One thing Ivy Sole is very good at is cutting to the quick of what unites us.

We featured the video for her song “Life” not long ago — and on that track, she delved into depression, exploring what it is like to struggle with bad days.

We all have days that are all doom and gloom, and something else that we’re all familiar with is the search for a home.

Who doesn’t want a space in which they feel comfortable, in which they feel immediately at ease?

Sole told Blavity in a press release that her newest work, an EP called West, “explores the idea of home.”

Photo: Ivy Sole

Although we all have a place that we’re from, that place isn’t necessarily home. Sole said that she’s had a lot of homes over the years, and that each has helped to shape who she is today.

“Home is one of the most complicated concepts to me due to the fact that the definition is always changing. I’ve been privileged to call every side of my birthplace Charlotte, North Carolina ‘home.’”

Charlotte is the EP’s star, by design.

“One of the things that I used to envy about other cities is that I never heard Charlotte on the airwaves as a youngster. I knew about Bed-Stuy and the South Side of Chicago, I’d heard of La Brea and Venice and Zone 6 of Atlanta, but never had I heard Beatties Ford or Trade and Tryon in any songs.”

That’s all about to change, according to Sole. “What the new generation of Charlotte artists is doing, consciously and subconsciously, is stepping out of the shadows of our brother to the south (Atlanta) and giving the city a voice, a vibe, and a vehicle for change.”

The theme of home doesn’t just permeate West’s lyrics — it’s present sonically as well.

The EP opens with a defiant title track that Sole said “uses a sample of the choir hymn 'Father I Stretch My Hand to Thee.'”

That song, and others like it are special to Sole. “One of my first memories is my grandmother teaching me to sing meter hymns, it’s a style that’s specific to black churches in the South led by the elders of the congregation and it’s sung in a canon. For me it was important to start here, at an origin of sorts, to show where the layering and texture of my soundscapes are formed.”

As you listen to it, you might think, I don’t ever remember hearing percussion like that at church.

That’s because the sounds are meant to also mirror the music Sole would listen to once she got home from church. The bass in “West,” she said is “a nod to a lot of the Southern hip hop that I grew up on, like Cash Money and No Limit.”

There’s one feature on the EP, Charlotte musician WELL$. Beyond being from Sole’s hometown, WELL$ fits into the home narrative because “I met Leroy (WELL$) while we were in high school; he attended school with my then best friend & boyfriend.”

Sole now lives in Philadelphia, a city that became her new home six years ago, when she moved there for college. And in exploring her old home, she hasn’t forgotten to leave room for music about her new one.

The upbeat “My Way” is the EP’s Philadelphia song, featuring what Sole calls a “danceable energy” that was “influenced by the West Indian music that I experienced heavily when moving to Philadelphia and attending college at Penn.”

Whether you’re from Philadelphia, Charlotte or someplace else entirely, West is sure to put you in mind of your home.

Sole hopes that the EP accurately represents who she is and where she is from, and that it shows what she can do. “My most consistent comparisons based on ‘Life,’ the single that actually got its legs on Fresh Finds, are Lauryn Hill & Floetry. Although I'm overjoyed by the comparison, I don't fit that mold at all and don't plan to necessarily.”

With the range of flows and diversity of beats on the album, we’d say she was very successful in both toasting her home and showing off her range.

West is out now, and is available from Ivy Sole’s Bandcamp page.

Photo: Ivy Sole

Southern Rap

Get relevant content delivered to you once a week