My name is Kali Sanna. I was raised in the heart of Atlanta, Ga., that use to be a quiet, peaceful little southern city, where I actually learned to drive on Saturdays and Sundays when the streets were practically deserted. Today, my town is known as "Little New York" especially by my friends and family that once could leave their front doors open and the keys in the car ignition. Those days have long passed, as Atlanta is now no place for the weak-at-heart. I spent 17 years there before j...
My name is Kali Sanna. I was raised in the heart of Atlanta, Ga., that use to be a quiet, peaceful little southern city, where I actually learned to drive on Saturdays and Sundays when the streets were practically deserted. Today, my town is known as "Little New York" especially by my friends and family that once could leave their front doors open and the keys in the car ignition. Those days have long passed, as Atlanta is now no place for the weak-at-heart. I spent 17 years there before joining the U.S. Army, spending the majority of my adult life as a soldier (“I’m A Soldier”).
This album that I have made in home studio, "Can We Talk About It?," is about growing up and falling in and out of love; the emotional and mental rollercoaster associated with the military and rediscovering one’s position in civilian life. The Album also reflects my prospective of the era of “Disco”, “Dance Bands” and the beats that apparently became the back-drop to “Rap” music, invisibly managing to linger in time and space. It is a record haunted by the memory of my high school days; running a touch-down and sporting my “Letterman’s Jacket”.
I lived with my Grandparents and my mom in a small brick house. I remember the smell of the coal furnace, the water pipes I had to navigate to get to the basement where my grandparents spent most of their time, and the sounds of the piano, that all of the kids in the house (my cousins and two sisters) played occasionally. My Aunt, the school teacher, seemed to always be around, singing and playing the piano, adding harmony to our young voices. My mother, the symbol of wisdom, devotion, faith and courage, like her mother – my grandmother, kept all things in simple order. And of course my grandfather, a man of great character and strength, a soldier of World War II, and probably the single most impacting factor in my life, a tremendous force of nature, mental and spiritually unique. The man that made me practice the trumpet for hours after school on our back porch, with the rattling sounds of our old washer and dryer still ringing in my ears in between each note I played - the man that encouraged me to pick up as many instruments as I could and create my versions of sounds.
The Album “Can We Talk About It?” is a record of me, my fear of being alone and not measuring up to the standards my mother desired, my moments of joy in the “big city”, my endless confusions with life, religion and politics, and my guilt of being a failure as a father, a friend and a role-model as heard in the song :Can We Talk About It?.
The music on "Can We Talk About It?" is not quite the grandchild of either Earth, Wind and Fire or The Temptations, the sounds I alternately loved growing up. It is only a child to the music streaming out the “boom boxes” and car windows as you travel up and down Hunter Street (now Martin Luther King Blvd.) of my earlier years. A touch of the jazz is present in all the songs, that is actually a tribute to my mother, grandfather and my sisters and brothers who all had some impact in my music creativity. These songs, whatever their lineage, are from the heart, from the souls of past greats, and a direct reflection of who I am - Kali Sanna, of Atlanta, Georgia.
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