Brooklyn-based genre-fluid artist, Sandflower came by KAZI Magazine as she revs up the release to her highly anticipated visual album, The Quantum Seed. To no surprise, the project is made up of show-stopping genre-exploding sounds and visuals that include electro-pop-rock, punk-rap, and synthwave-dubstep eclecticism. In fact, legendary music producer, David Sisko (Gwen Stefani, Justin Timberlake, Kelly Clarkson, Lil John, The Pussycat Dolls, Timbaland), orchestrated this high-quality work of art. Sandflower and power producer Sisko collaborated in studios all across New York City to create a truly show-stopping album of genre-exploding sounds and visuals.
The Quantum Seed delves into the inner dimensions and intersections of pop music and truly represents the musical spectrum. Her most recent masterpiece serves as a follow-up to a slew of notable and groundbreaking singles. Including sizzling single, “Wannabe,” a reimagined cover of the Spice Girls’ 1990s hit, which was featured in the Netflix blockbuster film “To All The Boys: Always and Forever”.
Brooklyn’s best kept secret is known for pushing boundaries and does just that on her latest project. The Quantum Seed serves as a transformative and empowering debut album with a transcendent visual and listening experience. Laced with 15 mind-bending records, this album spans genres, moods, and colors. Altogether featuring catchy collaborations with guest appearances like UNSTOPPABLE DEATH MACHINE on lead single “Quicksand”. Each individual record was released with a story-telling video that takes listeners on a visual journey from start to finish.
Entering A New Musical Dimension
Her dynamic and forceful sounds and mouth-watering hooks will stay looped in your head. From the empowerment anthem “Goddess Cxlture” to high intensity club bangers like “Wild Things Are” and “Shake That Bottom”. Her hit “No Regulas”, cast in Melissa Miller Costanzo’s upcoming film “The List”. Here for a long time and not just a fun time, the film will also feature forthcoming track “Everyday Saturday”.
“This album, this collection of songs is me reaching out into the universe with sound, poetry, melody, lyrics. Each song started as a seed of an idea and grew into its own kind of flower. Sometimes it feels like my art, my ideas, even the synchronicities that brought this album together are something out of the Quantum realm.” – SANDFLOWER
“There were no limits to the boundaries or expectations of what should be. Only what could be. In this case “crate digging” our minds for a galactic spectrum of sound, style and statement. Ultimately, we hoped that the final art would represent all that Sandflower embodies as a creative spirit: renegade, bold and singular. We hope you feel that too!” – David Sisko / Producer
Introducing The Quantum Seed
Significantly, The Quantum Seed captures all of Sandflower’s raw determination, grit, and intellect. Serving as her latest in a long line of genre-fluid work that defines Sandflower’s signature uniqueness. Throughout the project, genre-fluidity was never the goal; it was simply the mode. Beats, lyrics, melodies, impressions, and inspirations collide to form an exhilarating stylistic whole.
Since stepping on the scene, Sandflower has had a slew of singles alongside a number of notable performances including Saturday Night Live with Dua Lipa, Moma Ps1, opening for Lindsey Stirling, curating and performing at The National Arts Club. Also, countless appearances at the iconic Susanne Bartch On Top in The Standard’s Boom Boom Room. Recently, the VP of content creation for Sprayground, shutdown NYC at the Sprayground Pop Up event during NYFW 2022! Sandflower and Sprayground, the world’s most innovative streetwear brand, come together to bring fans the dopest drip! The brand is coveted among superstars such as: Beyoncé, Rihanna, Snoop Dogg, Billie Eilish, Kendall Jenner and more! Their creative collaboration continues to reign supreme! Take a look below at some of the show’s shots and Sandflower’s show stopping strut and styles!
Sprayground x Sandflower x NYFW22
Moreso, Sandflower is a multi-disciplinary visionary whose sound is eclectic, powerful, and mystical. Fascinated by quantum physics while being inspired by high fashion and fine art, she speaks to those who stand out because they are different. She not only creates timeless tracks paired with innovative visuals, but her records relate with the masses. Her inspirational influence is encouraged as her motto is for everyone to embrace one’s difference. Pushing that narrative forward, Sandflower serenades fans with her one-in-a-million soundscapes and viewers with visuals that are creatively captivating. Brooklyn-bred born the daughter of a Rock & Roll singer and visual artist, Sandflower’s artistic abilities are infinite!
The Sandflower That Blossomed In Brooklyn
Notably, her private school education and immersion in the New York music scene exposed her to different views on the world. As a result, these experiences have influenced her unique musical style. In doing so, Sandflower combines visions from her meditations to create a cross-genre, multidimensional sound experience. These experiences are heard as her musical inspirations are made up of Jimi Hendrix, Cindy Sherman, Salvador Dali, and Allen Ginsberg. In addition to being intrigued by myths, legends, and the power of quantum physics. With such captivating content, Sandflower’s undeniable music and visual art have been featured in Vogue Italia, Paper Magazine, The New York Times, Fader, and The London Times to name a few. While her music has been moving musicians with features in Paper Magazine, Afropunk, The Last Magazine, and Out Magazine.
Furthermore, many of her music can be heard across film, television and all digital streaming platforms. These monumental moments include the hit Netflix film To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before 3 and commercials for Evian and Sprayground, both of which she co-wrote with Wyclef. This creative champion doesn’t look to be slowing down anytime soon! If you haven’t already, be sure to stream The Quantum Seed and enter Sandflower’s sanctuary. For this reason, the arrival of her The Quantum Seed album, speaks to self-awakening and is a manifestation of her vision for her otherworldly sound. Don’t believe me? See for yourself by pressing play on her visual album!
Finally take a look below to check out our chit chat with Sandflower as we dive deep into her latest project, her artistry, and much more!
Welcome to Sandflower’s Sanctuary Made Up Of Magical Myths and Music
- Hey Sandflower! It’s a pleasure to be speaking with you! Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to speak with me on behalf of KAZI Magazine! As we kick off our interview, let’s bring it back to the beginning… Who is SandFlower and where did it all begin?
So I am from New York City. I’m from Brooklyn. And I began the music from childhood. My mom is a musician and she has a really eclectic taste in music. So, I think it was one of the first songs I remember hearing was the West Side Story, soundtrack, the “There’s A Place For Us” from the original score. I just remember feeling so wave of emotion come over me, I was like five years old. It was my mom’s tape. It made me cry. Honestly, it was the first time you know, as a kid that I like cried for beauty instead of like, necessity. I remember being like, this is such a strange feeling. Obviously I wasn’t thinking like this is a strange feeling as a five year old, but like, What is this?What is happening? And it was the power of the music that really just meant so much. I wanted to be able to not just experience that, but create that myself.
- Next, what is your creative process like?
Yes, I definitely put pen to paper. I love just putting it down and writing. After I write everything, I do type it out. Because if I’m singing lyrics that I’ve just written, that’s fine. But by the way my notes are, it looks like this crazy work of art, because I’ve crossed stuff out and adding things on. So if I do have a chance, I’ll then type everything up on the iPad, and then just have that when I’m singing. But besides that everything else is like up for grabs as far as like what’s inspiring me at the moment. Or how I get the ideas. But I always have to write them down for sure.
- Loving your artistry from your sound to your style to your stage name. I’d love to know the inspiration behind “Sandflower”.
Actually, it’s my real name. My mom named me Sandflower. That’s funny, because I actually at one point was trying to come up with a stage name. And I’m like, I can’t I’ll just do what she birthed me with. I can’t think of anything any better than that. And when I was a kid, people definitely knew that that was my real name. But it’s like, Oh, that’s interesting. Now that I’m an adult, most people don’t think it’s my name and I totally understand why because like, hey, in the scheme of names like it doesn’t sound like a name. Somebody would be like going to Starbucks and having that name called out in public like it does I feel like a real name.
The Visually and Musically Stunning Debut Of Sandflower
- Who or what inspired your debut, The Quantum Seed?
I have been working with the producer of the album, David Sisko for a while now. And I think using my name as an inspiration, just like how I was trying to change my actual name into something else. I think it was like staring me in the face the whole time. Because I love nature. I really love gardens, like truly, and I kind of just, you know, it’s like something you just take it for granted, like, oh, Sandflower, like, that’s my name. Why would I incorporate that and just the title of my album? But, we were talking about it and he knows that I love, like quantum physics and quantum reality. And we were just coming up with titles together.
All of a sudden it just like snapped. Like, just the way when we write songs together, it’s kind of like, just like quicksand. Yeah, just quick. It just clicked like “Quicksand” which was the first song we wrote together. It just clicked and I think that was, was like a it was like an aha moment for Quantum Seed. Because I meditate every day and just the idea of like, planting the seed in the soil and allowing it to grow into whatever it might be into whichever reality it feels it wants to be. I feel like that’s, that’s each song is actually its own seed.
- Uniquely, The Quantum Seed is an impeccable genre-bending yet beautifully fused together project. With that being said, how long did it take to curate the visual album?
I mean, years. I could give you the impossible answer, oh, I just took three months like it took years. It took a long time. Because it doesn’t take time for me to write a song, that’s actually a really quick process. But then to live with the song, like kind of let it develop and then get the visuals going. I think once we finally decided, but I have hundreds of songs, and once we finally decided on which songs are going to be on the album, some of them already had videos then. But, then when I really honed in on a title, that’s when, like the rest of the visuals just flew. It was easy to create most of the visuals. The long form videos were all shot over probably maybe from 2018- 2019 up until now. As for the short form videos were those were actually all shot within a week. That’s because we decided like, well, we already have this many videos. Why don’t we actually make this a visual album?
Thanks. Yeah, that part was like a week of me booking different studios and recording and editing and styling everything myself. So for those shortest videos I figured there was no one that I thought could actually handle the amount of videos that I needed to make and edit them so quickly, in a way that like wasn’t going to be going back and forth too much. Or a process that would actually slow everybody down. So I just went in and I bought gear. I was like well I’m gonna do it! So that part was really quick but the songwriting process was probably a few years of of writing getting inspired. Also, going back in deciding okay, oh, we should add harmonies or oh, let’s rethink that drum sound. But at some point you have to stop and be like, yo, let’s let’s turn to put this out.
- While I know that this may be tricky, but I have to ask. With each track having its own visual, which track and its accompanying video is your favorite and why?
I think… That’s really hard. That’s really hard. Yeah, let me do some more coffee lol. Let me see. I think “Quicksand”. Only because that was the start of a new direction for me and music. A start of me really owning that I’m going to do different genres of music put together. I’m going to really put in my rock influence. I’m really going to like have fun with the lyrics and then shooting the video on the rooftop of the studio that we were recording it in the flat iron district in New York City. Which turned out had been a music video set for this band from the 80s called Bananarama. I think it’s called Cruel Summer they shot up there, which is cool. I didn’t know that until someone sent me the video. And they’re like, is this the same roof? I was like, Oh, my gosh, this is the roof. So that video, to me was also the first time I really got into the directing process in a way where, I found the people, we brought the people together. It wasn’t like I had like a label because I was previously signed and they did all the work. This was like everything was hands on, and really collaborative. That that definitely shifted how I worked and like what I felt I could expect from independent creativity. Which was amazing. So that video was like, a great experience. The song was an amazing experience. I just feel like that’s like the engine of all the songs is “Quicksand”.
Falling Into A Musical, Magical Place Like “Quicksand”
- Equally important, the album’s lead single is served up as “Quicksand”. A personal favorite myself, what inspired you to choose this sizzling single to set the tone?
“Quicksand“, I wrote it at a time where I really needed to decide who I was going to be as an artist. I was really trying, at one point to give people what I felt they wanted. There was no pressure to do that. It was just like, do I want to be like, I want to be this type of artists and make this type of music and have my music play here. Like it was definitely, at that point. Where it’s almost like, the newest generation of artists doesn’t have to think about the traditional way of doing music. It’s like, you get a label. Now you do Spotify, you do SoundCloud, Tik Tok, Instagram,YouTube even. You can do anything. I think that at that point, I had shifted everything I thought about my career, everything I thought about what it meant to be an artist. That song just like took on his own life.
When I played it for people they were like,what is this like? You know, like and that really made me happy because for a long time I was like I really want the guitats, I really wanted the rock music. I really started out wanting to be a punk rock musician. But, when I was like, Okay, I’ll do rock, it just it just wasn’t what I wanted. And it was too far away from what I think people expected. Which is something I feel really proud of for this album. It is like it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to let what other people’s expectations of me being that I’m a woman, being that I’m a black woman, being from New York. I don’t want to put anyone’s prejudice of what they think I should sound like, into my own psyche anymore. That’s what “Quicksand” was. It was actually what I want to say, this is actually the music I want to make. I’m just gonna see what happens. Thank goodness it worked out.
- Also, your latest offering follows up past release “Wannabe” – a reinvented cover of the 90s hit by the Spice Girls which was featured on Netflix blockbuster movie ‘To All The Boys: Always and Forever’. In addition to “No Regulas”, which was featured on “The List”. What were those experiences like hearing your music on tv?
I mean, it’s a dream come true. I’ve always wanted to have my music, be in film and television, it’s probably from that moment of West Side Story, I’ve always been into music scores. There’s just something so exciting about having your music played in a different context than you expected. But also it hits so many people, like at the same time. If it’s on a popular show, or something that becomes popular as a movie, it also helps give the emotional energy of whatever scene the the directors and musical director wanted for the show. So it feels really cool that a piece of my music could help with something like that.
Then actually the “Wanna Be”, people were seeking it out. It really did well, like people really loved that song. It just shows the power of music licensing, which I feel is like, incredible, because it’s another way for artists to have their music in the world without necessarily having to go the traditional route. I think a lot of artists, especially who have a more non traditional sound can flourish in that environment without the same pressure of “I need you to write me a hit”, or “I need you to sound like this”. I think it it frees you up a little bit more.
A Classic Collaboration
- Additionally, the project is orchestrated by legendary music producer, David Sisko. He is known for working with Gwen Stefani, Justin Timberlake, Kelly Clarkson, Lil John, The Pussycat Dolls, Timbaland. How did that collaboration come about?
On that collaboration for this project kind of evolved naturally. I met Sisko probably about, six years ago. I was working with multiple producers, I still do. But as far as for my own personal project, it was a pretty clear decision for me. Because I think, when I am doing my own work, I really want to feel like I have a space to create whatever it is, that’s in my mind. And Sisko is a really great person to work with. He really takes inspiration from the artist and gives different sounds. You can create anything from scratch with him. For me, it was really important to have that with an album because that’s super personal. We could research sounds, we could, you know, dive into the vibe, and then he might be like, “Okay, here’s 1010 ideas that I came up with which one do you like?” I’ll build it out from there. So that was really cool because it wasn’t just like, “Okay, here’s a track, here’s a beat, go read it”. It was like, “okay, which elements are you really looking for? Being able to really move things around and harmonies and take things out and etc. He’s really easy to work with. So it has kind of evolved pretty naturally.
- As a matter of fact, many may not know but you’re also apart of the booming brand of street and urban wear, SprayGround. Could you elaborate more on what it’s like being a part of a brand that continues to push the culture forward?
So I’ve been working with Sprayground since 2018. I actually met them before that because I performed at a pop up that David Ben David, the founder and CEO, was putting on in the beginning of the brand. Yeah, it was like, closer to the a few years into Sprayground being a brand. Then we reconnected in 2018 when he was actually in the studio with Sisko working on his own music project. We bumped into each other at the studio and ended up doing a song that we filmed in the Mojave Desert. Hopefully that’ll come out one day because it was really crazy. From there it just naturally evolved. There were all these bags and all of these ideas that I was coming up with. I’d go to the office, and he told me new stuff. I would just kind of get inspired and because I’ve never worked in a really traditional environment before like I went to college, I went to school, I was very prepared to have a very traditional job and be on a very clear track. But I decided to do music instead.
I think the education plus inspiration really made it easy to work with Sprayground because before the pandemic Dave is like constantly traveling around the world. A remote brand that really allowed for their designers and artists to be themselves and have a schedule that reflected the creative. When we naturally came up with this idea for AI, which is Artificial intelligence, I was already doing stuff that inspired me culturally. In fact, the first capsule which was the first collection was actually 22 bags. Now, we’re on the sixth season of AI. One of the cool things about it is that it’s actually the first time we did it. We shot our campaign in Dubai and partly in Thailand as well. It was amazing. It was so… so incredible to travel to these beautiful places and really getting the feeling of the Planet and the world and how we’re connected. Then on top of that, a portion of each season, the proceeds go to nonprofit and charitable organizations here in the United States. Also in Ghana, actually, because we’ve connected with some people in Ghana as well. So that is a basis of everything that I do what Sprayground is. That’s the heart and that purpose in design and creativity.
- Likewise, would you say outside of music that the world of Fashion fancies you as well?
I think it goes hand in hand, because I really feel like I’m an artist first. I think that all artists can branch into different art forms. And like you, I really like to see fashion as an art form. Because it is art for me, it’s a way of expressing myself. Especially in New York, you see so many amazing people expressing themselves through fashion in a way that’s super unique and really, really inspiring! So I think fashion is like a natural extension of the visual art that I make for the music I make. Yeah, I was already making stuff even from high school. I was sewing and designing my own stuff. I think that it just goes together because I can also like, listen to music while I’m designing something. Or for a song, I’ll start thinking, Oh, what do I want to wear when I’m performing this? Or what do I want to wear the music video? It’s the ideas are already starting.
What’s Next?
- Moreover, eager to know more, what’s next for Sandflower?
What’s next is? Let’s see. I’m gonna be creating my new live show. So I’m already looking for dancers and musicians. I’m really excited to start rehearsing again, I love the rehearsal process. I will actually be opening the Sprayground Fashion Week show on September 8, which is exciting. And scoring the runway, which I’m really happy about doing the music. Yeah, that’s it for now. The next is getting the the music and the visuals to the people in a way where I’m there. So like live. It’s a live show. It’s in person.
- Lastly, is there a message that you’d like to leave with fans?
CONNECT WITH SANDFLOWER ON SOCIAL MEDIA:
Instagram | Apple Music | Spotify | YouTube
