A Chat with Cosmos Ray (09.06.25)
Cosmos Ray debuts with a transcendent full-length album, The More We Live, delving into the genre-bending, soul-searing sonic odyssey across grief, rebirth, and radical love. We speak with Cosmos Ray about his new album, The More We Live, and more below.
OSR: The More We Live feels more like a spiritual rite than a traditional album. Was that intentional from the start, or did it evolve into that form over time?
Ray: I appreciate that reflection, because that feeling you’re picking up on is very real. For me, music has always been something deeper than sound. Since I was little, it’s been a way to process emotion, to make sense of life, to regulate what I couldn’t always explain. So in that sense, the spiritual has always been part of the music; it’s woven into how I create. I think art, in general, gives us a space to grapple with what can’t be neatly understood or easily spoken. There are so many moments in life where language fails, where emotion becomes too complex, too layered, or even too raw to express directly. Sometimes I reach for a word that’s only close to what I’m actually feeling. But with music, with sound, I can approach that ambiguity more easily. I can be honest with what I don’t fully grasp yet. I can be a whole, messy human.
With The More We Live, the spiritual element deepens as the project evolves. When my father passed, I felt a shift. I began revisiting older songs and found myself drawn to the ones that held more weight, more emotional and existential depth. Then I started writing new pieces to match that energy, and I realised the album wasn’t just a collection of songs – it was becoming a kind of offering. A journey through paradox, grief, acceptance, and ultimately, a commitment to love. So while it wasn’t intentionally conceived as a spiritual rite from the start, that energy emerged naturally. It’s part of who I am, and as the project took shape, that essence came forward more and more.
OSR: You’ve described this project as a “letter from a distant land.” What was that land for you emotionally, mentally, and creatively?
Ray: For me, that “distant land” is myself. It’s emotional, mental, and creative all at once because those things aren’t separate in the process of making this album. They’re layered, interwoven, and in some ways, still unfolding. We spend so much time with ourselves that it’s easy to assume we know who we are. I’ve certainly felt that way. But life has a way of offering moments – sometimes gentle, sometimes jarring – that shift your perspective. You catch a glimpse of yourself from a new angle. Or, in rarer cases, you meet parts of yourself you didn’t even know were there. That’s what happened during the making of The More We Live.
I’ve always wanted to release solo music, but I often let fear and insecurity keep it in the background. This album became the space where I finally stopped running from my own voice and sound. It introduced me to versions of myself I hadn’t consciously remembered. Versions that felt unfamiliar at first, but quickly revealed themselves as deeply rooted, maybe even long overdue. So when I call it a letter from a distant land, I’m talking about inner terrain, emotional landscapes, creative instincts, spiritual questions I had to travel into to write these songs. And now that I’ve made the journey, I’m sending back what I found.
OSR: The six “Recall” interludes are so striking and meditative. What was your intention behind them, and how do they shape the album’s emotional arc?
Ray: The “Recall” interludes are the spine of The More We Live. They weren’t just filler or transitions; they became essential to how the album breathes. Early on, after my father passed, I was planning to immediately release 8 or 10 songs and just throw them into the world. But after talking with my partner, who’s a big Bowie fan, she encouraged me to revisit Bowie and Eno’s Outside album. That opened something up. The way Bowie used segues as narrative glue really clicked for me, especially since I’d already been thinking about hip-hop’s tradition of skits – those between-track moments that hold so much meaning. Once I saw the shape the album was taking – starting in emotional heaviness and slowly rising toward hope – I realised these interludes could anchor that transformation. I kept coming back to the word “recall”. It felt apropos: a remembering, a centring, a reaching back to move forward. Each “Recall” became a kind of sonic meditation on remembering our humanity, contradiction, and love.
‘Recall – Being Human’, I knew had to start the album, even though it was the last one I finished. I’d had the instrumental for years under a different name but never found the right vocal approach until it hit me: this needed to be an interrogative opening. No form, just questions. It set the tone for everything that followed.
‘Recall – The Apologists’ uses satire to poke at rigid ideology, something I’ve struggled with personally and witnessed socially. It leads directly into ‘Sin Tax’, which dives even deeper into those dynamics.
‘Recall – Circle of Faults’ came from therapy and shadow work, recognising cycles of blame, judgment, and emotional looping that show up in my life and others’. It supports the themes in ‘Heavy (The Blame Is)’, which follows right after.
‘Recall – The Givers’ is deeply personal. It’s rooted in a lesson from one of my teachers: whatever you want, give it away. That concept became a guiding light for me, and “The more we give, the more we live” became a kind of mantra that leads naturally into the title track.
‘Recall – The Redeemed’ was a beautiful accident. I was producing a reimagined version of a song originally written on acoustic guitar, and an alternate take of the A section evolved into what became this interlude. It’s a declaration: despite our flaws and whatever we may endure, we can still choose love.
And ‘Recall – We Can All Be Free’ came out of my time in mutual aid and solidarity spaces during the height of the pandemic. I was organising in Chicago, and the words from that interlude began as a poem I wrote. Something I often invited others to say with me at the beginning or end of the gatherings I helped facilitate. Including them in the album felt right. They became a grounding affirmation, an offering of love rooted in justice and care.
So yeah, the “Recall” pieces aren’t just transitions, they’re sonic buoys. They help the listener navigate the emotional terrain of the album. They hold space. They ask questions. They remind us.
OSR: You explore heavy themes like grief, identity, and healing. Was it difficult to tap into that vulnerability while also maintaining creative control?
Ray: Absolutely. It was one of the most difficult things I’ve done, not just creatively, but personally. Vulnerability has always been a challenge for me, especially when it’s unfiltered, public, and tied to something as sacred as grief. So yes, it was hard to stay open and honest while also trying to steer the creative process. After my father passed, I wanted to do something positive to honour him, and my first impulse was to release a project right away. It felt urgent, like I needed to release something just to breathe. But when I stepped back and really considered what I wanted The More We Live to be, I knew it needed more time. That’s when the real internal struggle began.
I told myself I’d release the album by June 2024. That time came and went. For the next 10 months, I wrestled with fear. Fear that the songs weren’t good enough, that people wouldn’t connect, that I was exposing too much. The emotional weight of the themes – contradiction, being human and healing – made the process feel even heavier. I found myself procrastinating, second-guessing, and obsessing over tiny details as a way to avoid confronting the deeper discomfort. But in the end, what saved the project, and probably a part of me, was letting go. Letting go of the need for perfection. Letting go of external validation. I realised the act of finishing and releasing the album wasn’t about proving anything, it was about standing in my truth and walking the road to its end. That shift is what allowed me to complete the recordings and get the album mixed, mastered, and ready to live in the world. So yes, it was hard. But it was also freeing. Vulnerability, I’ve learned, can be deeply empowering and even alchemising.
OSR: You’ve said this album is “a reckoning.” Can you talk about what you were reckoning with during the making of this record?
Ray: Absolutely. For me, The More We Live is a reckoning in the truest sense – a confrontation, an inventory, a deep look inward. When my father passed, it shook me to the core. It was sudden. I had just spoken to him a couple of days before he got sick, and then, just like that, he joined the ancestors. In the midst of that grief, I found myself in a state of intense reflection. Everything slowed down, and I started asking questions I hadn’t made time to ask before: Why am I here? What is my purpose? Where am I holding back? Reckoning, for me, wasn’t about judgment; it was about honesty. About shining light on the parts of myself I had ignored or hidden, not because I didn’t care, but because I was afraid of what I might find. I had to confront doubt, insecurity, and a kind of existential loneliness that grief tends to expose. But I also had to reckon with my desire to keep going. To create. To live more fully.
The pandemic layered on another reckoning. Venues shut down, and for a long time in Chicago, there were no live shows. No outlet for the version of me that had always thrived onstage. Music had always been something I shared in real time, and when live music paused, my creative life got quieter, more private. I kept writing, composing, and producing, but I didn’t see it as something I’d release. When live shows returned, life had moved on. The collaborators I’d worked with were in new chapters. The calls stopped coming. That silence made me wonder if I would ever play again or if I should. But then this album started to call me back. I realised I couldn’t keep denying the music I was hearing in my head, just because it didn’t fit into the old version of who I thought I had to be. The More We Live became the answer to that reckoning. I had to face the fear, the self-doubt, the grief, and finally step forward, not as part of a band, not waiting for someone to invite me, but as myself. So this album is personal. It’s spiritual. It’s a return, but also a break. It marks a moment where I stopped asking for permission and started trusting my own voice again.
OSR: There’s a tension in your work between structure and freedom, noise and stillness. How do you navigate that balance in your creative process?
Ray: That tension you’re picking up on is real, and honestly, it mirrors a lot of what I navigate in my daily life and mind. So much of what I create reflects that inner dialogue between control and surrender, clarity and chaos. It’s not just a creative choice, it’s part of my path. With this album, I leaned deliberately into electronic production, which naturally lends itself to precision and polish. Early on, I thought I needed to match that sonic clarity with perfectly tuned, technically clean vocals. But it didn’t feel right. The more I chased perfection, the more disconnected the music felt. So I started listening differently.
Often, the takes that moved me most had imperfections – tiny shivers in the voice, slight inconsistencies in rhythm, unexpected textures. But they felt alive. That contrast, raw human emotion layered over machine-like precision, became essential to the album’s sound. Shout-out to Rollin Weary, who mixed most of the album, for helping me hone that balance. Also, to Nic the Graduate and Dan Zorn for maintaining that feel in their mixes. All of them could’ve easily polished the vocals until they were shiny and metallic, but they understood the vibe. They knew I was going for something that felt human, not hyper-processed.
I also gave myself permission to step outside conventional song structures. While I love a good verse-chorus-bridge, not every track on The More We Live wanted to move that way. Some ideas didn’t resolve. Some songs stayed suspended in tension, and that felt honest. Not every feeling or question we carry has a clean resolution. As the emotional arc of the album came into focus, moving from heaviness toward hope, that freedom in structure helped guide the song selection.
OSR: You seem to defy genre throughout the album. What do boundaries mean to you, musically or personally?
Ray: I’ve always had a complicated relationship with boundaries. Part of me despises them, rules, borders, categories. I find them limiting, especially when they’re used to boxing people in. But another part of me thrives on structure and clarity. So there’s a tension there, and that shows up in my music. With ‘Akasha’, we started out genre-fluid- hip hop, rock, soul, blues, even folk sometimes. But as we gained traction, we ran up against an industry that wanted you to plant a genre flag and stay in that lane. Eventually, we doubled down on reggae and Jamaican music, which was beautiful and deep in its own right – a true masterclass. But I’d be lying if I said it scratched every creative itch in the group. There were always more sounds we wanted to explore.
Fortunately, I think the sonic landscape has shifted. The streaming era and internet culture have opened things up; artists today can cross genres without as much resistance. At least creatively. From a marketing standpoint, the industry might be even more rigid. But sonically? I believe there’s more freedom now. For me, that freedom comes from how I was raised. I grew up surrounded by all kinds of music – church hymns, my father playing soul, blues, and jazz, listening to top 40, pop, roots reggae, dancehall, and hip hop. It was all in the mix. When I got to college, my world opened up even more. I still remember the first time I heard Fela Kuti; it completely blew my mind. And taking a hand drum workshop with Babatunde Olatunji at Park West in Chicago was another life-changing experience. But the genre that, ironically, taught me the most about ignoring genre was hip hop.
Sampling introduced me to this idea that nothing was off limits. If it sounds good, it is good. If it tells the story, if it carries the feeling, use it. That approach, mixed with sound design and electronic production, just made it natural for me to blur lines and follow feeling over form. Even when I was trying to choose a genre tag for this album for streaming services, I couldn’t land on one. I asked people close to the project what they thought it was, and most said, “I don’t know.” So in the end, I used “electronic” as the umbrella, because technically, that’s what ties the production together. Truthfully, the spirit of the album doesn’t live in a genre. It lives in a feeling. A frequency. A need to connect. To live.
OSR: What does “love more boldly” look like for you, both in your life and in your music?
Ray: Angela Davis once said, “Radical simply means grasping things at the root.” That definition resonates deeply with me because when I think about loving more boldly, I think about a radical kind of love. Not performative. Not surface. But rooted. Fundamental. A love that shows up in action, not just intention.
In some of the community organising spaces I’ve had the privilege to be part of, people often talk about radical love – a love that centres care, accountability, and collective well-being. It asks: How can I show up better? For myself? For others? What do I need to heal in myself so I can love with clarity and care? That’s what loving more boldly looks like to me. It’s deeply personal and deeply communal. In my life, it means trying to bring my whole self into every space I occupy. And in my music, it means being honest about my contradictions and insecurities. It means writing from places I’ve often tried to hide.
A lot of us learn to wear masks to survive, to filter who we are so we can fit in, get along, or avoid conflict. But to love more boldly, I believe we have to find ways, safe, intentional ways, to take those masks off and bring our full, messy, beautiful selves to the table. Art, and music especially, can provide us that space. It can allow us to express the raw, hopefully without doing harm. It can help us name the wounds and the wisdom at the same time. That’s what I hope my music does. That’s what I strive for in my life. Not a perfect love, but a bold one. Rooted and real.
OSR: Do you see The More We Live as a standalone piece or the beginning of a larger artistic narrative?
Ray: That’s a great question. Honestly, my initial goal was just to release something, to finally put my solo work into the world after sitting on it for so long. Rick Rubin once said, “You’re successful as soon as you send your work out into the world”, and I felt that deeply. For me, releasing The More We Live was a milestone in letting go and learning how to release a solo project. That said, once the album was out, I realised I couldn’t just leave it there. I needed to support it, nurture it, and share it with as many people as possible. In that process, something unexpected happened: the project started to open new doors.
I’ve had conversations with fellow artists about companion pieces, visual, musical, and multidisciplinary, some of which might grow directly out of the album, and some that may become entirely new works. I also have ideas for new material that will likely sound quite different sonically, but still centre the same core themes: life, love, liberation, the complexity of being wholly human. So while The More We Live began as a standalone release, it now feels like the beginning of something larger. A thread I want to keep pulling. A conversation I want to continue about who we are, how we heal, and how we live more fully.
OSR: How do you hope listeners feel after finishing this album? What’s the internal impact you’re aiming for?
Ray: First and foremost, I hope listeners feel the album sonically, emotionally, viscerally. I want the musical choices, the rhythms, melodies, and textures to resonate with their own sensibilities. I’m the kind of listener who hears the music first. If that pulls me in, then I go back again and again to uncover the lyrics, the layers, the intention. So I hope The More We Live hits on that level first: as a sound that feels good to sit with.
Beyond that, I hope the album invites reflection. That listeners who connect with it might feel encouraged to look inward, not with judgment, but with curiosity. To explore their own contradictions, old beliefs, and misunderstandings. To ask: Do I still need to carry this? Is this mine to hold? Or is it time to let go? At its core, I hope the album offers a little healing energy. Not in a preachy or prescriptive way, but simply by being honest. If it helps someone feel more seen, more grounded, or even just more open to their own becoming, then that’s the most meaningful impact I could ask for.
Many thanks to Cosmos Ray for speaking with us. Find out more about Cosmos Ray on his Facebook, Instagram, and Spotify.
