There’s nothing rushed about Sondae’s music. The Portugal-born, UK-based artist has built a growing audience by resisting spectacle, favoring songs that linger instead of chase. Working at the edges of indie, hip-hop and worship, his latest album, BOY, feels like a turning point — not a reinvention, but a revealing.
That instinct for patience started early. Before studios or releases, Sondae spent long hours sitting in church while his mom rehearsed the choir, absorbing harmony and emotion before he knew either could be shaped into a song.
“It started really young when I was around seven-ish,” he says. “I was living in Portugal. I was born in Portugal. So when I was being raised, I would sing in church. My mom would rehearse the choir. So whenever she would go on rehearsals, I would just be with her and just sit there, be bored. And then slowly I got more inclined into music.”
Music didn’t arrive as a calling or a plan. It arrived as proximity. As a teenager, that quiet exposure turned practical when a friend began learning how to produce. Sondae watched, asked questions and stayed curious long enough to learn the craft himself.
“I met up with a friend who just started to learn how to produce,” he says. “And I was like, ‘Hey bro, teach me how you do everything.’ So he told me everything. And from then I started to perfect my skill on producing. By the time I was 18, I was able to make full-on songs.”
That self-sufficiency still defines his process. Sondae writes, produces and shapes his music end to end, a control that allows him to chase feeling rather than format. His background helps. Raised in Portugal, surrounded by Brazilian, Angolan and Cape Verdean music, he grew up immersed in traditions that prize emotion over polish.
“All of those songs, the way they’re written, the writer puts so much emphasis on emotion that whenever you hear it, if you pay attention, you end up feeling what they’re saying and what they’re playing,” he says. “Growing up in a culture where they prioritize the feel of music rather than just the sound kind of allowed me to translate it into my own thing.”
That “own thing” resists easy categorization. Sondae understands listeners who feel caught between genres because he’s lived there himself.
“I can relate to people who stand just on the edge of everything,” he says. “Some people stand on the edge of hip-hop, but they don’t want to go full on hip-hop. Some people stand on the edge of indie, but they don’t want to go full on indie.”
At the core of it all is faith — not as branding, but as orientation.
“The core of everything I make is Jesus,” he says. “The core of everything I make is the Bible.”
Rather than isolating himself from the world, Sondae studies it. His writing begins with attention. He notices small moments and lets them unfold.
“I love to observe,” he says. “I might be outside and see someone smoking a cigarette and I just keep watching. And then they start crying and then they pick up a phone and then I hear them say, ‘She okay?’ There’s beauty in that. There’s life.”
That posture is informed by Scripture as much as sound.
“I take to heart that verse that says, ‘I make myself all things to all men so that by any means I can save some,’” he says. “That’s where I put my inspiration from. Just being.”
Sondae’s faith story mirrors that quiet persistence. He describes it not as a series of spiritual fireworks, but as a long obedience shaped by failure and return.
“My walk with the Lord hasn’t been like one big moment and then you never feel anything again,” he says. “It’s been one big yes followed by a thousand small ones.”
Like many artists, his time at university tested that resolve.
“I crashed out a few times when I came to university, as per usual,” he says. “But I never really left the Lord like that.”
Those ups and downs feed the music, even if not every song sees release. Sondae is selective to the point of severity.
“When it’s good, when I think it’s good,” he says, explaining how he decides what to release. “And by good, I don’t mean just sonically. When there’s something about this song that goes beyond just edifying someone, I feel like if my music echoes what’s in Scripture and it echoes what God has said, I deem it good.”
Everything else stays buried.
“I call it pollution,” he says, laughing. “I’ve made a lot of pollution. A lot. And they will never see the light of day.”
When the music does make it out, Sondae hopes it carries Scripture in spirit, even when the words aren’t explicit.
“You know how in the Bible it says faith comes by hearing?” he says. “I would like people to, in case they didn’t read the Bible that morning, for whatever reason, they might hear it through my song.”
For him, Scripture creates a sense of stillness he wants to recreate sonically.
“Whenever I read the Scripture and I get a glimpse into the character of God, it brings me to a place where I can just settle down,” he says. “Life just slows down. Everything’s fine. That’s what I want people to feel when they listen to my music.”
That sensibility shapes BOY, his most personal album to date. The record arrives as Sondae prepares for marriage and reflects on adulthood, masculinity and dependence on God.
“I feel like I’m exposing myself to a degree I’ve always wanted to expose,” he says. “It’s about becoming a man and remaining a child at heart, remaining dependent on God.”
The title comes from a season of frustration.
“I spent some time trying to do things on my own strength,” he says. “Trying to understand things on my own. And it just wouldn’t go anywhere.”
Eventually, the answer felt clear.
“So I was like, ‘God, I want to be like a boy. I want to be like a child. No matter what happens, I’m depending on you.’”
That dependence is informed by his father’s story, which runs quietly through the album. After losing his own father at 15, Sondae’s dad carried responsibility early, supporting siblings and rebuilding his life later.
“I don’t think my dad ever had the chance to experience what becoming a man gradually was like,” Sondae says.
Only years later did his father recognize what had sustained him.
“He came back to me and he teaches me a new lesson,” Sondae says. “No matter how much of a man you become, to enter the kingdom of heaven, you must remain a boy at heart.”
That tension gives BOY its emotional gravity. The album doesn’t chase grand statements. It sits with vulnerability. Tracks like “Yours” have already drawn strong reactions.
“It’s a song about, ‘Lord speak to me, I will listen this time. Let your voice take over me,’” he says. “I think ‘Yours’ is the focus of the album for sure.”
Another standout, “Flowers,” is even more personal — a song written for his fiancée that she hasn’t heard yet.
“It’s a surprise song for my fiancée,” he says. “She knows there’s a song that’s for her. She just hasn’t heard it yet.”
As Sondae’s audience grows, he remains cautious about the pressures that come with visibility. He speaks candidly about struggling with comparison and the Christian music industry’s fixation on numbers.
“There’s a mix in our culture that confuses anointing with popularity,” he says. “It’s so loud now. It’s like, man, I don’t know what’s legit anymore.”
His response is to return to fundamentals.
“When it comes to something foundational, I try to stay true to Jesus no matter what,” he says. “I feel like that’s the best way out of this madness.”
Rather than seeing the current wave of Christian artists as competition, Sondae sees a collective calling.
“The harvest is greater than us,” he says. “No matter what you’re going through, God has made an artist in this generation that will speak into that.”
BOY doesn’t announce arrival so much as it documents formation. It’s an album about growing up without hardening, about faith that resists independence masquerading as maturity. Sondae isn’t trying to overwhelm listeners. He’s inviting them to slow down, listen closely and remember what dependence can sound like when it’s honest.
