Moses Sumney celebrates the launch of his new creative label, Tuntum, with a new single, a cover of T-Pain’s “Can’t Believe It,” featuring saxophonist Sam Gendel. His new label will serve as a creative hub for himself and other musicians while his new single pays homage to one of the artists who inspired Moses to branch out and stay true to his artistic nature, wherever it takes him. Re-inventing T-Pain’s popular hip hop song, Moses drenches his cover with deep vocals and slows down the melody to squeeze out every ounce of sensuality in the tune.
“When I moved to California at 16, T-Pain’s ‘Can’t Believe It’ was one of the first songs I heard on the radio,” notes Moses on his choice to cover the song. “Sitting in a vast Wal-Mart parking lot, I wondered at how everything was bigger in America, and turned up the bass. I learned to associate T-Pain with newness, half because his music soundtracked a transitional point in my life, half because his sonic exploration was so fresh. Much like Suzanne Ciani, Herbie Hancock, and Laurie Anderson before him, T-Pain has remained an aesthetic beacon for me as I’ve explored the ever-thinning boundary between the human voice and technological augmentation of it. As I enter yet another life transition with my new label Tuntum, a tribute to T-Pain felt like the most fitting beginning of a new era.”
Adding to the single’s sensuous sound, Moses pairs his cover with an expressive music video shot in the Appalachian Mountains. Self-directed by Moses and produced by his Tuntum, the video features Moses dancing, posing and generally exploring his surroundings in an artistic and performative way. He drives around the mountains in a classic car and even ends up dancing atop an RV.
As an artist, Moses is one who thinks deeply and digs even deeper to extract the essence of a song and interpret it through various mediums from dance to film. His daring performances matched with a unique eye for fashion give him a certain edge and sparkle that has earned him recognition in the music world and elsewhere including a feature in Calvin Klein’s Fall 20201 global campaign.
Now, Moses uses that spark and distills it in his new creative label that will help foster the diverse array of projects he and other musicians are working on from music, visual experiences and more. Hard to pin down or define, Moses casually walks the line between the abstract and concrete, reveling in the spaces he finds to express himself.
Words: Patti Sanchez
For more on Moses Sumney, make sure to visit his website and follow him on Instagram and Twitter.
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