SASAMI and Rita Baghdadi Feed Off Your Energy

Rita Baghdadi is an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker, and the director of the 2022 documentary Sirens; Sasami Ashworth — best known mononymously as SASAMI — is a musician from LA. Rita recently directed Sasami covering the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps” for 988 x Sound of Saving, and to celebrate, the two hopped on a Zoom call to catch up. 
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music

Rita Baghdadi: How’s your tour going?

Sasami Ashworth: It’s good. We are maybe one-third of the way through.

Rita: What city are you in right now?

Sasami: Right now we are in Greenville, South Carolina, but we played in Atlanta last night, and we’re headed to Washington, DC tomorrow.

Rita: Oh, cool. Do you have a favorite city to play in?

Sasami: You know, I have my least favorite cities to play in. [Laughs.] I think my least favorite city to play in is LA, because the hometown show is just so stressful. My dad is there and everyone’s there, and it’s just a lot of pressure. So actually sometimes doing the smaller random towns like Albuquerque or Phoenix are so fun, because your guard is down. It’s not as high stakes as some of the bigger city ones.

Rita: Yeah, that makes total sense.

Sasami: I take more performance risks sometimes on those shows too. I’m like, Oh, I can do a backbend there, or something.

Rita: Are you stage diving?

Sasami: I did do some moshing last night. There are a couple moments in the set where the drummer is doing some metal drum solos, and sometimes I get unleashed into the crowd.

Rita: That’s so fun. I miss the basement shows of of my youth, the punk basement shows.

Sasami: I’m not going to lie, there was a very gray-haired man moshing last night in Atlanta, and it did bring a tear of joy to my eye.

Rita: That’s a beautiful thing to witness.

Sasami: An old man in his 60s with a Lucy Dacus t-shirt moshing… It was something to behold. It was cute.

Rita: I love that. By the way, I’ve listened to your song “I’ll Be Gone,” like, a billion times at this point.

Sasami: Oh, my god. Wait, you have to tell me the context of what you’re doing while you’re listening to it.

Rita: Oh, anything! I was hiking, I was doing dishes, rocking out in my car. All the scenarios. It’s such a banger. It’s so good.

Sasami: Thank you so much.

Rita: I was reading the press notes, and it was saying saying that there’s two Sasamis. Obviously, I’ve met both now, but there’s one Sasami that’s a classically-trained musician, and then there’s the SASAMI with all capital letters, the performer. And so I’m just curious, what’s it like melding the two Sasamis these days?

Sasami: It’s interesting, I’ve been touring a lot of the songs on this album for a while already, but it’s really different being in headline mode. Because a lot of the times when I’m opening, I’m opening for these much bigger crowds and they don’t know who I am. So there’s this kind of resistance to try to win them over. And with my crowds, they’re already my fan, obviously, because they’re at the show. But a lot of people who listen to my music are definitely on the mellower side. They’re typically a little more tender-hearted, sentimental types. And on the last album cycle, I was touring with a metal band, and most of the set was kind of metal inflected. So even if the crowd wasn’t totally feral by the beginning of the set, by the end there was this very physical feral energy. But on this album cycle, the metal moments are shorter and more fleeting. So it’s going into a lot of different vibes. I’m reacting a lot to what the audience is giving back, so it’s kind of different every night. I’m kind of just getting my footing on this tour of how much I let the audience energy affect my performance, and if they are being more introspective and less feral, then how do I take that more emotional energy and channel it into a more potent performance? It’s all like a practice, and every show is a new opportunity to do a different thing.

Rita: Totally. Feeding off energy is very much something I do when I’m filming people for my documentaries. But also when I’m watching my own work in a room full of people and I’m, like, squirming every time somebody moves. [Laughs.]

Sasami: Yeah, totally. I opened for Mitski and her crowd, because she had a lot of big viral TikTok moments, has kind of veered towards a very crazed young teenage audience. And so when I was opening for her, the second you even put a foot on stage, the whole crowd is just screaming. That’s the energy that they’re coming to the show with. Whereas on some of these shows, especially with the kind of mellower, more sentimental songs, people will be a lot quieter after the song. And I think it’s because they’re thinking about their ex or their partner or their family, and they’re getting into a much more introspective space. And it’s kind of my job as an artist to not be insecure. Like, if they’re being quiet after the song, it’s not that they didn’t like it; it’s because they’re processing. And so part of the practice is, you’re almost acting. You’re not just performing the songs, you’re performing a pacing of the show and the character of what you’re trying to portray and what you’re trying to portal people to throughout the set.

Rita: Absolutely. I feel like silence is the most powerful thing too.

Sasami: And it’s so hard for me. The amount of times that I’ll end a mellow song and people are in their hearts and their heads, and then I just start doing chicken clucks or some vocal stim. I start screaming or something, because I can’t handle the awkward silence. So it’s definitely something I’m working on, making space for my audience to have sentimental moments and not filling the space nervously.

Rita: Right. I wonder how long you could just live in that, if you just didn’t say a word. Just stared at the audience…

Sasami: I think I forget that they’re adults sometimes, because so much of my crowd control experience is from being a music teacher to children. So I’m always afraid to leave too much space, because once you leave space for children, they seize it quickly. [Laughs.] If you leave silence in a room with kids, someone will fill that power vacuum very quickly. But I should remember that the people in the crowd are adults. 

Rita: Yeah. And often, at least in my work, the most powerful thing will come right after silence. If you just sit in that uncomfortableness for as long as you can, then you’re going to be rewarded.

Sasami: Absolutely. What are you working on right now? Are you working on a big feature-length project right now, or smaller projects?

Rita: Yeah, I actually have several feature-lengths. I wish I had smaller projects right now, because the feature-length ones take years. [Laughs.] But my baby right now is is a doc filming in Morocco, and it’s about a group of young men who offer horseback rides to tourists on the beach. So it’s a bit about the tourism boom happening in Morocco and what it means to the young generation growing up in the tourism industry, because that’s how Morocco makes its money.

Sasami: It’s quite a big holiday spot for people who live in the UK and Europe, correct? 

Rita: It is, yeah. There’s a lot of young women from Europe — like horse girls. Of which I am one. [Laughs.] 

Sasami: It’s like Instagram, beautiful scenery, horse travel kind of vibe.

Rita: Exactly. They got famous posting videos of people galloping on the beach at sunset. So that’s kind of where all their clients are coming from, to experience that.

Sasami: Is there something particularly unexpected that you found in interviewing them that made you really lock in and be like, “We have to tell this story”?

Rita: I’m Moroccan, so I’m exploring it because it’s a bit of a personal story. The surprising thing to me was how much the youth feels the responsibility of the weight of their country’s reputation on their shoulders. It’s so interesting, because I mostly was raised in America — we don’t exist solely on tourism, we have other avenues of making money, so I’m very interested by what that does to a culture, what that does to the next generation, feeling like you have to cater to outsiders all the time.

Sasami: Totally. There’s this Korean word, “gyopo,” which means Koreans that are abroad, that are diasporically living in another place. And I definitely have a lot of friends that are kind of in that Korean-American, or just broadly Asian-American, diasporic experience. And it is really interesting to have this perspective where you are familiar with your ethnic background’s cultural global perspective, but then you’re also aware of the American angle on it. It’s a very specific perspective to be able to see things from both lenses, see where both are coming from and what’s problematic from each of them. 

Rita: Yeah, there’s a lot of code-switching that I think a lot of us multi-cultural people find themselves doing. But people are coming to Morocco for an “authentic,” quote-unquote, experience. So they want that. They want to experience that with someone different from them, and the actual culture, and not the catering. So there’s this interesting push and pull that I’m seeing. Like, how much do you bend yourself to fit what you think that they want and how much of it is you? People are coming for you and for that very specific culture that you have that they don’t have.

Sasami: I’m so curious, what are the local Moroccans’ perspective on Westerners? Do they have animosity?

Rita: No, there’s no animosity. I mean, again, I’m following younger people, so they’re not jaded yet. But also, Morocco is such a hospitable culture. I mean, the Middle East in general, Arab culture is very hospitable, so I don’t think that there’s any animosity. The interesting thing will be to see it in five or 10 years, because the country itself is really pushing for more and more tourism. They want to get on the top 15 global travel destinations list. And when you look at number one — which is Spain right now, and then France —  there’s people in Barcelona who are squirting tourists with squirt guns saying, “Go home.” And so there is a point, I’m sure, where it’s like, how much is too much?

Sasami: Totally. And also a question of, who is profiting from the tourism? Is it families and smaller companies that are actually profiting from that, or is it larger scale corporate or governmental institutions that are profiting from the pilfering of local lands?

Rita: 100%. It’s tricky when you really get down to the nitty gritty of it.

Sasami: It is interesting to be in that perspective. For example, I’m a Korean-American, and a lot of the more progressive Korean-Americans feel a lot of shame about American imperialism and the presence of America in South Korea. But then Koreans who grew up in Korea, for the most part, really look up to America and don’t have any feelings of animosity at all. They only have gratitude and kind of inspirational feelings towards America at large. So it is a really different perspective, seeing it from the American lens.

Rita: I think Morocco and America have always had a really good relationship. It’s more France — the colonial history of France in Morocco is a bit more tricky. I think the younger generation has pushed back a bit on, for example, the French language being dominant. They’re more interested in their own language now than using French. Although, because I’m filming with guys in the tourism industry, they speak, like, five languages, [in general, younger people] are pushing for Amazigh, the indigenous language, to be more dominant than French.

Sasami: That’s awesome.

Rita: Yeah, I’m really inspired by them.

But, it’s so it’s so interesting that we did this spot together for 988. I feel like mental health is such a part of both of our art, and I’m glad that it’s getting the attention it deserves.

Sasami: Definitely. It was so cool to understand what the message of the project was in the process of making our short film and putting the whole concept together.

Rita: Yeah. And thank you for being so open. I remember getting into the edit and I was like, Oh, there’s so much here. We you could make a whole film about you. Obviously, you can make a film about a lot of people, but there’s so much more that we could explore that you’re offering in your personal storytelling. I thought that was really great.

Sasami: I think it’s interesting being an artist — I’m sure you know this, because you make documentaries that are somewhat personal, but they’re not technically about your life. It’s kind of like that with me, too. The things that I’m writing about are obviously affected by my life and my experience, but I’m more largely trying to tell a story or open a portal or create some sort of narrative in the song. There’s your personal experience, there’s what you’re trying to create, and then there’s how people actually relate to it. There’s a lot of different angles to everything that we make.

Rita: Absolutely. I’ve learned you have to let go a bit about the way people take things, the way people interpret. I feel like less and less art is open for interpretation; I feel like everything’s so literal these days, there’s not a lot of interpretation even needed, which is kind of sad.

Sasami: Yeah. And it doesn’t really help that that’s coalescing with shorter and shorter attention spans.

Rita: Right. It’s a perfect storm. 

Sasami: How do you feel the social media climate has affected documentary, or your art practice?

Rita: I find that, just on the simplest level, there’s more pressure to publicize earlier and earlier, to get people on board and excited about something. That is very tricky when you’re filming with people in intimate ways. It’s not like you have paid actors who are the face of the film. These are personal stories, and maybe they’re not ready to be in the spotlight yet. But you’re in the process of making this thing with them, and it’s very tenuous. It’s beautiful and it’s messy and it’s happening. But how do you find ways to publicize it for investors or donors to come on board and get excited about it without showing too much? It’s just very tricky. And I find with social media, there’s all this pressure to post. Silence is like, “Well, then, nobody knows about you.”

Sasami: Exactly. I definitely feel that sometimes. I don’t have a very personal desire to be on social media and be promoting and creating content, especially that speaks within the vernacular of viral content. But at the same time, I’m very aware that that’s how people find out about music and how people find out about shows. It definitely makes me sad when I think about how we are traveling this far and using all this gas and creating this carbon footprint to go across the country, and I know that there are so many people in each town that would have a good experience at the show and would be touched by it in some way. So it is important to engage in that way for the very basic reason of wanting to reach more people and invite more people to the show. It’s such a balance of being true to yourself and not doing things that feel insincere. And I’m sure it’s so much crazier when you’re making films that require funding, so you’re also trying to prove your value to, like, CEOs. [Laughs.] I can’t even imagine. I’m very lucky to have a long relationship with my label [Domino], who’s a very rare indie label that is down to develop and support artists that aren’t huge and famous and viral. 

Rita: That’s beautiful. Yeah, I feel like it’s rare in every industry now to have that, to feel like you’re really supported on an individual level by big companies. I mean, there’s definitely some good ones in the film industry, but it’s fewer and farther between. I feel like the touring thing is so interesting because, yeah, at some point you’re like, OK, I’m going all these festivals, but how different can it be to sit in a room and watch the film over and over again with people? But my favorite part is when I get to bring the participants — let’s say, the cast of my documentary — with me, and the audience gets to meet them, because they really do become celebrities and they feel so seen and heard, and they get to share their story. That’s very special. That’s what I love, honestly, about doing what I do. It’s not even about me and the film, it’s about them and their experience.

Have you ever thought about making music for film?

Sasami: I’ve done some scores for indie projects, and I’ve done podcast theme songs and cue tracks and stuff like that. But it’s definitely something I would like to get into, especially as I get older and the desire to be on the road constantly gets diminished each year. [Laughs.] And honestly, my background is in classical music and there’s a huge part of my skill set that doesn’t get used for most of my life, which is an ability to score symphonic works.

Rita: Yeah, that would be the perfect combination for film scoring, the classical meets the modern. Hopefully one day we can collaborate.

Sasami: I would love that!

Rita: So how much longer do you have on your drive today?

Sasami: I think we still have at least six hours.

Rita: Oof. Well, I hope that I get to meet the tour in one of the cities that I’m in. 

Sasami: Definitely. And I hope we can work together on something someday. I’d love to score something for you.

Rita: That would be amazing. Have a very safe drive and a fun rest of your tour.