10 Things We Love About Orion Sun

Orion Sun is an artist whose creativity radiates like sunlight, illuminating everything she touches. Her journey into music may have been a choice but it was simultaneously a calling, a natural fit that allowed her to explore her deepest emotions and thoughts. Supported by a nurturing mother, she embraced music as her ultimate form of self-expression, having experimented with a range of artistic mediums. Rather than being confined by genres, Orion Sun weaves a handful of elements and creates sounds that defy labels. Her music is a reflection of her own emotional landscape: authentic, raw, and deeply felt.

Her earlier works showcased a gifted young woman finding her footing in a world constantly in motion. Now, as a mature and confident artist, Orion Sun has come into her own, infusing her music with the wisdom gained through experience. As completion is one of Orion Sun’s favourite forms of success, her latest album, Orion, released after a four-year hiatus, is a stunning display of her intelligence and emotional depth. It is a collection of meticulously crafted, heart-stirring songs that guide listeners through an intimate journey of love, heartbreak, and healing. Each track reveals her thoughtful nature, as she uses journaling to dive into her inner world, producing songs that resonate universally with their individual vulnerability and truth.

We had the pleasure of speaking with Orion Sun on a sunlit afternoon just before her album’s release. Her radiant energy was contagious, her smile warm and inviting. As she opened up on the creation of Orion, it was clear that her mind is as bright as her music, filled with positivity, reflection, and a firm commitment to creating art that can move whoever decides to wander into Orion Sun’s very own sonic solar system.

We love your how you’ve matured into the musical artist you are today.

What was growing up like for you?

I was surrounded by different versions of love. My mom's an artist and went to school for graphic design and is a hairstylist now. So, she has the artist brain where I wasn't really allowed to be social outside of church friends and stuff. So, I was sheltered in that way, but ‘Sky’ was literally the starting point in my creative life in terms of if I wanted to be something. My mom would provide it and be like, ‘alright, we'll try.’ When I wanted to be a fashion designer, I remember we were up in JOANN Fabrics for hours, so that's an example of the kind of support that I got from her. When I was bored with that, music came way later in something I wanted to try. I had violin lessons when I was in 3rd grade, but you have to choose music. I believe in that or just choose your own destiny because it was put on me and I rejected it, but then I found it again.

I'm the middle child, I have 2 brothers. And so, as a single parent, she just really wanted to make sure we were active and just tried everything so we could figure out early on what we wanted to do. I was really grateful for that energy. I was able to decorate my room how I wanted. I had lyrics on paper posted everywhere and I was able to be a creative huddle. I was just really focused on my imagination, my brain, and I think she fostered that for me. Because I remember being like, ‘I want to play guitar’ and she was like, ‘alright. I'll get you this really cheap one and if you can make something out of it then I’ll invest because I've invested so much and you've changed your mind…’ And I never think about ‘what if this doesn't work?’ or ‘what if this is corny?’, I'm just so confident and I think it's because I started building my inner world from really young.

We love your blend of lo-fi, R&B and alternative indie within your music.

What influences from your personal life or musical background helped shape your unique sound?

Well, I really love the storytelling and how words are put together in folk music. Some of my favourite writers are Adrianne Lenker or Jessica Pratt. I like that element of how it just feels raw to me. It feels like I'm not supposed to hear these things. The saddest song I've ever heard was ‘Real Death’ by Mount Eerie and I just remember that it was a struggle to even sit through it because it's devastating to me and so dark. But I was able to pull out of that one of these lines where he says, “I don’t want to learn anything from this” and this just sucks pretty much. I fell in love with poetry first and, it’s the things like that that are more poetic to me than like, ‘the feather fell, and blood dripped from it’. That works too but for him to just be like ‘I’m upset, I don’t want to learn anything from this’, song over. It’s like, yo… true. I like that element, but I also find that it’s weird because I find these elements in other genres.

I don’t like genres, genres to me are for capitalism. It’s for organisation. It’s not present in my music making process because it’s just like how a guitar sounds or how a folk vocalist goes over that sounds hip-hop to me! I was so happy that A$AP Rocky collaborated with Jessica Pratt because I’m like ‘well, maybe he hears what I hear too’ because it’s just also connected to me. I'm inspired by reggae, punk, pop punk, emo, soul, R&B, hip-hop, country, folk, singer songwriter... All of these things are the same in my brain. It’s challenging to analyse my thought process because it’s really just sound. And I get to pick my favourite sounds or pick a sound that resonates with me. And I guess that’s how the genre blends. I’ve had Spotify since the beginning and so I’ve had a long library since middle school.

We love how introspective and emotional your lyrics are.

Walk us through the song writing process – do you start with the melody, lyrics or a feeling you want to express?

I hope it's not a cop out if I say all of the above and I will explain why. It’s not ever one way for me and I have different journals and whenever that’s done, I’m ready for the next one. So, having that on deck and writing when I feel called to is really dope to then bring into the studio. Sometimes I just put on a beat or just sit in silence and read through. Because a lot of the time, I'm just writing, writing, writing. It’s kind of like being on TikTok, how many times do you go back to a video unless you’re showing someone? It’s a very one and done vibe, and that’s kind of how I journal too. So, it’s fresh eyes when I go back and look through. And it may not ever be a full stanza, or it could be a sentence or literally a word. It could be something that I haven’t heard what I’m feeling said in this way. And to bring it back to that Mount Eerie point, sometimes you just want to hear it in this way. I’ve always found the most healing songs for me lie right in the middle where it’s not too easy to listen to where you’re just tuned out, but challenging enough where you wonder what instrument that is or wondering how they put it together in this way. So that's really important to me.

In order for those moments to happen, you just have to just be observant. I'm a pretty introverted person when it comes to how I move around the world, and so I'm able to just kind of hear conversations, hear funny things. I'm walking down the street and I'm like, ‘wow. I haven't heard that word in years.’ And I'll write it down, and it could be end up in a song or sometimes it sounds good coming out of my mouth like what your tongue is doing, what your mouth is doing... It's really important for me to have some melodic element that I can riff off and try off these words, and it helps me sort of freestyle into something. Freestyling is an important part of my process because it helps me tap into my subconscious. Things that I might not necessarily want to talk about, 5 minutes into a freestyle, I'm like, ‘where did that come from?’ Some people struggle when they write in their journal because they think someone's going to read it, but I don't write like that. It helps me just really just get my sh*t off without feeling bad too.

We love that you’ve hustled to be in the position you are in today.

Your journey into the music industry wasn’t a traditional one. How do you navigate through the pressures and expectations, especially as a black artist in the industry?

Thank you. I just have so many ideas that I don’t stop to realise how hard I’m working. I guess only these moments where there’s not much to do but release this record. In a lot of ways, I’m grateful for my journey because I was really able to develop as an artist at my own pace in the shadows. I really wish a lot of people gave some of these newer artists that blow up some grace. When I think about my first shows running around Philly, girl… [laughs] like, I was figuring it out. I was trying to figure me out, and that took years. It took years of heartbreak, years of rejection, years of… like I mean, I used to be almost 300 pounds and learning, not that it never left me either, but learning how the world treats you when you look like this or that. I have all this data now on the human experience paired with essays from Audre Lorde or just people that I go to for comfort to outside of God that just really helped me navigate. I'm a big documentary junkie and a big interview junkie and I cannot say there’s no handbook to life. So many artists and creatives and brilliant minds left little notes and little things that. If you know where to look, you can put your own book together and really figure this sh*t out. Reading Billie Holiday’s book ‘Lady Sings the Blues’ and reading how she had to powder her face and go in through the back… just things that we all know about and things we don’t. All those women before me made my battles easier because they’ve left books. I can be like, ‘am I tripping?’ and go to any one of those things and be like ‘I’m not’ because the world is actually just f*cked up!

But the biggest thing I told myself from the jump, whether I was doing music or not was that I know I didn’t want the world to change me because I’m very sensitive. I could be bitter, and I have every excuse to be like F everybody because sometimes when you’re making music in a small city, they’ll support you but sometimes they’re waiting for people outside of the city to support it too. It’s a struggle and it feels scary to grow because my biggest concern, and I’m not worried about the industry; I feel like I’m a rebel in regard to that, but my friendships are weird now and its hard to date now. Socially, moving to LA was a great thing for me mentally because I always dimmed my light, and I didn’t realise how much I was doing it and forgetting what I have to offer. It's a learning thing for me and it was almost challenging to the point where I think early August of this year, I did kind of have a breakdown about it because I just really want to make sure my life is mine at every stage. I take care of my family and stuff and so sometimes it can just be a lot of pressure on that on that end. I feel like my family is one of the batteries in my back to why I hustle so hard and so it's hard but I think I wouldn't want to be doing anything else so I can work through it. As a black woman, even some studio sessions, like they'd be like, ‘you know how to use this?’ and I do. And it's not like a big deal, but it's just a constant reminder of the hurdles that I have to jump through.

We love how happy you look when you’re performing on stage.

You’ve been on tour in North America currently and will be coming through to Europe in 2025. When it comes to touring as a whole, what are some of your highlights?

So, to answer the first part, it’s September 2022 and it’s the first stop of my headlining tour ever. I’m in New York and I’m walking on and I’m just shocked. I was not expecting them to be singing with me for every song, I just wasn’t prepared, and I ended up crying. It was so funny, and it ended up being a great show. I did sing for most of the show, but it was the most I hadn't sang because I was just like ‘no f*cking way!’ My manager was like ‘yeah, you’re going to have to sing through each song for the next show.’ [laughs] But I just thought that was such a special moment that we shared because it was the first time that I realised that I'm not opening and everybody's here for me specifically.

That was just so fire. I love testing out new songs and so I was testing out ‘Nights Like This’ at a couple shows and figuring out if I like these drums. We played that demo at Outside Lands Festival, and I liked how it sounded. It was really nice making this album because it was the most I ever thought about what it would sound like live. Not just the sonics but how my voice would sound because I noticed singing my earlier stuff, I sound best when I’m hunched over my computer because that’s how I made it. When I’m standing, trying to have energy, I usually end up taking it up an octave. I'm really looking forward to singing these new songs because they have a space in the live setting. I love traveling too. I'm a homebody and I'm really hermit vibe and I feel like I'm only allowed to be that way because I get to tour. And so, I'm really grateful for those moments. I felt so unheard my whole life and no shade to my mom because she did the best that she could, but it didn't matter that I was the only girl, but I still was a middle child. So, it's a great reminder that how I feel matters to somebody and it has a place here.

We love that you finally have a brand-new album.

Your last album was four years ago. Although you’ve released some singles and smaller projects, why wait this long?

I'm sorry. [laughs] I think it was a combination of when I put my first album out it was COVID, but also it was the first time this wave of unsolicited criticism that I didn’t know that I necessarily wanted to know. Both good and bad. And it freaked me out because at that time I had just signed, and I was scared but it was also really exciting because it was my first record. At that time that was my biggest goal; if I had my songs on wax, I made it because I collect records. So that was important, but I'm grateful to have expanded on those goals. But it is weird. I think I was just battling a lot with grief and growing pains and really, before Orion, a concept album to me was just whatever I made because I was the concept. This is my life and these songs I made in this period of time. But working on what story do I really want to tell? What if I had to make this into a movie? That was just such a great challenge for me because I really wanted this to be kind of my catalyst cover letter, if you will. I was willing to wait for as long as I possibly needed to, to make sure that I was growing authentically in the way that I wanted to grow.

In the beginning it was people who just saw me as the voice. So, it's like, ‘oh, you can be on this rock song. You can be on this kind of song’. When you have a voice that people like, they'll want to put you on anything. You could potentially sound good on anything but what was important to me is that it was me. Because that was the thing too where I had to continue to figure out why this doesn't feel like me. There are so many songs where in the beginning, I just I felt like I was featuring on my own stuff because I can't ignore the fact that I'm a producer and have a vision. But I love learning and I'm in rooms with people with Grammys and stuff. So, I was kind of taking a back seat but then slowly learning that I have to have a voice in these spaces. I belong in these spaces. And so, it was a lot of just, I say growing pains, but it really is just figuring it out to just make sure it's me because that's my biggest priority. It's really about my expression, and it's really challenging to go from just working alone to collaborating because I had to learn. I feel like I'm a polyglot even though I only speak English because I had to learn the language of collaboration. I had to learn my brain and it's really challenging to hear stuff that no one else hears. So before you know it, it was like 4 years later. But I was working through that time and just really making sure that if I died on the 21st of this month, I would be extremely proud and happy, because energy can't be created nor destroyed. It's just transferred, shifted, and renewed.

We love the visuals for the tracks you’ve released for ‘Already Gone’, ‘Mary Jane’, and ‘Sweet’.

Do you take any inspiration from film for your visuals?

Yes, to the point where I only use film because I’m obsessed and I love the art from film photography to videography. I’m really influences by Rod Sterling, Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents… just that kind of old timey TV, but it’s eerie. There’s something weird about it or a little off putting but not scary. It's just kind of in a different time, so it's foreign. I really like that aspect of sci-fi in general. Atlanta's really good at that, I think. Just it being this surreal. I’m really into Afrofuturism and modern vintage. Just that combination of the knowing… like, you know when they say when you look up at the stars, you're staring into the past because they're that old? Similar vibe for my visuals. I don't ever want you to really know what time period it is. I don't really want you to know where we're at really. So, I love stuff like that and I try to incorporate that in my in almost every one of my visuals where aesthetically it's nice, but it's also telling a story underneath.

We love that you express your connection to nature when you can.

What is it about your environment or natural world influences that influences your creativity?

I'm a big pattern finder. I really love looking for just that consistency and the same patterns that I find in nature, I find in myself. For example, when we talk about growth and we talk about a seed, I remember seeing something where someone was like, ‘we don't yell at the seed. We don't get mad at the seed for not growing. We ask, what could we have given it to make it grow? Was it the soil? Let's check the environment…’ You have to do that with yourself. I'm so critical that I'm yelling at the seed and I'm like, ‘wait. Hold on. Maybe I just need to move.’ Why do walks work? Right? It's that pause that we need. It’s nature’s callback to ourselves. When people go out in nature, it's a physical space to go within. I see patterns in animals and how they interact with each other and I see that with how we are animals. I feel like our brains, God bless our brains, but they divide us when they don't need to. When I think of nature, I just think of myself. When I see water, I see me. When I see the sky, a sunset, I see myself. I see someone I love when I see the moon and it looks different and I'm just hoping they see it too because when you tell someone, ‘oh my god, look at the moon’ it's like they're looking at you. Nature is one of those things where whenever I feel like I'm losing myself, I'll never really lose myself because I'm here, and I'm supposed to be here. That's what I like about nature too. It's not about class, it's not about race, it's not about everything that my life has been about since birth.

I can be this small on this hike and I'm hoping I can take this feeling with me when I can't be out in nature. But I think of the city as nature too, like a concrete jungle. That means something to me. It's very literal to me where you can find the essence of nature wherever you are because if you're connected with yourself and it's the same as going for a walk. Taking those 10 deep breaths or checking in with yourself is the same as sitting by the water. It's almost inevitable how it seeps into my art because I pay attention to that. And I'm actively working and I'm hoping I can do something about it being a luxury. It feels like a luxury to go for a walk. Like, it feels like a luxury to notice that every sunset is different, and it's because we're working like dogs. And I hate that. And so, I do feel like if we prioritise nature in our lives more things would be more positive. But that's like, I wish for world peace. It's a very challenging thing to kind of shove down people's throats because it's like, okay ‘are you going to take my 15-hour shift today then so I can go by the water?’ I wish society was different, but that's kind of what I hope my music does. On your way to wherever you don't want to go like that commute, me and your ears could be that, staring at the sunset vibe even if it's just for 3 minutes.

We love that the album artwork was painted by Malene Reynolds Laugesen.

Tell us about your connection with Malene and how she executed your vision so perfectly?

Shout out to Malene, she's so sweet. I want to be like her when I’m older. She’s got the warmest heart and I can see her inner child when I talk to her. I’m chronically online in a different way, not on social media but I’m always looking for what clothes I want to start wearing or what kind of art am I into? So I came across her art online and it takes a lot to move me when it comes to art but her art style had the perfect combination of strength and softness. Regalness but it’s low-key. All these juxtapositions just felt really aligned with my music because I’ll have some hard-hitting drums and a soft thing on top. I felt really aligned with her and also just as a woman too, it's just some things that women do that just can't be done by men. To get that perfect balance of warmth, softness, but it still feels like it needs to be respected.

I really appreciated that about her and just getting on Zoom calls with her because she's in New Zealand. And just really explaining what I wanted from her because that's the thing too, in the beginning she was super malleable and I was like, ‘Woah. No. No. No. I came to you for you.’ You know? I wanted to work around her style.

I was really happy that I have some of her signature stuff in mine and the reason why I’m so geeked is that she titled it Rising Sun because it’s art outside of my album art. I survived this f*cking chaos and all I got was this masterpiece of an art. Because that's the thing too, you can't hold music, you can hold a record and it feels magical because it's not tangible. I really wanted to make sure I can get as many tangible things from this project as I can because it's such a special moment for me. Now it's kind of made me bougie. [laughs] I don't know if I can go back to not going to an artist for my cover because I really loved the process of back and forth. We were able to do a time lapse too and I had her send me photos before she got too far with it just in case I didn’t like it. She was super open and a great collaborator.

We love how vulnerable you can be in your lyricism.

What would you say is the main feeling you want your listeners to feel when listening to ‘Orion’?

You're not alone. I think that's the main thing I want people to feel, because that's what gravitates me to my favourite songs. Just a reminder of the human experience and that for example, in ‘Already Gone’ that thing at the end I was really scared to put that out because mainly because I didn't want people to think that I'm self-hating or a really negative person. But I put it out because I wanted people to understand that these things are fleeting, but it's really good to hear in the moment. Diagnosis for me are life changing because now I know what’s going on! Versus why am I feeling this way. I take that approach when I write to where sometimes you just have to hear it flat out to know it’s okay. ‘Sweet’ verse two, “I wanna know what it meant to you/ But I know it wouldn’t do me any good, like/ What’s the use? You gon’ let me down/ I’m gon’ let you down too” That was so helpful in the moment when I was trying to survive this weird-ass situationship and hearing that I was like, ‘yo, another day no contact I’m winning!’ to the point where I was able to heal from it versus listening to something that’s like ‘call them’[singing]. I look at music as tools like if you need something like this, I got you. And I say it like this because it helped me when I heard it like that. So that’s all I ask.

If you enjoy it, that’s dope and if not that’s dope to me too because indifference to me I think is the lowest form of any critique. I’m just here for y’all. And I think it’s very mutual and what makes it easy for me to do my job. We’re all so connect that all I have to do is go inward and I know someone’s going to relate because really, we’re all the same.

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Orion Sun's EU Tour begins in 2025, check out dates here https://www.orionsun.space/tour

Listen to Orion by Orion Sun here!