Meet Sophia Center | Singer-songwriter

We had the good fortune of connecting with Sophia Center and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sophia, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
There’s never been a moment I can remember where music wasn’t my favorite thing in the world. I’m told I was writing songs as soon as I could form sentences. While I’m unsure if banging on a kid’s piano and yelling the same few words qualifies, I’ve always said I would write songs even if nobody heard them. It’s my way of processing the world around me, decompressing, and honestly just having fun. I decided to pursue it as my career because I find it so beautiful that words another human writes can deeply affect a stranger. I want to be a part of a connection like that.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
For me, the most exciting part of making music is the storytelling and lyrics. Some songs come from my personal life, while others are pulled from external sources or imagination. Either way, I like pairing stories of honest emotions with music that make stigmatized yet universal human experiences feel accessible. I also enjoy experimenting with different sounds, rhythms, and song structures. As a result, there are elements of jazz, rock, pop, country, and folk in my music. This past year has definitely been one with a lot of change and personal growth. The biggest lesson I learned is to do things for myself, create art that I like, and the attention from others will eventually follow. Life is too short and unpredictable to make decisions based on how you think it will be received by others. And now I’m really excited for these upcoming months! I’ve been doing monthly releases and the next two are definitely my most vulnerable but favorite so far: “Child” is coming out August 11, and “Spinning will be out early September. I also have plans to perform a lot more, and have a show at The Mint on September 13.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I would definitely take them to Highland Park for food- Kitchen Mouse, Joy, and Triple Beam are the holy grails. Thrifting would also be a must- Los Feliz or Silverlake flea for the aesthetics and Salvation Army for genuine thrifting prices. Anyone who knows me knows I consume a dangerous amount of boba, so a boba run would be very necessary as well. I’m very passionate that it’s either San Gabriel or no boba at all. Teamaru is my personal favorite but I honestly think it’s impossible for a place in San Gabriel to mess up boba. The great thing about LA is there’s always something happening at night. I love the Thursday night farmers market in South Pasadena and live music at The Goldfish.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I want to give a little shout-out to my family, who I’ll forever be grateful for. My parents never really questioned it, and just immediately did everything they could to support me and my music. As soon as I showed a passion for music, they were putting me into every guitar, piano, and voice lesson they could think of. Especially my dad, who’s the person that inspired me to start making music in the first place, has carved out so much of his life to make sure I have everything I need to make my dream a reality. He’s an amazing musician himself and writes songs for fun, so it’s been an especially cool experience to be able to go to him for writing advice.

Website: https://linktr.ee/sophiacenter

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sophia.center/?hl=en

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxrNCTlNX7CqLg2noDVW8Cw

Image Credits
Grace Rynerson