September 13, 1987, marks the date that young Shahrzad Fooladi was born in Uppsala, Sweden. When you hear that statement you might not understand the significance musically, but there is a reason I begin with that sentence. The name might not be familiar to music fans, but her stage name is gaining prominence worldwide. Let’s try is again. Swedish singer/songwriter Snoh Aalegra was born in Uppsala. She grew up in Enköping, Sweden, moving there with her mother following her parents’ divorce. They later moved to Stockholm. Now I think some music fans understand. However, many reading this post still may not be familiar with the music of Snoh Aalegra. That will change as more time passes. There remain a lot of questions about Snoh Aalegra. How did she get started? Why did her career start in Stockholm and then continue in the US? Let’s get started with her story.
First let’s talk about Stockholm Sweden. Stockholm is the capital and most populous urban area of Sweden as well as in Scandinavia. 975,904 people live in the municipality, approximately 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropolitan area. Stockholm is the cultural, media, political, and economic centre of Sweden. The Stockholm region alone accounts for over a third of the country’s GDP, and is among the top 10 regions in Europe by GDP per capita. Ranked as an alpha- global city, it is the largest in Scandinavia and the main centre for corporate headquarters in the Nordic region.
As you might have guessed, the music coming from a large municipality like Stockholm has grown and delivered greater diversified sounds since the very popular ABBA several years ago. In fact, last year Weekly Music Commentary featured Swedish singer Sabina Ddumba. It gave me the opportunity to write about modern music from Sweden and the impact upon the world. Even since that time Sweden has become more dominant when it comes to global pop music. Journalist Josh O’Kane wrote that “Sweden is the low-key Nashville of the Nordics, a hit-making heavyweight that’s one of the world’s biggest exporters of music relative to the size of its economy.”
One phenomenon that has come from the region is the exportation of soul and R&B. Aalegra cites James Brown, Michael Jackson, Prince, Brandy, Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliott, Robyn, and Mariah Carey as musical influences. She has said that she first fell in love with music at the age of 7 when she heard Whitney Houston’s The Bodyguard soundtrack. With all the years of the deposits of popular R & B and hip hop infused into the young Scandinavian musicians, it’s little wonder why we are now hearing artists like Snoh Aalegra burst on the musical landscape.
Another of my favorite artists from the region is singer/songwriter Marie Dahlstrom. Five years ago I had the honor of featuring her in Weekly Music Commentary. It was the first time I wrote about Scandinavian Soul, helping readers to understand what was happening in another corner of the world. That corner has now started to make it’s way back into our homes with big dividends.
In 2001, at the age of 13, Aalegra signed an artist development deal with Sony Music Sweden. She would ultimately leave Sony Sweden with no music being released throughout the deal. Eight years later, Aalegra began her musical career using the mononym Sheri. She released her debut single “Hit and Run” on February 16, 2009, with production by Andreas Carlsson. The single peaked at number 12 on the Swedish Single Charts. She released her second single “U Got Me Good” on December 4, 2009, reaching number 2 on the Swedish Single Charts. On April 6, 2010, under the name Sheri, she released the studio album First Sign, on Universal Music Sweden. It features a cover of the 1984 song “Smooth Operator” by Sade, and the singles “Hit And Run” and “U Got Me Good”
Normally, at this point of a music career we would be looking for the next step forward. However, Aalegra made a few moves, geographically and musically, that would pay off big for her. She left home for a stint in London, followed by a move to Los Angeles where she’s been honing in on her craft for the past three years. She’s collaborated with Common on her No I.D.-produced debut EP, which has proven to be a breakthrough release for her. Now she also decided to record and perform under the current name Snoh Aalegra.
In 2014, she became a protégé of Prince, after he discovered her music and reached out to her. He mentored her until his death in 2016. In February 2015, Aalegra said in an interview that she had changed her legal name to Snoh Nowrozi. She added “Aalegra” to her stage name, she said, because it means “joyful” in Italian (changing the spelling of “allegra” to make it her own), and because there was already an artist named Snoh.
Snoh Aalegra had now arrived and began to work with some of the big names in the music industry. She also was delivering on some high-profile music that gained her notice in the US. On October 20, 2017, Aalegra released her debut album, Feels, with features from Vince Staples, Vic Mensa, Logic, and Timbuktu. The album is a “nostalgic blend of soul and R&B” which she calls “cinematic soul”.
In August 2019, Aalegra released her second album, Ugh, Those Feels Again, on ARTium Recordings. The album is considered to be a sequel to Feels, similar in mood and thematically. The album peaked at number 3 on the Billboard R&B Album Sales chart, number 6 on the Billboard Top R&B Albums chart, and number 73 on the Billboard 200 chart. The single “I Want You Around” reached number 1 on the Billboard Adult R&B Songs chart. She recorded the song “Wolves Are Out Tonight”, produced by Swizz Beatz, for the soundtrack to the 2019 EPIX television series Godfather of Harlem. She released the video to her single “Whoa”, starring herself and actor Michael B. Jordan, on December 13, 2019. In the fall of 2019, she headlined a European and North American tour, with support from Baby Rose and Giveon, and reached number 1 on the Bandsintown + Billboard Global Rising Artists Index.
Snoh Aalegra speaks honestly about her career and life at this point. Success has come and she is well aware of that, yet more music and life is on the horizon.
“It takes so long to find yourself. For some people, they know from the start, but I did the clichéd journey of meeting the right people and the wrong people, being screwed over, bad contracts, signing with no legal advisors—I’ve done it all. I’m finally with people I trust and that respect my creative vision. I like to tell stories in my writing but I definitely use my own life experiences to tell that story.”