Moses Sumney Can Do It All

For someone who is so open and unflinching—rarely displaying any hesitation to discuss his attitude, philosophy, and presumably the deepest of feelings—Moses Sumney carries an enigmatic aura around him. It’s where he’s most comfortable: indefinability. After two widely acclaimed albums, it’s no easier to pinpoint who Sumney is—though that may not be necessary at all. He’s become a documentarian of the messy process of unearthing identity and contextualizing it into the world around us. But Sumney is now entering a new chapter in which he’s seeking out new experiences both privately and publicly—his new EP, Sophcore, came out this summer at the same time that his film debut MaXXXine entered theaters—earning increased visibility and a new expression of his artistry.

Sumney’s most surprising admission comes early, peering into the contrasts that define him. “I’m an introvert,” he says, though he seems anything but. He speaks confidently, carries himself with gravity—heightened by his muscular frame and fashion sense, which is almost always all black and ranges from the structured and sculptural to the fluid, with garments draping off his body. That presence is alluring, evidently: His Rolodex of equally buzzworthy friends and collaborators—everyone from Jeremy O. Harris to Zoë Kravitz—and ease in front of the camera on red carpets, editorials, and now films, suggest the extroverted type, though he insists it’s all part of the persona. “I like to be alone and I’m not a hyper social person, but I am a great performer socially,” he admits, “so I can definitely fake the funk.”

True to his word, Sumney has chosen to reside in Asheville, North Carolina, surrounded by nature. In the past, city life didn’t quite work out for him; he lived in Los Angeles, where he initially conceived his debut album Aromanticism, but would seek out excursions as often as possible. “I would flee to the mountains. I'd go to Big Bear or Topanga,” he recalls. “It was really clear to me that it wasn't the most conducive place for me as an artist.” He moved to London, which he loved, but also felt it wasn’t right, eventually settling on Asheville, where he has the ample time and space required for a songwriter to excavate his inner self, most apparent on his last full-length album græ and the subsequent feature-length concert film he created, Blackalachia. “I think what I needed was to create and discover a language with nature that incorporated nature,” he says. “I felt like I needed to be isolated to make the work that I was making then, and now I feel like I need to be around people more often in order to make the work that I'm making now.”

That means more trips to New York, albeit secretly, as Sumney points out. It’s the centerpoint of many of his worlds: fashion, music, and now acting, but the city also inspires connection, a deeper desire for him. Still, he doesn’t get too swept up in the demands of socialization; his intuition is there to remind him that when it’s time to go, it’s time to go. “What’s nice about New York is I’m learning how to French exit,” he says. “Maybe I’m used to living in the South, you don’t normally just leave the place without saying goodbye to every single person that’s in the establishment. It's kind of rude to do that. But then New York, every space is so transient.” It’s not just a lifestyle change; it’s a new era for Sumney in both his attitude and his artistry. “I think everybody goes through different time periods in their lives and, as artists, it’s our job to be hyper-aware of them and incorporate them into our work,” he continues. “I do feel like this time for me is largely about people, being around people, taking in their energy, observing them, having sex with them or not having sex with them—very intentionally having the option. There’s no options in the forest.”

The first articulation of this newfound energy is on Sumney’s latest EP, Sophcore, released in August. His stirring vocals still remain across the six songs, but there’s a brazen self-assurance, both lyrically and sonically. On the EP’s opener, “I’m Better (I’m Bad),” Sumney owns the status he’s achieved: “I don’t get up when you gas/I be caught up in the past/They used to leave me for last/Now they want me on they ass.” As the EP’s title suggests, Sumney doesn’t shy away from sex, however fleeting these episodes may be. “Whippedlashed,” “Gold Coast,” and “Hey Girl” all describe scenarios in which Sumney finds the undeniable heat of immediate attraction, in the club, in another country, anywhere he’s opening himself up to accept the bounty of connection—physical or otherwise. These songs reflect an approach Sumney is taking, ostensibly for the first time in his songwriting. “I feel that I’m far enough along in my career that I’ve just been like, ‘What if I have fun? That’d be crazy,’” he says. “Whereas [before], I must make sure that everyone knows that I’m a serious artist—and not only am I serious, but I’m also talented and I'm capable and I deserve to be here. And I’m like, ‘This shit is so stupid. Let’s just have fun.’” It’s only in the closing track, “Love’s Refrain,” that he throws a curveball in the opening lines: “I lied/I’m in love all the time,” confessing that his feelings are more complicated than he lets on.

That’s not to say that the old Sumney has entirely dissipated; on the contrary, his complexity only grows with every new inclination. “I feel solidified in abstraction,” he affirms. “I feel like that is who I am. It's like I'm between worlds, but not because I'm transitioning between them, but because I occupy both or all of them fully.” Græ wasn’t just an exploration of the gray area that Sumney sees himself in, and sees in himself; it was an acceptance of it as true to his nature. “I think that when you're not able to define yourself in a clear way, the idea or the expectation is that you don’t yet know who you are,” he says. “I think what I was trying to say with that record is that who I am, but also who most people are, is largely undefinable. If the idea is that to identify is to categorize in a simple way, then that's not ever really going to be me.” Now with Sophcore—and whatever comes next—Sumney is taking what he knows about himself and contextualizing it through a new theme and a new desire: intimacy. “I think that I figured it out and who I am is really complex and it's occupying and containing multitudes,” he says. “So I think that this next era is definitely incorporating intimacy into that. It’s not transitioning out of solitude, it’s incorporating intimacy into the other many layers that I exist between.”

His embrace of his innate multitudes is what creates such mystery around him; with each album he understands himself better, exuding his growing confidence. A recurring theme with Sumney is the dissonance of identity, stemming from his upbringing in America before a move to Ghana at ten years old and then a return to California at sixteen. “A duality, or as Du Bois would say, double consciousness that comes already from being minoritized in America,” he adds. “For me, there’s just extra layers to having grown up in two countries, this idea of being not either one, not both, but a third thing that is an incorporation of both but also a separation from both.” Those ideas took on a greater presence as Sumney’s renown increased, though having to regularly confront that duality has given him an added resolve. “I don’t really like to use the word ‘fame.’ I don’t really consider myself famous, but pre occupying a public identity, I already was hyper familiar with who I am and who I am perceived to be [being] at odds with each other,” he says. “That has made stepping into the limelight relatively easy because I’ve already had my entire life to struggle with it. I have a really strong sense of who I am and I am hyper conscious of the fact that who I am and who people perceive me to be will always be different and will never be the same. This is true of most people, but it is more true the more minoritized your identity is and the more known you are.”

He knowingly admits this at a moment when his fame is rising, especially now that he’s made it to the big screen in Ti West’s MaXXXine, but recognition was an inevitable outcome when he made his foray into acting (beginning with his five-episode role in the star-studded HBO series The Idol). His passion for acting began soon after he released græ: “When I was writing my second album, I already knew that I was going to take a really long break afterward, reassess the way that I work and the way that I write, which is very intense. It's incredibly labor-intensive and emotionally draining, although I enjoy it and love it.” Acting felt like a natural outlet; he always had an interest in the cinematic arts, directing some of his own music videos, and then expanding that interest by doing Blackalachia. It was also an inclination towards collaboration, something that songwriting rarely afforded him. The fact that he had developed a strong camera presence didn’t hurt either. “I really felt that I could hear the universe literally saying, ‘You should try it,’” he says. “‘There’s something in there for you and you’re going to learn something, and also you will be able to book,’ is what I felt. I heard that really loudly. So I started just scheming and planning and studying.”

As the third film in the horror-slasher franchise that includes X and the prequel film Pearl, MaXXXine continues the story of Mia Goth’s adult-film star Maxine Minx and her brushes with grizzly murderers, this time set in the eighties as she attempts to be taken seriously as an actress. The role, as movie fanatic Leon, gave Sumney an existing universe to play in, which was helpful for someone used to having creative control. “I didn’t feel like I needed to inject my own creative in it,” he says. “I knew that I would inject myself and my emotions in it through my acting. Ti West is a very exact writer, he's got the vision pretty much down to a T before shooting. All I had to worry about was the emotional interiority of the character. There was actually a lot of room there as an actor when you’re really digging into creating a history and an emotional map for a character.” These experiences have awoken a passion in Sumney, and though he’ll continue to make music, he’s found a new way to channel and process his feelings. “It’s a lot more immediate than the music and, for me, it helps my own writing and my own emotional processes because it makes everything rise to the top,” he explains. “You have to bring it all up instead of varying how you feel about things. It’s kind of therapeutic. Although sometimes it’s like reverse therapy, it just plunges you into the depths of hell. But I also like that too.”

After a career spent refining his ability to get the right words out, writing his own material seems like a natural progression for Sumney, but he still hopes this moment will lead to another role first so he can continue to explore film collaboratively. “I’m looking forward to one day receiving a part that I feel really emotionally connected to that is really deep and beautiful and really meaningful,” he says. “Those are few and far between for Black actors. Also, until then, I’m writing stuff of my own and hoping that maybe one day that will be the big vehicle.”

The medium in which Sumney chooses to create may be secondary to the creation itself; what has made him so compelling is his ability to channel his feelings, even when he hasn’t fully understood them himself. “I think that the tricky thing about being an artist—or a writer, a poet, a musician, a dramatic little bitch, a romantic—is a constant…not only processing of your feelings, but romanticization of them,” he adds. “It almost also plays into this double consciousness thing—I think about this a lot when I'm writing in a journal, am I writing to process my feelings or am I writing to document?”

He becomes introspective on this topic, thinking aloud but without hesitation, like it’s an idea that’s been lying idly in the recesses of his mind. “It goes beyond just what it is to be aware of your feelings,” he continues. “I actually think it’s, what is it to be aware of your feelings as an artist? Because the question for me becomes like, what is it to be aware of my feelings?” It’s an interesting time for Sumney to probe those questions further. His awareness has brought emotionally rich expressions of himself to the forefront of music; now, with a new attitude and a new medium to communicate through, the answers can only be that much more captivating.

Read this story and many more in print by ordering our eighth issue here. Sumney has selected the Rising Artist Foundation, a grant system committed to bettering the lives and careers of emerging American musicians from underrepresented communities, as the recipient of proceeds from direct sales of CERO 8.