In honor of Black Historical past Month, Atwood Journal has invited artists to take part in a collection of essays reflecting on identification, music, tradition, inclusion, and extra.
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At the moment, Nashville-based alt-R&B singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Casper Sage shares his ruminations on being a Black artist in America for Atwood Journal’s Black Historical past Month collection!
Casper Sage finds inspiration in unlikely locations. The 23-year-old singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist makes songs as introspective and nostalgic as they’re lush and propulsive—a genre-of-one he calls Afro-Surrealist Dreamcore impressed equally by huge forces (nature, math) and really particular issues, like Kerry James Marshall’s unsettling portraits or Tony Soprano’s dream sequences. “I need it to really feel such as you’re floating,” says Sage. “That’s the stability I’m going for: stress-free but additionally stimulating.” His Warner Information debut EP ‘SAGEhaven’ – that includes style upstarts midwxst and amindi – accomplishes that with songs which are heady, shifting, and grounded within the private.
Born in Oklahoma Metropolis and bored “by the tradition of doing what everybody else does,” Sage has lengthy sought rarer types of connection. In 2019, he launched ‘Winter,’ a vibrant mixture of track and rap that dove deep into emotion and experimentation. From there, he honed his craft on his personal — from the 2020 observe “Frank Ocean Enjoying in Heaven” to a 2022 cowl of Dijon’s “Rodeo Clown” — and formally too, attending Belmont College in Nashville, the place he finds inspiration in being the uncommon R&B artist “sonically and emotionally pulling from someplace distant.”
Craving is central to his music’s enchantment and, to Sage, a method of discovery. He feels a way of reciprocity from the universe — that no matter he seeks him again. “I consider all issues are interconnected,” he says, smart past his years. “After we create one thing new, we’re returning to one thing acquainted.”
Learn Sage’s full essay beneath and keep tuned for information of his upcoming EP, set to launch later this yr!
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by Casper Sage
Blackness isn’t just one thing I carry – it’s one thing I create with.
It’s in the way in which I form melodies, stretch phrases, and construct soundscapes that really feel like residence, even after I’m nonetheless defining what residence means.
I used to be born and raised in Oklahoma Metropolis, a spot that formed me in methods I’m nonetheless unpacking. Town has its personal rhythm, its personal historical past, however being a Black artist there meant studying the best way to carve out my very own lane – the best way to exist in an area the place my model of Blackness didn’t all the time really feel mirrored. I needed to construct my very own world, and music grew to become the way in which I did that.
Now, dwelling in Nashville, I discover myself in yet one more transition. The power right here is completely different – rooted in custom however continuously evolving. As a Black musician in a metropolis identified for nation and Americana, I’m a part of a rising wave of artists reshaping expectations, pushing the tradition ahead, and proving that our voices belong in each house.
That seek for heat – discovering mild in unfamiliar areas, turning one thing chilly into one thing lively – is what impressed my new single, “Nu Division” (out in early March) that includes Amindi. The track is about renewal, about making a chilly coronary heart heat once more. It’s about love in its most transformative type – the sort that doesn’t simply change you however offers you new life. Sonically, it displays that journey, the shift from isolation to connection, from guarded to open.
That theme expands into my forthcoming EP, SAGEhaven – an area the place I might be my fullest self, uninhibited.
The venture is each a sanctuary and a press release: a mirrored image of the place I’ve been, the place I’m, and the place I’m headed. It’s an homage to the Black artists who formed me – D’Angelo’s heat, André 3000’s freedom, Sade’s persistence – whereas pushing in the direction of one thing uniquely my very own.
For me, making music isn’t nearly expression. It’s about preservation. It’s about documenting the nuances of Black life as I expertise it, in all its magnificence and contradiction. SAGEhaven is an extension of that mission.
This Black Historical past Month, I rejoice the artists who made house for voices like mine. Those who taught me that music is greater than sound – it’s legacy. And with each track, I hope so as to add to that legacy in a means that feels trustworthy, true, and boundless. – Casper Sage
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