Meet Stephanie Oh, aka SOHMI

Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephanie Oh.

Stephanie, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was born in Verona, NJ, but soon after moved to Asia where I spent the next 17 years of my life. First, my family and I lived in Tokyo, then Hong Kong, then finally Seoul. I graduated from an international high school in Seoul in 2005 and subsequently moved back to the U.S to attend college in North Carolina at Duke University.

Growing up, music and performance were a huge part of my life. My mom likes to recall that I started singing even before I knew how to speak. At age 3, I began to study classical piano, and by eight was competing nationally in Hong Kong where I lived at the time; I came in 1st place that year and was featured in the local newspapers. The next year, I moved away to Seoul. I remember having a hard time adjusting to my new school at first, even getting sent to the principal’s office once or twice for ‘acting out’ (in retrospect, I think I’ve always had a bit of a rebellious streak). I was bullied a bit by some classmates as well, which didn’t help things, but I think all of this pushed me to find real solace in music.

By the time I got to Duke, I’d been singing, acting, and playing the piano for years. I loved all of it so much that I decided to double major in English and Theater Studies and minor in Music, though my parents weren’t super pleased with these choices. Outside of my academic studies, I found an even bigger outlet for my musical passions and itch for performance: collegiate a cappella. It was through this experience that I really developed my ear for arrangement, melodies, and harmonies (my second arrangement I ever did was nominated out of all national collegiate submissions that year for Best Arrangement) so it was arguably one of the most important experiences in shaping the musician that I am today.

After graduating from Duke in 2009, I knew I wanted to be involved in the music industry. While most of my classmates landed banking and consulting jobs at prestigious firms, I moved to the tri-state area and waited tables at a steakhouse while trying to get my break. After some false starts, it finally happened after 13 months when a woman I waited on introduced me to her husband, an artist manager who was in need of a new assistant. He was the man responsible for discovering and building Grammy Award-winning hip hop duo, Outkast.

Though I was thrilled for the opportunity at first, it took less than two years of working in artist management to realize that it wasn’t a role that would ever fully fulfill me. Deep down, I think I knew I wouldn’t be happy unless I could create and perform the music myself, and just ‘being close to it’ via management wasn’t enough for me — but I didn’t have the courage to admit this to myself at the time. Despite having lived and breathed music my entire life, I didn’t think at that point that I could make the leap professionally. I think I feared that maybe I wouldn’t be good enough.

Thus commenced a five year “detour” period, during which I stepped away from the music industry and tried to see if I could spark professional interests elsewhere, teaching writing to middle and high school students for one year then eventually transitioning into a career in tech. In 2013, I attended an intense software engineering bootcamp in New York City called the Flatiron School, learned how to code, and subsequently worked at a number of tech companies including event-marketing platform, Splash (splashthat.com). Eventually, a job opportunity with a Venice-based startup brought me out to LA at the start of 2016, and this actually marked the beginning of an unexpected return back to music.

While living in LA, I found myself increasingly drawn to the vibrant underground dance music community. By the top of 2017, feeling unhappy at the company I was working for, I decided to quit my tech job and spent that whole year basically building up the courage to decide, “I’m not going to run from myself anymore; I’m going to be an artist.” That process involved going to as many festivals as I could physically handle in one year, going out to as many shows and clubs as possible week after week to immerse myself in the scene and the sounds, routinely deflecting my parents’ questions as to when I was going to find a new job, and feeling overwhelmed every day as I wondered, “how is this even going to work?” I was 30 years old and had never even touched a pair of decks before.

Around February of 2018, after investing in a Pioneer X-DJ per a trusted friend’s recommendation (he is now my manager), I started to teach myself how to DJ. Enrollment in production and DJ classes at Anonymous Studios followed shortly thereafter, where I learned how to use a popular production software called Ableton and clocked in some hands-on time with Pioneer CDJs and NXS mixer, familiarizing myself with the club-standard setup. Later that year in August, I felt confident enough to share my progress with the world and put up my first promo mix on SoundCloud. I couldn’t have predicted how quickly things would move from there.

Fast forward a year later to the present, 2019, over the course of which I have performed alongside some of my heroes including Josh Wink and Hot Since 82, played at my first international music festival (Ultra Korea), released an official remix via premier LA-underground label, Understated Recordings, and have become a resident DJ at Sound Nightclub.

Though it may seem like a lot has happened in a relatively short amount of time, for me, it feels like arriving at this point has really been 30 years in the making.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It’s been a crazy journey to this point, not always easy and certainly not without its disappointments and uncertainties. At one point, I thought I was done with music for good! But everything happens for a reason and the way things unfolded for me, the timing of it all… maybe it couldn’t have happened any other way. I certainly couldn’t have made it this far without the support of some key people in the dance music community here in LA, and I never would have met them if my previous career in tech hadn’t brought me out to LA in the first place. Life is funny like that.

As I touched upon, there were what felt like several false starts along the way. I think trying so hard to break into the music industry the first go around, at 22-23, only to discover I didn’t like where I’d landed, was really difficult to reconcile at the time. You could say it left me feeling lost, maybe even a bit jaded. Like where do I go from here? What do I do now? I had chased the singular goal of “getting a job in music” so blindly, I wasn’t really prepared for what to do next if for some reason, it didn’t work out or I didn’t enjoy it. I guess the only way I knew how to deal with it back then was to do a complete 180 and try to undergo a drastic ‘transformation’ – hence my foray into software engineering and tech, which was quite the departure from artist management.

2017 was also a tough year for me all around. I was barely into my second year of living in LA when I went through a rough breakup with someone who had been my rock and best friend for five years; we’d moved across the country at the same time to pursue our dreams together in Los Angeles, and suddenly that partner was gone. I had also quit my job at the start of the year and was living off of unemployment the first six months, and when that ran out, living off of my savings. I felt like a huge failure. That summer, I spiraled into a bit of a depression and it took several months of patience and self-care (like taking up improv and dance classes) to force myself off the couch and get back on my feet again, both figuratively and literally.

Along the way, there have been times when I have also been my own worst enemy. It’s so important to believe in yourself, even if you may not always be able to see yourself through the same lens that others can because this is what will keep you going through the rough patches. Rationally, I know this to be true – but I go through cycles and phases of struggle with self-belief, as I’m sure others can empathize with. It’s not easy starting over for the second, third, maybe even fourth time – at 30 years old. I get in my own head a lot about time, and put a lot of pressure on myself to achieve certain milestones in x amount of time because I feel like I’ve gotten a ‘late start’. Again, however, when I’m able to be rational, I remember that the notion of being ‘late to the game’ is arbitrary; this isn’t a race, you know? Everyone’s on their own journey, And there’s no need to wish for things to artificially speed up because the process is what makes this all feel worth it.

Finally, finding acceptance and support from my parents was also a bit of a rocky road. My parents are both quite traditional, and the idea that their daughter wanted to leave behind a hard-earned career in tech to pursue music (a second time!) did not sit well with them at all at. I think they’d always hoped, with my academic interest in English and writing, that I might go to law school and pursue a career in law. Performing back home this past June at Ultra Korea, however, was a big turning point for them. They were finally able to come to one of my shows (they both still reside in Korea) and I think seeing how in my element I was up there on stage, witnessing the scale of the production of a festival like Ultra – they were finally able to understand my world a bit better, and perhaps also grasp the long term vision and potential of what I’m trying to accomplish. Having their full support now has been a total game-changer for me; I feel like I can run full steam ahead in a way that I didn’t previously feel before, and it’s been really amazing.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Sohmi – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
Today, I am a DJ, producer, and vocalist under the stage name, SOHMI.

Though I’m not really fixated on making genre distinctions when it comes to the kind of music that I play, if I had to categorize it broadly, I play dance music – namely, house and techno. I gravitate towards tracks that are minimal, soulful in some way, hollow in texture, and perhaps most importantly, funky. When it comes to curating these kinds of tracks together in a set, there is a specific kind of cadence and flow that I always strive for. It’s difficult to verbalize in writing how this feels or sounds, but I think that people who appreciate my DJ sets come to hear and experience this flow. In a way, I might compare it to the flow of a movie – in particular, perhaps a minimal character piece with an intro, middle, and end, punctuated by moments of tension and a few unexpected twists and turns. I try to evoke from the audience a sense of “what’s coming next?”, keeping them on their toes while also maintaining a sense of continuity so as not to break the overall groove. I also try to express some vulnerability and tap into a bit of nostalgia in my DJ sets. For me personally, the sets and performances that have had the most lasting impact have had the trifecta of emotion, nostalgia, AND danceability (Sasha, Maceo Plex, Duke Dumont, Mura Masa and Bonobo come to mind, to name a few) – so these are the elements I strive to deliver in my own sets as well.

I think something that sets me apart is my background in classical music, as well as my experience working in mainstream/pop music. I draw my musical sensibilities from both these spaces, and I have to think that this has impacted my preferences, my ideas, the way I think about DJing, everything – in such a way that I am perhaps able to bring something fresh to the table. This might be weird, but I think being an English major has also had an impact on the way I approach DJing because the way I think about how to link tracks together in a set is similar to how I think about linking sentences and phrases together. Again, I think the approach ultimately goes back to this word – cadence.

Finally, being able to incorporate and use my voice – to sing on my own tracks and to also lend my vocals to collaboration tracks with other producers – has helped set me apart a bit as well. No two people can have the same voice, after all!

So I guess that is something I am proud of, and overall, I am proud of the strides I’ve made in just one year of professional DJing.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
While I’m proud of the progress I’ve made as a DJ this year, my priority these next months will be to shift gears a bit towards production and to focus on finishing my own original tracks in preparation for the release of my first EP (slated for January 2020 with Understated Recordings).

I want to make sure I’m setting up myself for success in 2020, and a critical component of that will be releasing my own music so that people can get to know and connect with the SOHMI project even better.

I look forward to sharing my music soon!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sohmi_/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sohmimusic/
• SoundCloud: https://www.soundcloud.com/sohmimusic/

Image Credit:
Taylor Eubanks, Brian Ngo

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