{"id":33180,"date":"2020-05-13T14:25:23","date_gmt":"2020-05-13T18:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/?p=33180"},"modified":"2020-05-13T14:25:23","modified_gmt":"2020-05-13T18:25:23","slug":"playing-detroit-billionaire-sophia-ootgoat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/playing-detroit-billionaire-sophia-ootgoat\/","title":{"rendered":"Detroit Artist Billionaire Sophia Defies Genre on Ootgoat EP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33181\" src=\"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/b-sophia-for-audiofemme--e1589392869849.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"668\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/b-sophia-for-audiofemme--e1589392869849.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/b-sophia-for-audiofemme--e1589392869849-324x216.jpg 324w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/b-sophia-for-audiofemme--e1589392869849-416x278.jpg 416w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/b-sophia-for-audiofemme--e1589392869849-500x334.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/b-sophia-for-audiofemme--e1589392869849-700x468.jpg 700w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Detroit-based artist Billionaire Sophia melds pop, R&amp;B, trap and hip hop on her new EP, <em>Ootgoat<\/em>. Written, produced and mixed entirely by herself, the project is a testament to Sophia\u2019s growth as a producer and artist. She explains that her journey with production started about eight years ago and has been almost entirely self-taught.\u00a0 \u201cI started making beats and stuff in 2012, but I didn\u2019t get my own equipment until 2014,\u201d says Sophia. \u201cThat\u2019s when I started doing it myself, but I didn\u2019t start getting good &#8217;til 2016&#8230;and it\u2019s still gotta get better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Where Sophia\u2019s at right now is already sounding real good. Following her February 2020 release, <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/album\/2wlxLgzxqc5a5Zo3AmWozV?si=USAoiLkJQlq5kHOGXjiEBg\"><em>Love Not Attention<\/em><\/a>, and recorded in her bedroom due to the state-wide lockdown, <em>Ootgoat<\/em> expands on Sophia\u2019s languid, stream of consciousness style of songwriting and showcases both her flow as a rapper as well as her ethereal vocals. Sophia explains that she doesn\u2019t practice a locked-in method for her songwriting, but follows whatever she\u2019s feeling at the time. \u201cIf I&#8217;m listening to a beat I made&#8230; I just listen to it and see if I can feel something. Then if I can&#8217;t feel nothing I just go to my mic and start singing whatever comes out,\u201d Sophia explains. \u201cEventually, maybe a hook will come out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/album\/38lk9QFjMFuvirFkh689ee\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Her innate melodic sensibility and knack for hook writing are evident in songs like \u201cWhite Girl\u201d and \u201cMilan\u201d that are almost impossible not to sing back. They\u2019re the type of songs made for warm summer nights, cruising with your friends, maybe burning one. Sophia\u2019s pop-leaning instincts are likely a combined influence of Detroit\u2019s deep electronic roots and a lifetime of listening to pop trailblazers. \u201cWhen I first started making beats, I was like, I&#8217;m gonna make a whole bunch of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Mf0AsckXYUM\">jittin\u2019 beats<\/a>, you know, Detroit style beats where you can dance,\u201d Sophia says. \u201cI just like pop music, I like rap, I like all types of music,\u201d she says, citing Timbaland, Pharrel, Jay-Z, Rihanna and Justin Bieber as some of her early influences.<\/p>\n<p>Merging Detroit-style beats with more Billboard-charting influences gives Sophia\u2019s music both catchiness and a musical complexity not found in generic pop music. Her cadence on \u201cBrown Eyes\u201d is akin to the talk-style singing perfected by artists like Sza or Kari Faux that makes the listener feel like she\u2019s talking solely to them &#8211; her sultry, whisper-like vocals add to that sensation as well.<\/p>\n<p>While individual songs on <em>Ootgoat<\/em> act as vignettes into Sophia&#8217;s personal life and aspirations, the EP as a whole speaks to what seems to be Sophia\u2019s vibe as an artist: nonconforming. The cover art, designed by Sophia, features the first-ever known statue of a woman, <a href=\"https:\/\/mymodernmet.com\/the-venus-of-willendorf\/\"><em>Venus of Willendorf<\/em><\/a>, thought to have been created in 30,000 B.C. Sophia chose this image because of its stark difference to images of women that we generally see in the media. \u201cShe is not typical and it\u2019s not what people think what women should be,\u201d explains Sophia. \u201cReally, you can be whatever you wanna be. [There&#8217;s] no rule to being a human.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Like many women, Sophia personally relates to that sentiment, especially when it comes to who she is as an artist. \u201cI just see that I\u2019m a free artist, I do what I want to do, but I\u2019m never going to be understood fully.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Follow Billionaire Sophia on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/billionairesophia\/\">Facebook<\/a> for ongoing updates.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Detroit-based artist Billionaire Sophia melds pop, R&amp;B, trap and hip hop on her new EP, Ootgoat. Written, produced and mixed entirely by herself, the project is a testament to Sophia\u2019s growth as a producer and artist. She explains that her journey with production started about eight years ago and has been almost entirely self-taught.\u00a0 \u201cI [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":33181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4392],"tags":[10276,43,10273,391,470,1385],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/b-sophia-for-audiofemme--e1589392869849.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33180"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33180"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33184,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33180\/revisions\/33184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}