Respect The Neighbors • Sunni Colón
Age: 25 • Hometown: Los Angeles • Follow: Twitter // Soundcloud
Sunni Colón has one job, making you dance. The Los Angeles artist does it all, but that's his driving motivation, and one he achieves with what seems like ease. In an age where dance music has been largely reduced to big tents, loud noises, and flashing lights, Sunni Colón is taking the movement back to its human element.
He's gone on record saying that he wants to have sex to all his songs, bar none. Thirst quenching aside, you can see what he's going for here. A move away from the overly-produced, the non-human. What is dancing if not connection? After all, it's better with two people anyways. Just as prevalent as the themes to human connection are, at times, the absence of it. There’s a deliberately cold, sparse sound that Sunni Colón plays with. Few things are more human than loneliness, and Sunni Colón explores the absent feeling behind that.
His full name is Sunni Colón Thierry Tetsu. Friends call him Kayce, but fans stick with Sunni. A self-taught mult-instrumentalist, Sunni began making beats at 13 and hasn't looked back since. And it's important to make clear at the beginning, Sunni Colón is a singer and producer to this day, creating the beats for pretty much all his work, including his recent Thierry Disko EP. Listen to Thierry Disko EP and what stands out is the closeness of it all, a dance party in the palm of your hand. Large gestures have no place here, when Sunni Colón recognizes that even the smallest motions can be powerful. Rather than huge synths or other tropes of dance music right now, Sunni opts for creative flourishes of production to subtly fly over what are generally quick, diminutive beats. "Disco" is probably the right word to use in the title name, and the project absolutely has that dance-floor mentality.
Lots of artists can produce though, and it's Sunni Colón's singing that makes him stand out. Once again, he's sticking with the casual, human approach. At times on the Thierry Disko project, for example, the track "California Diamond", it feels more like a discussion than a song. His voice is breathy but clear and cutting, a representation of physical contact. While the production from Sunni is fantastic, it would take the project nowhere if it didn't have that golden voice to accompany the Thierry Disko EP. If the project is a series of night-time interactions, Sunni's singing is the conversations that instigate them and spring from them.
Put yourself out there and check out the new project and Sunni's small, but growing back catalog. Better yet, find someone to listen with.
