. And my recent collaboration with Olamide on ‘Knockout’, he already had his part written. So, that's different. I just go into the studio and think about writing towards that story, which is their story. It’s kind of like acting. Writing for someone else is like a little role you have. But with your own project, it’s method acting. You become the person. That's a huge difference.

What would we find on your Spotify playlist? 

It goes from reggae, to old-school soul, to country music. I have so many different playlists. 

Right now, I'm very much into Leon Thomas’, last project, Electric Dusk. That's one of my favorite projects of 2023. He is one of the few artists where I'm like, ‘Yo, that whole project, I can listen to it from front to back. Then, the most important album for me will always be The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. That’s my #1 album. 


What do you do for peace?

Pray. Meditate. I journal every day. Taking care of myself.

What’s next for you? 

‘Ring by Spring’ is part of an EP that's going to come out early next year. So, that’s what I’m working towards. But I’m just enjoying what's coming, taking everything day by day. These days, I want to enjoy the journey and the process. I’m just enjoying the moment.