SATE is the stage name of Saidah Baba Talibah, a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

rock singer from

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

. Her 2021 album ''The Fool'' was named a

Juno Award The Juno Awards (stylized as JUNOS), or simply known as the Junos, are awards presented by Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences to recognize outstanding achievements in Canada's mu ...

nominee for Alternative Album of the Year at the Juno Awards of 2022.

Background

The daughter of restaurateur Howard Matthews and influential Canadian blues and jazz singer Salome Bey, she began her musical career as an occasional performer with her mother under the name Salome Bey and the Relatives. She was a vocalist with the

funk rock Funk rock is a fusion genre that mixes elements of funk and Rock music, rock. James Brown and others declared that Little Richard and his mid-1950s road band, The Upsetters (American band), the Upsetters, were the first to put the funk in the ...

band Blaxäm in the 1990s, alongside her sister Tuku and Washington Savage of

Infidels An infidel (literally "unfaithful") is a person who is accused of disbelief in the central tenets of one's own religion, such as members of another religion, or irreligion, irreligious people. Infidel is an Ecclesiology, ecclesiastical term in Ch ...

. The band released the EP ''Kiss My Afro'' in 1998, but broke up before releasing a full-length album.

Solo career

As Saidah Baba Talibah, she continued to perform as a solo artist, and released her debut solo album ''(S)cream'' in 2011. In this era, she described herself as having been inspired in part by Black Rock Coalition artists such as

Living Colour Living Colour is an American rock music, rock band from New York City, formed in 1984. The band consists of guitarist Vernon Reid, lead vocalist Corey Glover, drummer Will Calhoun and bassist Doug Wimbish who replaced Muzz Skillings in 1992. T ...

. In 2014, she performed at Toronto's Luminato Festival with

TV on the Radio TV on the Radio (TVOTR) is an American rock music, rock band from Brooklyn, New York, formed in 2001. The band consists of Tunde Adebimpe (vocals, loops), Dave Sitek (guitars, keyboards, loops), Kyp Malone (vocals, guitars, bass, loops), and ...

. In 2015, she received a

Dora Mavor Moore Award The Dora Mavor Moore Awards (also known as the Dora Awards or the Doras) are awards presented annually by the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA), honouring theatre, dance and opera productions in Toronto. Named after Dora Mavor Moor ...

nomination for Best Leading Actress, Musical Theatre for her stage performance in ''What Makes a Man''. She subsequently changed her stage name to SATE, on the grounds that performing under her given names was giving audiences a false impression that they would be seeing a

world music "World music" is an English phrase for styles of music from non-English speaking countries, including quasi-traditional, Cross-cultural communication, intercultural, and traditional music. World music's broad nature and elasticity as a musical ...

artist, when in fact her music blends elements of

soul The soul is the purported Mind–body dualism, immaterial aspect or essence of a Outline of life forms, living being. It is typically believed to be Immortality, immortal and to exist apart from the material world. The three main theories that ...

and

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the ...

with

blues rock Blues rock is a fusion music genre, genre and form of rock music, rock and blues music that relies on the chords/scales and instrumental improvisation of blues. It is mostly an electric ensemble-style music with instrumentation similar to electri ...

and

punk rock Punk rock (also known as simply punk) is a rock music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the corporate nature of mainstream 1970s rock music. They typically produced sh ...

.Nick Krewen, "Toronto rocker is following her path: Singer and songwriter SATE veers into tarot territory to help make sense of the signs life gives her". ''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part of Torstar's Daily News Brands (Torstar), Daily News Brands division. ...

'', December 21, 2021. As SATE, she released the album ''RedBlack&Blue'' in 2016;Graham Rockingham, "Graham Rockingham's best bets". ''

Hamilton Spectator ''The Hamilton Spectator'', founded in 1846, is a newspaper published weekdays and Saturdays in Hamilton, Ontario, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. One of the largest Canadian newspapers by circulation, ''The Hamilton Spectator'' is owned by Torstar. ...

'', July 21, 2016. the album's track "Know My Name" has been used as backing music in promotional advertisements for

Sportsnet Sportsnet is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language Discretionary service, discretionary sports broadcasting, sports specialty channel owned by Rogers Sports & Media. It was established in 1998 as CTV Sportsnet, a joint venture betw ...

.Michael Raine, "SATE going back to the foundations to tear sh*t up". '' Canadian Musician'', Jan./Feb. 2022. ''The Fool'' was released in 2021. Her video for the song "Nobody" features The OBGMs appearing as her backing band; the album track "Guardian Angel", a short interlude, is a recording of SATE as a child singing along with her mother, which Saidah found in her mother's possessions only after her death in 2020.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:SATE 21st-century Black Canadian women singers 21st-century Canadian women singers Canadian punk rock singers Canadian women rock singers Singers from Toronto Living people Year of birth missing (living people)