Like many students from Southern California, Soumana Sylla migrated from SoCal to NorCal to attend Sonoma State.
Sylla is a junior transfer student from Hollywood, Los Angeles and even before he had his first class here at Sonoma State, he wrote a song devoted to Sonoma and SSU students; the song is called “Sonoma’s Anthem.”
“We should make a song about SSU, I’m pretty sure no one has ever done something like this before,” said Sylla to friend of his while convincing him to write a song with him about Sonoma State and the community.
Sylla wrote the song thinking it would simply be cool and in hopes that other students would like it too.
Sylla’s purpose for making the song “Sonoma’s Anthem,” and what he wants to come after the song is noticed by plenty of SSU students, is that he hopes by writing the song everyone at SSU would check it out and listen to it and share it so eventually the song would become an actual anthem.
It could even be used in the purposes of rallying people at home games playing at SSU, and for students to get together in many more occasions since there aren’t many objects that unify the students as one Sonoma State society.
As a matter of fact, SSU doesn’t even have a fight-song so why not make this into something interesting that can be kept as a tradition at this school; perhaps it can spell change in for the future.
Sylla was also inspired to write the song because he was intrigued by SSU’s demographics and wanted to put his two cents on how he felt about it and make sure he touched base about the school’s demographics in the song.
“I heard and my expectations were that Sonoma State was a predominantly white campus, because I looked up the demographics for race online and I found out it was about two percent African Americans,” said Sylla.
“That’s why in the song I have a line ‘Black, White, Hispanic, or Asian we love one another no matter the orientation.’”
Sylla also touched on school spirit and how we come together as one campus to succeed, have fun, getting involved and more.
He is now in contact with various programming entities on campus to perform at upcoming campus events.
He is very excited to start performing especially because Sylla has been so taken back by all the feedback he has been receiving after posting the “Sonoma’s Anthem” on various campus club’s Facebook pages as well as his own Facebook page.
“I’ll be at a SSU soccer game and hear music and think to myself that it would be cool if we played “Sonoma’s Anthem” during the games,” said Sylla.
“At halftime to get the students and parents and overall audience pumped up.”
Sylla is working with a group of extraordinary students with great talent on campus who are trying to plan events around music, poetry and as far as music producing.
There will be plenty more to come so keep those eyes and ears open for what the talented students here on campus have in store.
At the moment “Sonoma’s Anthem” has over 700 views and can be heard on YouTube or Sylla’s Facebook page. Make sure to also check out Sylla live at upcoming Sauv Green music shows.
Sylla has been inspired and has now written two more ‘lady welcoming’ songs, and Sylla has been given praise and solid feedback for both songs.
“Sonoma’s Anthem” has received comments such as “flows for days,” and represents as a gateway to more school spirit on campus.
