Soul Queen

We all enjoy good music and even more so when the inventor truly embodies it. Nubia Soul Goddess is one such creator. She is an exquisite and largely talented electronic soul artist based in Atlanta, Georgia. Her music includes spiritual conscious hints that are not only therapeutic and healing but also revealing. All of her music carries inspiring and motivating messages which flow straight from the soul. She believes that we are all connected in one way or another and that her role through music, is to help encourage those connections. We had the honor of interviewing the artist herself and we are sharing it with you. We hope that you enjoy this fantastic interview.

My full name is Nubia Soul Goddess and I’m 38 years old. I’m originally from Macon, Georgia in the United States, although I am based in Atlanta, Georgia. I obtained my stage name during a time where I was going through a lifestyle change; mentally and spiritually. I have always felt connected to my African heritage since I was a teenager. Upon meeting my ex-husband, I decided to take on a name that I felt was more appropriate for me and what I wanted to represent myself as. So I bought an Egyptian name book and started studying those names. I settled on Nubia. This was between 2007 and 2008. By 2009 I started singing publicly and was working with a beautiful goddess by the name of Tawhiyda, who was a radio presenter at the local Grassroots radio station. That year, she was able to get me on stage at the World Natural Hair Show in Atlanta that has been occurring for several years. When she introduced me to the crowd of about ten thousand people, she lovingly referred to me as Nubia the Soul Goddess and the crowd went crazy! That name has stuck with me ever since. “We’ve registered it with local and international authorities so it’s all mine lol”.

 I was listening to a single that my godfather at the time had just created with my daughter’s father and uncle, and it inspired me so much so, that he told me that it was time for me to start singing again. He told me that I needed to start writing. And that’s exactly what I did. The first thing I wrote was about how that song made me feel. The first song that I wrote and that I actually recorded for myself was called Neo Soul, which had nothing to do with the music genre itself, kind of like my name. I’m an Electronic Soul artist. Electronic Soul is a mixture of soul, hip-hop, RnB, pop, funk, and rock all blended together. All of my music carries messages from either personal experiences or daily inspiration, with dabs of spiritual conscious hints. 

 My mother paid for me to have classical piano lessons for several years when I was s child. My classical piano teacher was Ms. Georgia Brown, an elderly Caucasian lady whom I grew to love, and miss to this very day. Nobody could teach piano like she could and she thoroughly enjoyed teaching me. She learned that I could play by ear and that I was capable of learning actual notation. I hate that my time with her was short. My piano lessons were full of classical pieces from Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, along with excerpts of Rock, Jazz, and Gospel thrown in. She was a lively woman. She adored her cats and dogs who seemed to love me just as much as she did. Then once I became a student in middle school, my goal was to play drums. Ms. Kennedy was my music teacher then and she started me on the snare drum and just like Ms. Georgia Brown, she also saw that I could play by ear and learn notation, so she proceeded to teach me how to play all percussion instruments. She also taught me how to read sheet music and how to play the xylophone and trumpet. I wasn’t a huge fan of the trumpet. I wasn’t clear on the usage of my lips and fingering of the trumpet (lol). At the same time, I was singing in my childhood church choir but once I left high school and had my daughter, I took a turn from my original life plan. A few years passed before I started to pursue my music career.

In my mind, music is magic and those who create music are magicians. Especially when you can impact others with what you have created; it’s a surreal feeling that I get. Music is therapeutic, healing, revealing, a messenger and a safe space. My most vulnerable and most cherished place is behind a microphone. 
My role and the role of my artwork in this society is to help people connect to themselves. Their true selves. That’s what the “Soul” is for in my name. It’s not about soul music, it’s about the music that comes from my soul, that connects with your soul, that makes you want to be more in touch with your soul. I hope that it will help you become more in touch with everything and everyone in your life because we are all connected in some way. I know that sounds cliché but when you have lived the life I have lived, you see the concurrences quite often and find out that so many things are connected to each other, sometimes in the weirdest ways. So my place in this world is to garner connections. To facilitate and encourage connections and communication between individuals, nature, and spirit. I want people to experience everything they need to experience! “Lol, I’m a conduit and my prayer before every performance is that I remember what I came to do, that my band is in sync with everything going on around us, with the crowd, and that the listeners enjoy what they hear and see from me.” I want them to feel my vibe and to feel comfortable joining me in songs I perform. I want them to let loose and free themselves because that’s what I’m doing freeing myself on stage…

My journey in the industry has been an interesting one. It’s not hard but it’s not easy. I have been scammed before, I have been used, I have been lied to, but I have also been extremely blessed. It’s just a part of the process that I believe every artist goes through somehow. No one is going to have a smooth journey in this, and if they say they have, they are lying. There are so many things that artists face at every stage of their careers. As much as things change, they really do stay the same, you just learn how to move smarter. I have personally faced divorce, being scammed, being homeless, molestation of my child from a very close source, and losing a previous mate in a car accident. Not having enough money to push music properly and pay bills has definitely been a big challenge. This is why supporting indie artists is so important. We don’t have the million-dollar budgets that the world sees major artists with. That takes time to achieve. My best moments on this journey in this industry, are becoming comfortable with Nubia Soul Goddess first and foremost. Another great moment was working with a Grammy-nominated artist, paying off my car, doing hooks and adlibs for other artists and poets all over the world. Those are my best moments so far, and I am looking forward to many more great moments! I’ve gained recognition through performing live with my band, working with other artists and getting interviewed in various places. I don’t think there is one song or album of mine that stands out. Every song carries an energy of its own that works for certain audiences.

 In the beginning, because I had certain people trying to control my sound instead of letting me be myself. I was afraid to do the music I really enjoyed and was stuck in a genre that really didn’t fit me. Healing my own personal traumas helped me to release that fear. I come from a family that is largely Christian and not singing gospel was a shock for some. Then not being a Christian was an even bigger shock for everyone. It took some years before that shock wore off and they were okay with who I was becoming which was ME. After releasing so many spiritual blockages, I decided to be me as much as possible as long as it doesn’t hurt or harm others. So my last single, ‘Smiling Faces,’ is me having fun while telling several stories in one. 

Life inspires me. Seriously. I have a desk that stays occupied by sticky notes and notebooks and papers of things that I write down that inspire me, that I want to research or implement somewhere in my life. I have about a dozen journals that I use at any given time for documenting inspirational moments. My phone has dozens of notes in it of things I see, loads of screenshots, and I’m currently being chastised by my daughter to not buy any more journals lol. Everything inspires me! My favorite part of making music is recording. That’s when I get to see if the song will take flight on its own by adding extra things in it that I didn’t initially hear before recording. My second favorite part of making music is when my band can play it and feel the same groove or vibe that I felt when recording it. That is magic at that point and it can be relayed to listeners. 

My dream project? Goodness I have several! I want to work with Mali Music, Goodie Mob, Outkast, Maroon, Anderson Paak, Erykah Badu, Raphael Saadiq, Timbaland, Pharell, Beyonce, Allen Stone, Ledisi, Robert Glasper, Big Freedia, Kaytranada, Jidenna, Alex Isley, Snoop Dogg, I mean… this list is quite extensive lol. As far as projects with companies, I want to work with Red Bull, NPR, Dupont Wine, a shoe designer, a clothing designer would be great too. I’m really open to working on projects with anyone as long as it makes sense to both brands. 

What I dislike about the music industry is the separation between major and indie artists and the amount of scamming that goes on. My scariest experience was when the DJ got into an argument with the patron after a performance at a local lounge, and she called her friends to come and fight him and the only thing I could think of was wanting to leave for fear of a gun being brought into the mix. 

The best advice I have ever been given is to be an artist and as for what I desire- the worst thing they can say is no. But someone is going to tell you yes.
To anyone who has a passion for something but is too afraid to follow, come talk to me, let’s talk this out…

Please be sure to follow Nubia Soul Goddess on the social platforms below

Insta: @officialnubiasoulgoddess

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NubiaSoulGODdess/

TikTok: @nubiasoulgoddess

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/nubiasoulgoddess

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NubiaSoulGODdes

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