Rapper, Ph.D. student Sammus wows crowd at 2017 Norman Music Festival

Pink lights flash across the stage and the rapper tells the crowd the show is coming to a close. Sammus puts the microphone down, raps a capella and runs into the crowd to jump with it, immersing herself in the excitement of the performance. The energy is at its highest point in the show. She heads backstage to mingle with fans and prepares to enjoy her weekend at Norman Music Festival before flying back home to Ithaca, New York, and Cornell University as Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo.

At night, Sammus is a hip-hop rap artist who creates mixes of her own beats and snarky, socially-conscious lyrics. During the day, she turns back into Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo, a native New Yorker studying sound studies at Cornell to earn her Ph.D.

Lumumba-Kasongo’s life consists of constantly juggling music and schoolwork. In her early graduate school days, the most challenging part of Lumumba-Kasongo’s life was trying to go to performances without missing classes. Since her career has expanded and her dissertation is coming together, she can focus on making more music and going to performances across the country.

“I don’t really want to do anything with my Ph.D.,” Lumumba-Kasongo said. “I just want to make music and I want to finish it and have that be a cool thing that I’ve accomplished.”

Sammus came to life because of Lumumba-Kasongo’s love of video games. When Lumumba-Kasongo was younger, she used to watch her older brother play the video game “Metroid,” which follows the journey of a character named Samus.

“I added the extra ‘m’ because I didn’t want Nintendo to sue me,” Lumumba-Kasongo said.

At the end of the game, the character’s armor comes off and it is revealed Samus is a woman.

“For me as a kid, that was a huge moment,” Lumumba-Kasongo said. “I couldn’t believe it.”

When her music career started, Lumumba-Kasongo decided to rebrand herself into Sammus. Sammus produces and creates all of the beats for her music. When she began her career and for years after, men would ask her who made the beats for her or if she had help creating them.

“They insinuated that I didn’t have the skill set to do it,” Sammus said. She enjoys the “reveal” moment when her haters find out that she creates all her music by herself.

Sammus describes her music as “black girl nerd rap.” It uses references to social issues like feminism and celebrities she is inspired by, like astronaut Mae Jemison. Sammus is inspired by artists like Kanye West, Bjork and Daft Punk, but her instrumental beats can be compared to music from video games like Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Final Fantasy 7.

Having two personas has been a weird experience for Sammus, and she is trying to balance her personal life and her rap career.

“I’m very personal in my music, so I’m sharing all these intimate details of my life,” Sammus said. “There’s a perceived closeness that’s one-sided because I don’t know the details of their lives.”

Meeting people from across the country and being invited to festivals are experiences she can share with her fans. She tries to get across in her music that vulnerability is powerful, Sammus said.

“I cannot even believe that anybody besides my mom listens to my music,” Sammus said. “I’m really grateful to have people who continue to support me.”

Andrew Willoughby, OU plant biology junior, has been a fan of Sammus since her early days of performing at Cornell.

“Sammus played once and she made me cry like three times in 20 minutes,” Willoughby said. “I found out she was coming here, and I felt really excited.”

Willoughby’s favorite Sammus song is “1080p,” and he said he has been excited to hear Sammus perform her “honest music” for weeks, but Sammus’ shows draw in more than just a familiar crowd. Catherine Jarshaw, 19, saw Sammus for the first time this weekend at Norman Music Festival, and she thought Sammus’ performance was powerful.

“You could tell she was a Ph.D. student because she was saying quick words but they all made sense in her way,” Jarshaw said. “She made a lot of connections with her own life over and over again but in a lot of different ways.”

Sammus’ life as an artist and student helps her create music that is relatable to all of her fans. She is glad that audiences everywhere can be receptive to her sound.

“The songs I think that are the best of mine are the ones that touch on deeply intimate aspects of my life that make me feel exposed,” Sammus said. “Ultimately they are healing for me and healing for other people.”