Standing On Giant Shoulders: Forest Green Vinyl LP

Label: Drink Sum Wtr
Release Date: 26th April

Seafood Sam has one foot in the 90s golden age of hip hop soul with that luxurious funk ala DJ Quik and D'Angelo with another in a space-age rnb future centuries from now. It's making babies for the spaceship music.

Seafood Sam is a futuristic artifact. If that description might sound confusing at first, it matches the eclectic dualities found in true originals. With his effortless cool and timeless style, the North Long Beach native defies convention and exact comparison. He’s a virtuosic rapper, a stop-you-in-your-tracks singer, and a symphonic producer. Welcome to the lavish life of a laid-back transcontinental man of mystery, rolling in old school Cadillacs, eating caviar with a blade in his pocket, and making plays in vintage Pelle Pelle gear. A blaxploitation icon for the Instagram age, blessed with the bars of a ‘90s legend and 23rd century swagger. Seafood Sam is a true hero of modernity.   

On his full-length album debut for up-and-coming label drink sum wtr (Kari Faux,Deem Spencer, Aja Monet) debut, Standing on Giant Shoulders, Sam splits the difference between Snoop Dogg and D’ Angelo, Curren$y and David Ruffin. The songs reveal a forward-thinking sensibility rooted in ancestral soul. He creates spiritual hymns for the streets that tap into universal ideals and irrepress-ible groove. In an era plagued by short-term thinking, his ambitions reveal a crate-digging depth of music history and a meticulous ear for detail.   

The giant shoulders in the album’s title refer to James Brown, Bobby Brown, and Miles Davis – the holy trinity who inspired Sam’s process. From the Godfather of Soul, Sam took a perfectionist’s rig-or and focus. The example of Bobby Brown lent an unshakeable confidence and self-belief. While the constant artistic left turns of the trumpeter that birthed Ccool offered an aspirational archetype. The story starts in the glory days of Long Beach hip-hop. As a young child, the G-Funk era soundtracked rides in Sam’s father’s car. Some of his earliest memories are trying to memorize Snoop’s verse on “Nuthin’ But a “G” Thang.” Beyond gangsta rap, the LBC has historically doubled as a capital of lowrider soul and carwash oldies. At any intersection, you could hear Dogg Food or Brenton Wood, Warren G or Barbara Lynn. This too was absorbed via osmosis. It also just so happened that the art of performance was always in Sam’s blood. So at family functions, he and his sister supplied entertainment by singing karaoke renditions of The Isley Brothers. While his Harlem Shake remains a thing of local lore.  

Long Beach is a culturally diverse mecca of skate parks and gang life, street fashion and tricky dance moves. This is the place that raised Sam on a diet of Wu-Tang and Nelly Furtado, Lil Bow Wow and Allen Iverson. He was the middle ground between his two older brothers: one who gang-banged, the other who graduated with a master’s degree from UC-Santa Barbara. But it wasn’t until the end of high school that Sam started to take rap seriously. Alongside long-time collaborators like Huey Briss and Reaper Mook, Sam’s name began to make waves on the northside of the city, but he was partially distracted by a modeling career that paid the bills and took him all to way to walk in Paris’ fashion week.   

The first turning point arrived with 2018’s “Ramsey,” a self-produced, slick-talk anthem with over 10,000,000 streams across all platforms. With each subsequent release, Sam showcased his peerless consistency, building buzz both online and in the city streets. Spin hailed his “smooth and unhurried cadences and understated lyricism...that sounds like nothing else in Long Beach.” Clash raved about Sam’s “evolution as an artist, cruising through nostalgic production with slick, witty rhymes.”The culmination arrives with Standing on Giant Shoulders. It’s the evidence of a master, a young sensei in the model of Quincy Jones. All rhymes, singing, production, and arrangements were handled by Sam – with an assist from his close Long Beach kinsman Tom Kendall from the group Soular System. It’s hard-edged and lyrical enough for disciples of Larry June and Roc Marciano, but orchestral and melodic enough for fans of Anderson .Paak and H.E.R. 

01. Saylo
02. Can’t Take the Hood to Heaven
03. Attack of the Dreadlocks (feat. Rae Khalil)
04. Lynn’s Lullaby (Interlude)
05. Brownskin Cinnamon
06. Grey Seas (feat. Reaper Mook)
07. Cowboy Leather (feat. Pink Siifu)
08. Overseas Sam
09. Bullets from a Butterfly
10. Pearly Gates Playlist
11. Things Grandma Told Me
12. Bygones
13. Lagonda (feat. Goya Gumbani)
14. The Card Players (feat. Jayellz)
15. When I Met Rose