Date:
Monday, October 12
Time:
7:00 PM
Advance Ticket:
$52.45
Advance Member Ticket:
$47.25
Door Ticket:
$57.75
Student Ticket:
$29.00
All-in Pricing
Kuumbwa Jazz Presents

Somi

Buy Tickets
6:00 PM
All Ages
Café Kuumbwa
Dinner Specials can be purchased in advance or at the counter (subject to availability). To guarantee the purchase of the Dinner Special, please order in advance. The menu will be posted to this event page as soon as it is selected by our chef. If you are purchasing a dinner before the menu is announced, you will receive the menu via email within a week of the concert date. Please click the ‘Café Kuumbwa' button above for more information. Thank you!

Vocalist, composer, actor, and playwright Somi Kakoma is the Midwestern daughter of immigrants from Uganda and Rwanda. Hailed by The New York Times as “a virtuosic performer in full command of her instrument and powers,” she is known in the international jazz world simply as ‘Somi.’

Her 2021 GRAMMY nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album made her the first African woman ever nominated in any of the GRAMMY jazz categories, as well as the first Rwandan or Ugandan ever nominated for a GRAMMY. Her last release, Zenzile: The Reimagination of Miriam Makeba, was a companion project to the critically acclaimed original musical Dreaming Zenzile that Somi also wrote and starred in as a tribute to the great South African singer and activist. Her highly anticipated forthcoming album, What Does It Take to Bloom?, will be released in August 2026.

Somi is a recipient of two NAACP Image Awards and a Doris Duke Artist Award. Recently, she made her Broadway debut in the titular role of the TONY Award-winning play Jaja’s African Hair Braiding.

Somi Website
Sponsored by Joseph Denicola
(Ticket Includes 5% City of Santa Cruz Admission Tax)

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