SAMURAE is an R&B artist who complements a powerful singing voice with dreamy arrangements.
SAMURAE’s latest single, “Cotton Candy Clouds,” saunters and sashays like something out of 1950s Hollywood; call it Sunset Strip District. Tasteful lounge piano and echoing finger snaps back SAMURAE as she remembers one sweet night spent downtown with a significant other. In a voice that recalls Sarah Vaughan at her most forceful, she runs through what seems on the surface like an intoxicating series of images (nighttime strolls, dripping chocolate, falling gumdrops, the titular spun sugar clouds), but weaves in an ambivalent undercurrent, at one point singing, “I always dressed my best/But inside I was a mess.” Sure enough, there’s an abrupt switch-up at the end; SAMURAE’s curfew (literal or metaphoric) calls, “I gestured to go/You kept telling me no/So I threw you away/Candy causes decay.” The final line recontextualizes what came before, turning a traditional torch song into something nuanced, insightful, and slightly psychedelic.
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