Hip hop artist S.O. addresses social media ills on “Goals,” the debut single from his Augustine’s Legacy album dropping on September 6. This song, available now, comes amid reports of social media users experiencing depression driven by an excess of perfect, strategically-curated posts. In an effort to lessen the pressures, this week Instagram began hiding post likes in six countries.
Over captivating Afro rhythms, layered snares, airy organs and pacing string bass produced by GP, S.O. helps put social media in the proper context. The Lamp Mode Recordings artist rhymes, “Goals, Everybody on mission trying to be cold / What a sight to behold / Coz they ain’t even watching out for their souls / Right hand thumbing down on their phones.”
The Nigerian-born artist who moved to London when he was nine-years-old and relocated to the U.S. in 2016 explains his inspiration for the song that features a soothing chorus from Lucy Grimble. “Perception and reality are two different things,” he says. “Just because you see something online, it doesn’t mean that it’s reality. A lot of times we look at people and we start to idolize them without even knowing it. I’m writing from that perspective. Rather than looking at people for our goals whether they be relationship, travel or financial goals, we could be looking at Christ.” The “Goals” music video will be released on Wed., July 24.
Augustine’s Legacy marks S.O.’s fifth set, his first since moving to America. The 12-song project is named after and pays homage to his late father Augustine Otukpe. He explains the title to New Release Today: “On the anniversary of my dad’s passing, I put something on Instagram with the hashtag #AugustinesSon, and my wife did something, but she put #AugustinesLegacy, and I’m like, ‘Babe, that’s fire! That’s the album title,'” he says. “We’re all leaving a legacy. What’s your legacy going to be when you pass? Thankfully, I have a good memory of my dad, so I want to continue his name.” While S.O.’s longtime producer GP handles most of the production, Augustine’s Legacy also includes contributions from OnBeatMusic and Alex Hitchens as well as vocals from Mallory Jackson.
The album artwork also serves as his first family portrait with his wife and daughter, though they conceal their infant daughter’s identify by holding a leaf over her face. “We are very mindful of whether we should or should not put her online,” S.O. says in a video posted on Instagram. “We wanted to control how Sade-Rose was going to be exposed and revealed to the world. By the time you see the cover, she would be like 10 months. Unless you’ve seen us in public, you wouldn’t know we had a child. I think it’s pretty cool that we could, in this social media age, have something private.”
Listen to “Goals” below;
ABOUT S.O.
S.O.’s first recollections of rhyming date back to age six, when he rapped about his love for his grandmother at her party. As a pre-teen, he developed his craft reciting Will Smith’s “Wild Wild West” in a talent show and battle rapping with friends in secondary school. His passion evolved with the release of his 2009 mixtape 5 Solas that created a buzz in the Christian hip hop scene and caught the ears of executives at Lamp Mode, who made him their first international signing. With Lamp Mode, he also released the trilogy So It Begins (2011), So It Continues (2012) and So It Ends (2015). He’s accumulated 23 million streams and received a number of accolades, including being a Premiere Gospel Award nominee (2016), Mobo Award nominee (2016), impacting the UK Official Charts and Billboard’s Heatseekers and Christian Album charts.
