Souly Had was on tour with Audrey Mika before the Coronavirus outbreak. When I call him at 3 p.m., he has just woken up after a late night of playing Call of Duty. He’s temporarily back home in upstate New York, but he still has his guitar and laptop to make music (his sound oscillates from guitar music to hip-hip).
Souly Had’s latest song “Goner” is a perfectly-timed taste of summery R&B. If Mac Miller and The Weeknd had ever made a song together, it would have sounded something like “Goner.” The collaboration with Audrey Mika is an ode to partying (maybe a little too hard). Souly admittedly got ‘too faded’ some nights while he was in LA creating the song. If you yearn for nights out with friends while you’re cooped up at home, this song is for you.
The inspiration for “Goner” came from one of his fellow entrèband members, mac moon. Souly was grappling with writers’ block that day in the studio. He was working with producer duo Some Randoms, and the percussive beat came naturally. Souly sent the beat to some friends and asked for ideas. mac moon responded with a single word “Goner.” Souly’s lightbulb turned on, and the rest of his verses were written around that concept.
A self-proclaimed introvert, Souly Had grew up in the small town of Duanesburg. He spent weekends with friends in Rotterdam and Schenectady going to house parties and making beats. About six years later, he is signed to Island Records, has opened for Trippie Redd and Pusha T, has toured the United States, and is gearing up to release an EP in the next few months.
What's Souly’s mission? To put the greater Albany area on the music industry’s radar. “I feel like no one has ever really made it out of here, you know what I mean?” says Souly Had. “Especially out of Duanesburg, obviously, but there’s no big-scale person where you’re like ‘oh, he’s from Albany.’ It’s a super concentrated music scene in Albany. A lot of people make music and I want to get a look from the whole world onto Albany of all these different people, too. Not just myself. I want everyone to see what’s going on here.”
