In a scene full of remarkably young artists documenting their growing pains, 28-year-old Sullii puts forth a different point of view; specifically, one that says, “I’ve seen some shit.” Over the past year, he has become known for his head and hand tattoos emerging from layers of neutral-toned streetwear as he emotively delivers lines addressing disillusioned love. Together, both visual and musical aesthetics merge to paint a picture that is refreshingly crisp. Behind the blindside of his sudden success, Sullii has a rich history of involvement in various art forms. Through these outlets, he shares the wisdom that comes with navigating a weathered but wonderous life for which he remains grateful.
“Even from a super young age, I was always so excited by music in general. The idea that someone was using this outlet to put themselves out there was such a brave thing,” Sullii recalls of his early years growing up in a working-class town in South West England. Before the ease of access provided by the internet, he practiced musical omnivorism in local record stores where he gave any album that caught his attention a chance. The result was a collection made of up of everything from 80s rock and American hip-hop to the U.K.’s budding Grime scene. Considering the genreless status of Sullii, the fact that this array of influences was embraced does not come as a surprise. “I was constantly trying to pull things from these artists as a collective as opposed to being a die-hard fan of one,” he explains.
By bypassing confines, Sullii ultimately found a common thread among these musicians that would ultimately come to define his goals as an artist. He expresses immense admiration for how, “Someone, somewhere was brave and willing enough to talk about what they were going through by putting it out into the world.” While Sullii alludes to having overcome life-altering adversity at a young age, he refrains to go into detail in order to ward off a sense of personal victimization. Rather, he chooses to dwell on how the honest storytelling found across musical spectrums proved to be a vital coping mechanism. “They didn’t even have to be expressing the exact same thing [I was going through],” he elaborates. “It was my sanctuary, my foundation, the thing keeping me alive.”
Although Sullii embraces variety as a source of inspiration and comfort, he says the local youth did not follow suit, “It was quite segregated in regard to the subcultures, like, kids who were listening to rock music versus kids who were listening to electronic music and hip-hop.” The most saturated scene proved to be the chavs, which is a highly-British acronym short for “council housed and violent.” Despite these cultural pigeonholes, the challenges that come with surviving day to day in a tough area provided solidarity. Sullii shares that there was an, “intense sense of community,because a lot of the kids came from broken homes,” which resulted in him spending more time with friends than family. Being a self-professed absent-minded spirit set on his own sights led to him getting kicked out of school. By forgoing formal education, a teenaged Sullii found other ventures in which he could immerse himself.
One of the most transformative movements for Sullii, as well as for the entire United Kingdom , was the rise of Grime in the early 2000s. Incorporating elements of electronica, dancehall, and hip-hop, it was a style that provided England with its own rap-inspired identity as it bled out from London and into smaller cities. After growing up primarily on American rappers like Eminem, Eazy-E, and N.W.A., Sullii was able to embrace homegrown artists that, “encapsulated the rawness that the U.K. has.” The aggressive overtones of the movement particularly appealed to teenage youth culture. “It excited us because it was a gritty, honest expression of what we were living,” he notes as he fondly remembers watching tapes of popular Sidewinder raves with friends. While they were too young to go to Wiley’s popular events, the visceral style on display served as an important catalyst for picking up a mic.
As with most teenage exploits, Sullii’s shift from music consumer to creator occurred in a parking lot with friends. He describes a scene that begs for found footage: “We’d just hang out and cypher over these terrible instrumentals on our phones that our friends would send us.” Sullii, on the other hand, implies that he would rather have this work forgotten stating, “It was the first music I was doing, and it was shockingly bad for years and years.” Despite these pangs of embarrassment, not all was lost during this time. In addition to gaining footing as an artist through exposure to Grime, the more primitive ways through which music was still being disseminated fostered appreciation. “We were still buying CDs and listening to music on our shit phones, and there was so much more excitement around it,” he says of the early-to-mid 2000s. “Music is so disposable nowadays, and people cherish it a lot less than they did when I was growing up.”
As Sullii entered the working world, he chose to pursue another creative path – tattooing. While he chalks up his early tattoo collection to being “stupid and anarchistic like any kid,” his initial tendency to value experience over quality was not indicative of a lack of passion for visual art. “I’ve been drawing every single day since I was old enough to hold a pencil. I drew forever, as much as I wrote in my journal,” he explains. At his first shop, he spent time practicing drawing flash in between tending to reception and consulting responsibilities before finally embarking on a formal apprenticeship. Still sporadically tattooing under the name Kmorebi, Sullii describes his style as being reminiscent of folk art that embraces an element of “innocent naivete.” While he recalls a positive experience entering tattooing despite the industry’s reputation for elitism, he still felt urged to complete a larger mission through music. “My working life aside, I knew I needed to do more than that, to put myself out there and pay it forward, to be the person that would have helped the younger me.”
Sullii’s first formal appearance as a musician came during his time as frontman for alt-rock outfit Crooks, but, eventually, his focus moved to solo artistry. This new project—a name derived from “sullen”—was initially confined to voice memos. As a result of daily writing, Sullii had generated an impressive body of material that he had been hesitant to release until early 2018. A pivotal moment had been initiated in a parking lot with a friend once more. Filling the car with the sounds of his secret project, he received a compelling response: “There’s a whole world of people out there who are never going to hear this shit if you don’t put it out.” This wisdom sparked a revelation. “You wonder if it’s better to live and die this silent mysterious artist or to just fucking release something,” Sullii says. Like many artists, he experienced an ongoing battle with self-doubt, particularly because he tends to write in metaphors that could possibly be perceived the wrong way. Ironically, making music that lends itself to interpretation would ultimately become one of Sullii’s strengths – a discovery that was facilitated by just doing it. As he so simply explains, “it’s so cliché to be self-critical and a perfectionist…but guess what, [perfection] is never going to happen.”
Finding beauty in perfection out of reach describes the splendor of Sullii’s first video for his popular single “Pallettown.” Meandering across train tracks in barren woods, Sullii croons cryptic lyrics through a sulking gaze: “come over, my parents out, and play dead/they found my body in your house, that’s what they said.” He elaborated on his evocative approach to minimalism in his EP 42. “I had this concept in my head already that I had been working on for years, and it was kind of ingrained in me and it stood for something that meant a lot to me,” he says of the release. As the stride of Sullii picked up as he walked in the light of day, he recalls how his identities became one of the same: “I got to the point where I was ready to be the character being personifiedI woke up and I felt it.” What he refers to as “six months of hiding” served as the incubation period for Sullii’s sound, and finally achieving it sparked great potential.
After providing vocal contributions for the title track on Jay Vee’s full-length Hiraeth, Sullii joined nothing,nowhere. for his fall 2018 European run. Despite it being his first-ever tour under this entity, he describes how “kids came down for the whole set and were singing words,” ultimately making the transition from frontman to soloist remarkably smooth. With momentum in motion, he prepared for the release of his debut full-length album You and Everything Blue produced by Aari. Nevertheless, while Sullii’s presence had gotten out there, the writing process was very much a solitary pursuit that was recorded as quickly as it came. “If there are any vocals on the album it’s the first time I said it, and if there’s any piano it’s the first time I played it,” he explains. “I wanted to capture that rawness of how I felt about that record in trying to embody the insecurity that I was feeling at that point.”
The torment to which Sullii refers is sensed through You and Everything Blue’s atmosphere. Ultimately, it works to personify a fragile balance between two emotional extremes. “I knew that paired with happiness is an immense amount of insecurity and unsafeness, and it’s a dangerous place to be,” he says of the album’s inspiration. “There was a lot of love I had at that time in my life and as soon as you begin to feel it, it’s paralleled with this feeling that you’re going to feel the same, but on the other side of the spectrum, and it’s terrifying.” When considering the dark periods that he encountered in his younger life, the habit of anticipating the “negative parallels” to comfort and stability becomes fully rational. Sullii remains hesitant when it comes to disclosing specific details, and for good reason. Considering listeners’ experiences, he states, “I don’t want to be too literal because I don’t want to take away what it might mean to them or their circumstance.” As You and Everything Blue continues to rack up plays, hearts are won by saying more with less.
Just a little over a year after the visual release for “Pallettown,” Sullii takes a minute to look around. He is particularly thankful for his producer Aari, aka Jacob Dutton-Keen, for his great technical talent, as well as for his ability to understand him as an artist who “can be very difficult to comprehend.” Sullii also does not take his spring 2019 tour with guccihighwaters lightly, particularly as it serves as an opportunity to meet countless supporters, as well as his longtime collaborator Jay Vee. Finally, in the hottest take of the decade, he must publicly co-sign avocado sushi rolls with peanut butter – a combination of healthy fats that fuels the entire operation.
With the help of courage, conviction, and his ride-or-dies, Sullii has achieved his marker of success, which he defines as a hope “that somebody would understand what I’ve been saying.” While his listeners take solace in Sullii, he claims that he remains equally indebted to the support they provide. “Being able to start this project and have people listen to it means the world to me; there’s nothing that compares, and there’s nothing I haven’t sacrificed to do it.”