Sampha’s Lahai was worth the wait.
The UK singer-songwriter ruminates on lost time, relationships, and family on a release six years in the making. His new lease on life should inspire you.
Where has Sampha been?
Hip-hop heads might recognize his voice from show-stopping appearances with the likes of Kanye West (“Saint Pablo”), Drake (“Too Much”), and Kendrick Lamar (“Father Time”). But his tender falsetto is so much more than window dressing between rap verses.
Sampha’s vulnerability might be his greatest asset. His debut album Process dealt with grief after the loss of his parents to cancer, as well as anxiety from strained relationships with other family members. The heavy material made Process feel simultaneously detached and freeing for him as he waxed over wacky instrumentals that were as electronic as they were soulful. That creative process is much more than a means to an end for Sampha, as he told Apple Music: “I feel sometimes making an album is like a manifesto for how I should be living, or that all the answers are in what I’m saying.” To listen to this London-based crooner is to listen to someone actively processing their emotions in the studio, someone unafraid to explore and express themselves through cathartic recordings.
Six and a half years passed between the release of Process in February 2017 and Lahai’s in October 2023. With expectations rising after an extensive wait, Lahai was a record I had been heavily anticipating for a while—even before we knew what he’d title it. Lahai is both Sampha’s middle name and his grandfather’s first name, so identity and family are as central to this record as they were to its predecessor. This time, though, Sampha has the perspective of both a son and a father. He became a dad in 2020 and described raising his daughter through the pandemic as “intense but also quite focusing,” as his priorities shifted from being “worried about [his] own point of view to how many years [he is] going to be around.” That desire to nurture healthy relationships shines throughout Lahai.
“Stereo Colour Cloud (Shaman’s Dream)” introduces us to this new Sampha by raising important questions: “Who’s there when you’re down? / Who do you care about? / Watch who you care about.” The jittery drum pattern is as anxiety-inducing as these lyrics are, and you yourself begin to ponder the same questions. By the end of the track, a robotic female voice leans on a refrain we hear throughout the album: “I miss you, time misuse / Time flies, life issues.” Just like that, the table is set for a record dealing with a desire to reclaim lost time and strained relationships.
The highs and lows of ambition form the album’s thematic throughline, and intensely personal songwriting hits you at every turn. On the lead single “Spirit 2.0,” Sampha’s busy “dreaming with open eyes” and “drifting into open sky,” but he isn’t scared because some combination of love, faith, and friendship will catch him if he falls. Angelic adlibs affirm you of the same and make you want to fly right next to him. “Only” is similarly bright. The horns on the chorus feel like triumph as if Sampha’s confident he’ll find the peace he’s been searching for. The repeated “only you” refrain makes this song’s message clear, even if a bit on the nose: only you can write your story.
He’s the first one to tell you it isn’t all roses, though. On the same song, he reflects on the pitfalls of a one-track mind: “I been on this grind like it’s gonna break my fall / Careerism pothole, like where’d my loved ones go?” Sampha realizes he has neglected the simple things in life in service of chasing dreams: “Desires crush me numb / … / Take my body for a walk, call somebody just to talk.” In fact, when he does find someone to talk to—an unnamed person who ‘catches’ Sampha in the third verse of “Spirit 2.0”—he thanks them for grounding him: “[My] stock was rising like tenfold / But you’re more concerned for my mental.” No number of accolades can quench a grieving soul or a hard heart, and by the end of Lahai, even this Mercury Prize winner acknowledges that he can’t keep running away from his issues or the people trying to help him. It’s a touching admission, and something that we’d all benefit from admitting as well.
Trying to recover those interpersonal connections on songs like “Jonathan L. Seagull,” Sampha unleashes his trademark falsetto to admit that he “couldn’t stomach those blues you articulate / I’ve been acting like your actions are from outer space / But I understand that I’ve been out of place.” The stripped-back “Inclination Compass (Tenderness)” also showcases a deflated Sampha asking for a rekindling of love lost: “Did we have to be so featherless? / When skeletons came pouring out / How about we fly towards the source again? / Let's switch from cold to warm again.” On the verge of tears, Sampha’s voice perfectly captures the regret of letting an argument get out of control and realizing you must coax your partner to warm back up to you. More than anything else, the presence of his daughter, who’s lovingly mentioned in “Can’t Go Back” and “Evidence,” has forced Sampha to become more conscious of the fact that no man can stand alone. The active decision to work through issues with others is key to this new lease on life and contentment.
For all of its rich content, the thematic strengths of Lahai still come second to its musical ambitions. Prominent hi-hats on “Only” speed you up, somber piano keys on “Inclination Compass” and “Dancing Circles” slow you down, and thick drum kicks on “Spirit 2.0” make you take a step back. Not to be outdone, electronic beats and beeps in many of the intros and outros on the record create a soundscape that’s ever-expanding. These instrumentals are wholly unpredictable from verse to verse, let alone from track to track. Take “Jonathan L. Seagull” as an example. An initially electronic backdrop—at one point, you hear lasers fit for Star Trek—gives way to a bass guitar, which then transitions to a skittering drum reminiscent of “Stereo Colour Cloud.” As the instrumentation progresses from section to section, Sampha jumps between his soft falsetto and a more robust baritone multiple times. “Jonathan L. Seagull” only clears four and a half minutes, but has the scope and drive of a ten-minute opus that’s sure to mesmerize.
Vocally, he’s as impressive as ever. Sampha ascends, floats, glides, and crashes all at once, and the luscious symphony of his layered vocals steals the show without fail. His holding of notes at the end of lines is downright bewildering at times: his voice sounds strained yet perfectly in control. Any effort to describe Sampha’s vocal performances falls short of just listening and appreciating his craft. Truly, this man knew exactly what each moment on Lahai needed and dialed the intensity up or down accordingly.
Everything fantastic about this album comes together on “Suspended,” which begins with an effortless crooning of the titular word. It’s a sign of things to come on this incredibly written vignette about memories and lost time. Sampha wishes he could turn back the clock: “we’re not where we used to be, of course / I lost the map but we could still explore.” He admits to a past lover that maybe “in another life, we were two birds that soared / In another life, I don’t know who you are,” implying that in our world, they’re an awkward third option, not perfect lovers nor perfect strangers. If the lyrics sound multiversal, so does Sampha’s delivery, especially in the second verse. His vocals glitch at the end of lines as if he’s teleporting through universes he doesn’t belong in. It's almost as if we’re traveling with him. And when the drums kick in alongside the second chorus? You’re in heaven. “Suspended” is the most breathtaking moment on a breathtaking record.
Lahai is a phenomenal listen, but the last leg of the record does lack consistency. “Evidence” is wholly skippable. Yes, the ‘evidence’ Sampha finds for the true beauty of the world is his daughter, but the sweet sentiment can’t mask its indecisive instrumental. I’m a fan of the bongos and guitar pieces individually, but the piano chords scattered throughout don’t mesh well enough with the rest of the composition. And the track isn’t that impressive vocally, relatively speaking. “Rose Tint” doesn’t really work as a standalone moment either—I don’t listen to it without the context of the album—but it’s at least a proper outro to the narrative of Lahai. We hear Sampha reconnect with some of the family he’s been alluding to all record. He apologizes to them for being “lost in [his] own world / preoccupied with [his] own hurt,” and a simple request bookends the song: “Everybody gather round / Gonna take this picture now / Everybody speaking loud / Everybody in one house.” It’s a warm, wholesome resolution to an album-long introspection. Truly, we’ve heard Sampha learn more about himself in just 41 minutes.
Lahai is growth and self-discovery. It is taking a long, peaceful walk through nature when you’re alone with your thoughts. If Process depicted Sampha feeling isolated from the world in grief, this sophomore effort shows him actively investing in relationships with those closest to him. And yes, this record comes six long years after Process, but I’m still blown away by Lahai’s inventiveness, punctuated by its diverse instrumental palette that elevates Sampha’s uniquely emotive falsetto. This alt-R&B singer will continue to “dream with open eyes,” but he now understands that “the fam beside [him] is what [he] needed most.”
Welcome back, Sampha. We missed you.
edited by Aidan Burt.
album artwork believed to belong to either the publisher of the work or the artist.
