Electro-Rap Legend Isis Salam Goes Solo
Music

Electro-Rap Legend Isis Salam Goes Solo

At the height of late 2000s indie sleaze party culture, electro-rap duo Thunderheist emerged as an exciting, new act generating buzz across the blogosphere. With the sexy spoken flow of Peaches and booming swag of The Cool Kids, producer Grahm Zilla and vocalist Isis Salam saw success with semi-viral hits “Jerk It” and deeper album cuts like the speaker shaking “Red Whine” back in 2009.

Now more than a decade later, Isis Salam is reemerging as a solo act, premiering today her own EP, 4U MY DEAR IN LIEU OF FLOWERS, with a number of self-produced, mixed and engineered tracks. Born in Nigeria, before bouncing between New York and London, and now settling down in Berlin, Salam’s project is a worldly story of “strife, self-discovery and Black joy.”

“I would like for you, the listener, to consider this the appetizer — a gift, that I hope makes you smile,” Salam tells PAPER of what will eventually become a three-part anthology of music. “This entire project has evolved into a living body of work and it’s been insane wearing so many hats.”

Fittingly, Salam opens 4U smiling herself, with the blissfully optimistic “Good Life,” which sees her repeating the mantra, “We gon’ get that good life,” over a warm deep house beat that later gets sampled again on “Bills N Tings.” Elsewhere on the 10-track project, Salam dives into more fluttering nu-disco moments, with a mix of spoken and sung verses. She’s also looped in Chicago house legend Tyree Cooper and collaborator Kelvin Scholar to create an EP that’s, ultimately, all about love.

"Everything I do, I do it for the love," Salam says. "If you're reading this and considering taking that leap of faith and following your gut when it comes to your art, just remember: you too fly, not too fly baby."

Below, listen to the PAPER premiere of Isis Salam’s 4U MY DEAR IN LIEU OF FLOWERS.

Photo courtesy of Isis Salam