ANCHR's Artist of the Week: SUSU
Photo from SUSU’s Thalia Hall performance
Sometimes I prefer going to a concert having done the homework and having listened to all of the bands on the bill ahead of the show. Other times, I like the thrill of surprising myself and going into the show blind to the support acts’ music.
Last week I chose the latter, and I went in blind to the second band on the line up for Low Cut Connie’s show at Thalia Hall, and the unknown blew me away much more than if I had prepared myself for.
The aforementioned group is SUSU, a project based in New York City and fronted by vocalists and songwriters Liza Colby and Kia Warren. The pair met while working on separate projects, but as soon as they started collaborating, they realized the potential of their power together. At SUSU’s Thalia Hall performance, Colby and Warren burst onto the stage in matching, brightly colored uniforms, and they kept entertaining the packed house for the entirety of their set. On top of delivering stellar, harmonized vocals, the duo wowed with coordinated dance moves, gravity-defying jumps, and the splits. Their performance packed a punch of swagger and rock and roll all at once.
In their bio, Colby says that she and Warren hadn’t realized how much they needed one another until they began working together. “We aren’t shy about being black women in Rock and Roll. There is an aliveness, an awareness, and a spirituality to SUSU that are both timely and timeless,” she says. The project’s name comes from the Patois term, which loosely translates to the act of creating “a chatter around something,” and it’s a tribute to Warren’s Jamaican roots and Colby’s West Indian heritage, and directly inspired the movement of SUSU; a tribal sense that SUSU is USUS.
To experience the magic of SUSU yourself, tune into their EP Panther City, but also make sure to catch them performing live as soon as possible. You can see their upcoming tour dates here. Be sure to also take a look at our photo recap of SUSU’s Thalia Hall show here.