Sorvina is a New York-born, Berlin-based artist whose music is rooted in storytelling and shaped by movement, memory, and identity. With a sound that bridges jazz rap, neo-soul, gospel, and alternative hip-hop, Sorvina crafts songs that feel both personal and expansive—tapping into the emotional radiance of lived experience while inviting listeners to find their own reflections in her words.
Questions and Answers:
3 FACTS
1: When I was a child, I was so in love with dogs that I could recognize and inform you on about almost every single dog breed known to man.
2: Up until I was twenty-years-old, my greatest love was actually basketball, not music. I can say with so much certainty that a lot of my character & perspective on life was shaped by the sport and I am so grateful!
3: I wish more than anything to learn how to tap dance.
11 QUESTIONS
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
I am inspired by the sounds and culture surrounding gospel music. Regardless of what you believe in or your personal relationship with religion, I see gospel music as a masterclass in music as service, progress, optimism, and justice.
2. How and when did you get into making music?
I was in my first band at the age of ten-years old. We were obsessed with The Jonas Brothers and created music according to that obsession, I’ll never forget our first time performing at my church’s talent show and from there being a “singer-songwriter” felt like such a special way of expressing yourself.
3. What are 5 of your favourite albums of all time? (yes we know it is difficult).
Kendrick Lamar ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’
Beyonce ‘HOMECOMING: THE LIVE ALBUM’
Aretha Franklin ‘Amazing Grace (Live at New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, Los Angeles, CA, 01/13/72)’
Nai Palm ‘Needle Paw’
Sampha ‘Lahai’
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
Freaks and weirdos and I love them all so much!!!!!!!!!!!!
5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
Admiralbrücke on a summer’s evening makes life feel so unbelievably romantic to me.
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
That’s no world I’d like to live in BUT I think I’d be a travel blogger or something like that. I’m not sure if I’d be a successful one, but I would certainly indulge in the lifestyle!
7. What was the last record/music you bought or listened to?
As I currently write this sentence, I’m listening to an album recently released by a friend and oh my this record is so goddamn good. Please take a listen to ‘You Won’t Get My Message but You’ll Hear It’ by Coco Smith if you feel like busting your heart wide open.
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Honestly, my career has been built on collaborations between me and my closest friends and I feel like the luckiest person in the world because these are my favorite people to work with!!! Shoutout to jakohitsdifferent, Stephanie Ilova, Maureen Berend, Karl, Elias, Johnny, Charlotte, Kimani Schumann, Shannon Kone, Jozsef, the whole ‘A Song For You’ family — in my dream scenario all of these people are still around me, the only thing that’s changed is the budget hehe!
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
My first official headlining show here in Berlin, ‘Sorvina presents: Mississippi’ at the Kesselhaus was probably the most stressed out I have ever felt in my entire life but when I consider the fact that my friends and I mobilized a six-piece band, ten-person choir, four-piece dance ensemble, in additional to stage design, video works, and creative direction to create a truly one-of-a-kind show entirely executed by independent artists with no sponsorship…. I mean that’s pretty cool, right? It has inspired me to push my potential in all ways, and continue trying to manifest the ‘impossible.’
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
God bless Garageband, Splice, and my USB microphone!! You are everything to me!!
11. What can we expect from your concert at this year’s Pop Kultur Festival?
More than anything, I wish for this show to feel like a genuine sense of communion. We have an epidemic of loneliness in this modern world, and I currently feel called to do my part in creating the antidote.
