Editor’s Note: In May 2013, Boston underwent a music revolution. Award-winning digital arts magazine Vanyaland and game-changing major-league music festival Boston Calling launched within 10 short days of each other, completely altering and elevating the landscape where music and culture intersect in a city that had previously gone relatively stale. In the near-decade since, the two entities have been a defining feature of our city, both for its residents and how it’s perceived everywhere else. In Spring 2022, Vanyaland and Boston Calling team up to showcase the homegrown bands and artists that help shape the most Boston lineup of Boston Calling ever. Boston Calling’s ’22 headliners — Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, The Strokes — and its solid undercard are well-known and established; but over the next few weeks, keep it locked as Vanyaland profiles the homegrown talent that decorates the lineup like never before. Nine years later, Vanyaland and Boston Calling continue to showcase Boston in new ways, and we have the sounds to prove it.
Oompa
Performing Sunday, May 29
What can fans expect from your set at Boston Calling?
“I think you can expect me to be fully elated to be on this stage. Electricity jolts and family reunion. You can’t expect me to be contained or have spare breath after the show. You can expect us to be doing too damn much.” — Oompa
Artist bio:
Oompa is a nationally-acclaimed, Boston-born, poet, rapper, and educator, who is forever representing the queer, Black, orphaned, hood kids n’ them. She was named one of NPR’s 2020 Slingshot Artists to Watch and her engaging, interactive performing style won her the Boston Music Award for Live Act of the Year in 2019, following her 2018Unsigned Artist of the Year victory among an unprecedented 12 total nominations. In a 2019 feature, WBUR’s the Artery describes the lyric-focused rapper as having a“natural tenderness with language” and calls her verses “funny…incisive and memorable.” Oompa showed this poetic prowess as the winner of the 2017 Women of the World Poetry Slam and a finalist in the 2016 National Poetry Slam.
Following the release of her second album, Cleo, in August of 2019, Oompa sold out The Sinclair and a number of other Boston venues. Since then, she has shared the stage with renowned artists like Charli XCX, 24KGoldn, Tinashe, UMI, and Rico Nasty. Most recently, she headlined The Paradise Rock Club in Boston for her album release show on October 8, 2021.
In November 2020, Oompa dropped her most recent single entitled “Closer” along with a striking visual component. The song showcases a new sonic direction for her music and the lyrics convey a refusal to falter or be reactionary in the face of multiple global crises; the pandemic and an intense awakening about what it means to be Black in the world. This song isn’t a promise to be a cure to the world’s ills, but something that aims to counter the effects of the poison.
Her latest album, UNBOTHERED, was released independently on October 1 to much popular and critical acclaim. This album is joy incarnate. What it feels like, what it sounds like, what it looks like, who it’s for, and, most importantly, how to find and make joy a reality in this life even when presented with so much constant sorrow. This album is Oompa expanding asa human and as an artist. Free of boxes, free of expectations, and free of rules except for those she has laid out for herself.
What we’ve said: Oompa on Vanyaland:
Follow @oompoutloud on Instagram:
Listen to Oompa on Spotify:
Watch Oompa on YouTube:
