Video Premiere: Sugi Dakks “Not The Only One”
NOT THE ONLY ONE MUSIC VIDEO RELEASE
Being touted as “Anderson .Paak meets Stevie Wonder” could be an overwhelming prospect for most artists, but rapper/singer/pianist Sugi Dakks isn’t phased one bit. Coming off the success of his latest EP and single (most notably rotation on Tidal’s “Rising Hip-Hop” Playlist) Sugi Dakks now takes his game to another level with his new single “Not The Only One”. Driven by an emotional piano performance, this mixed-race artist (black father, Japanese/caucasian mother) confronts the racism, prejudice and exclusion that comes with never completely belonging to any one tribe.
The stunning music video encapsulates this feeling of being “caught between two worlds”, reflecting on a struggle to navigate between two competing spaces. Through a cardboard construction world of his own making, Sugi Dakks attempts to blend into this artificial realm, while his Identity and self worth are starkly laid bare in black, white and a million painted shades of grey.
“My experience being mixed-race is very much wrapped up in how others perceive me. Our society is set up to hyper-categorized all of us. Our attitudes to race come with so much baggage, when you don’t fully fit into a predetermined category people can’t deal. I wanted to tell my story, which in some ways is unique, but in so many other ways is all too common. I grew up the only black kid in a small white town.
Too black for the white kids and too white for the black kids. That sense of limbo led me to feel lost, but now it drives me to talk, to rap, to create, to be heard. Racial assumptions and prejudice may run deep, but i want people to understand my experience, even if I don’t fit into the shoebox you think I belong in.”