When music is all around you, it almost feels like a future career within it seems inevitable. It rarely is that cut and dry, and its even rarer to find some success within it. Twenty-year-old Houston rapper Sally Sossa has experienced both. During a childhood filled with family rap battles at home—where she shined—and her blossoming basketball skills, Sally could have gone either way when it came to her next step in life, but chose to rap. She once beat her brother in a rap battle at just 11 years old, and eventually started recording in the studio at 16.
Sally went full steam ahead with her hip-hop dreams after that. She's been consistently dropping mixtapes since she was 17. Three years later, that work paid off. In 2020, the rising rhymer had a conversation with a friend who had a family member that worked at Atlantic Records, which was a way to get her music sent around. From there, Sally signed on with a management team, one member of which served as a bodyguard for French Montana and Lil Durk. The two rappers became early supporters of her talent. Those cosigns helped put her onto the radar of major labels, and Sally signed to Interscope Records last May.
Listen to Sally Sossa's music and you'll hear tales of love, survival and finding happiness wherever you can find it. She's a melodic rapper who is very thoughtful about her storytelling and the feelings she elicits. Last year, "Star Song" featuring Lil Durk was her very first track to crack the millions—the audio on YouTube currently sits at 5.7 million views and her Spotify streams are upwards of 18 mill. "I think you perfect how you are/You're a star (Star)/You're one in a million/I done met a lot of people, but nobody gave me this feeling," she sings over a guitar-driven beat.
Following the attention on the track and the release of her major debut effort, Life of Sossa, she's been keeping busy this year by dropping the visual for "Right My Wrongs" featuring Toosii, and several new tracks, including the piano banger "Back From the Dead," a few freestyles and her Detroit rap-influenced "Weird 2 Me."
Now, Sally is gearing up for a new project, which she describes as "unskippable." Her next single, "Eternity," releases later this month. Get to know more about the life of Sally Sossa in this week's edition of The Break.
Age: 20
Hometown: Houston
I grew up listening to: "I grew up listening to Meek Mill, Nicki Minaj. I was on P!nk. [Lil] Durk, of course. I'll say Lil Wayne."
My style’s been compared to: "People don't really compare me, but I've heard a couple of, 'Oh, she sound like DeJ Loaf,' but that's it really. They don't really compare me other than that or they say I'm 'The Female Voice.'"
I’m going to blow up because: "I feel what shows me that is seeing where I am now, the moves that I'm currently making, everything that I have in motion with myself, my team. I just feel we're on a great path because I'm still getting my name out there and a lot of people are still getting to know me and they're still getting to get familiarized with my music and my sound. And I just feel everything is going great for so far right now because my project dropped in. It did over 2 million streams. So, I just feel like right now with the trajectory… I feel everything's going great right now. I mean, I couldn't be more happy. I'm just trying to keep working harder."
What’s your most slept-on song, and why?: "I feel a lot of my music may be slept on right now, but I feel, I'll just say what Future said. He said, 'Once my work catches up to my worth, then I know I've made it.' It's times where you're working, working, working, working, a lot of people haven't heard everything you're working on. You drop a project, they don't hear everything, but once everything get placed, get streams and everything like that, I feel it's all going to catch up to each other. So, I will say it's slept on, but I feel everybody about to wake up."
My standout records to date have been: "My biggest records so far are 'A Letter to the Streets,' 'Who You Are,' 'Star Song' and 'GMFU' and '100 Flows.' Those songs, they give off a lot of energy. They give off diversity. Some of those records are sing-rap, melody records. It gives off a vibe. You feel my pain, you feel my emotion, you feel everything. And then I have my rap records where we turning up, we gettin' lit. It's just a whole other vibe. So, I'm able to give off different vibes. And I feel that's why they all went the way they did."
My standout moments to date have been: "I would say getting signed through a pandemic because it's not so often that that happens to people and it's certain times and opportunities where things couldn't have went the way they did, but they did for a reason. I just felt if this wasn't meant to happen, it wouldn't have happened. It was a cool day. My A&R was going to call me shortly. So, I was sitting down in the kitchen and I just had so many nerves and emotions running through my body, but it was all good nerves. It was all good energy. It was all positivity. I just felt from that day forward, the rest of my life was about to change."
Most people don’t know: "I can draw really good. I can draw really well. I'm really good at art. Sculpting, drawing. I'm good at that, too. The music and the art is kind of hand in hand with me. Oh, and I'm funny."
Follow Sally Sossa on SoundCloud and Instagram.
Standouts:
"Star Song" featuring Lil Durk
"Right My Wrongs" featuring Toosii
"Weird 2 Me"
Life of Sossa