Singer-songwriter Sam Kim and Indonesian singer Raisa dropped their song “Someday” on Friday. It is the Korean American musician’s first time collaborating as a producer with a non-Korean artist.

The two artists held a joint global press conference Friday afternoon in Jakarta, Indonesia, with Kim and the South Korean media attending through Zoom.

Kim produced the song with the assistance of another Korean singer-songwriter, Jukjae, and it will be part of Raisa’s upcoming fourth full-length album, “It’s Personal.”

It was the Indonesian singer who first reached out to Kim.

“It was simply because I love Sam’s music,” Raisa said during the media event. “I thought that our music tastes would match and our voices match, and thought this could be something. So my label reached out to Antenna and I also sent message to Sam through Instagram,” she added.

Raisa Andriana, more commonly known by her first name, is one of Indonesia’s leading pop artists. She made her debut in 2010 with “Serba Salah” and gained fame the following year with the album “Raisa.” She established her own label, JUNI Records, in 2014.

Sam, whose Zoom screen appeared on the wide screen in the venue, expressed his appreciation to Raisa for reaching out.

“At the beginning when I wrote the demo, hearing her voice for the first time, I got the melody immediately,” he said. “Even now, I can’t really describe the feeling. Ever since we started talking through message, we talked about music and our personal experiences, and we just became friends at the instant.”

According to the artists, “Someday” is a slow R&B song about the very last emotional outbursts between a couple before a breakup. They are blinded by unresolved feelings and egos, unable to communicate properly.

“‘Someday’ is a story that everybody can relate,” Kim said. “You guys fight, but you both want the same thing. You want love to be reciprocated, but you don’t want to do it first, and your partner is doing the same thing.”

Working together amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the two artists communicated online via social media messages and video calls.

“I’ve done many collaborations with other artists, but this collaboration took the most interaction. Before, we’d only meet once, twice or three times and we’d record. But this song, we literally video-called eight to 10 times to get it right, because it’s such a big project for me personally, and it’s also Sam’s first time producing a foreign artist’s song.”

Kim explained that the recording was done in real time through video chats, and sometimes he waited hours as Raisa recorded the song.

“It was a blessing in disguise, as we got to interact a lot more about the personal things. It really translated to the end product,” he said.

After watching the video, Raisa said, “Every time I watch this I just wish that we could have done it together.”

Jukjae, the singer-songwriter Kim worked with on his first self-produced album -- the LP “Sun and Moon” -- also contributed to the composition and arrangement of the new song.

Kim expressed hopes that this project would be a new start in his career, a move toward an expanded role as a global producer and songwriter.

“It’s my first time collaborating with an Indonesian artist and somebody outside of South Korea, so I hope that more overseas fans could listen to our music, and hope that people would recognize me more as a producer and songwriter,” Kim said.

Kim, 23, is affiliated with the Korean label Antenna Music, founded by veteran singer-songwriter and producer Yoo Hee-yeol. Kim made himself known through the TV survival show “K-pop Star 3,” in which he finished as the runner-up in 2014. He made his official debut in June 2014 with the EP “I Am Sam,” and went on to attempt producing an album in 2018 with “Sun and Moon.”

The video for “Someday” was released on Raisa’s YouTube channel on Friday.



By Choi Ji-won (jwc@heraldcorp.com)