Sonny Flame

Sonny Flame was born on September 30th 1986 in Ploiesti, Romania. By the time he was growing up, his musical predilection and vocal skills were noticed by his mother, who always saw in him the potential.
He started to write lyrics and compose songs at the age of 15, into hip-hop/rnb style, drove by the passion of a young and talented boy who is not yet aware of the artist he could be. His determination grew in time, fueled by the admiration and support of his close friends. It was one of those close friends that pushed him to improve and refinne the reggae and dancehall influences that started to appear in his style of lyrics. He began studying and learning the Patois language from every reggae track or album he could get his hands on.

Since then it was a continuous race to prove himself, to better himself and to expose his style to more and more people.

Unfortunately his mother died when Sonny Flame was only 12 years old so his only support and guiding figure remained his father. Starting the art high school, his exams included canto. This is where he impressed his teachers and was told that he should pursue a carrier in the music industry. At that time young Sonny Flame was not sure that the obvious path that would follow the music high school, him becoming an opera singer or a music teacher is not what he wants. When he finished high school, the architecture profile, his father’s wish was that Sonny should continue and pursue a carrier in architecture and promised his full support in this direction. Young Sonny had another dream.

At the age of 19 he decided to take his faith in his own hands and moved from Ploiesti to Bucharest, Romania’s capital city, so that he could be surrounded by a more advanced music scene that the one he grew with in his home town. Slowly he began recording more and more tracks and demos in various recording studios, with different producers, all this time trying to sacrifice all for the music career he was heading to. That meant that all the money that came from the small gigs from the underground music scene were only used in order to pay the everyday expences and the hours in the recording studios, all this time trying to stay positive and away from the bad influence the streets can have on a young artist. This reflected in his lyrics, always inspired by the real life experiences he was exposed to.

In 2006 he finished his first album length demo, together with one of the artists/producers he became friend with, F.Charm. The album was refused by all the Romanian labels they went to, fearing that a hip-hop album would not generate enough revenues in terms of psysical sales. This was not a setback meant to break him, only to make him try harder.
Being already appreciated by a lot of artists, he recorded several collaborations with them. He featured on a lot of tracks, some of the succesfull ones being Lonely Girl of the young girl-band Wassabi, Connect-r’s Summer Days, Confused together with D.J. Chris Mayer and Havana Lover with Morris. In this time his good friend and colleague, F.Charm, was hired and signed by the youngest label from Romania, Red Clover Media. He was presented by F.Charm to the A&R Manager of Red Clover and was signed immediately. His first single with Red Clover was Top of the world, a collaboration with D.J. Chris Mayer. The track was internationaly licensed through ToCo International and then released in France, Sweden, Denmark, Norwege, Netherlands, Russia+CIS and other various territories. This was the first sign of his international potential as an artist. In Romania he began to be more and more popular. Soon after being signed he entered the Eurovision song contest hoping to represent Romania in the international contest. As a fresh and young artist, he managed to place himself ahead of many famous artists competing in the Eurovision Contest and finished on the 3rd place of the public’s vote and on the 6th place in the final top. One more time, his dream of becoming an internationaly known artist was being put on hold. Trying to support Sonny Flame to reach the international recognition he was dreaming about,

Red Clover entered and tested his track, Glamity, on the hitlab.com platform. The track managed to score a 83% on the DHS scale and entered the weekly battle on Akon’s radio show. Needless to say, at that time, only to have his name mentioned by Akon was enough for him to make him dream. His second single was Jump Up which was another collaboration with a young romanian DJ, DJ Dark. This time the public was ready, the track received a video and soon started to climb the radio and club charts, becoming one the major hits in Romania in the year 2010. Jump Up was also entered on the hitlab.com platform, this time receiving an amazing 93% score. The song entered the weekly radio battle, won the first week and to everyone’s surprise the second week faced his best friend’s song, Asesina by F.Charm. This was such a surprise for everyone that many romanians could not believe the news that two artists that are friends and at that time also lived in the same appartment both face each other in Akon’s show. This lead to the even bigger surprise when after the first week the public placed their tracks in a tie. All of these were largely talked about on the romanian music blogs and by the press.

Over the years, some of the artists that influenced him included Sean Paul, 2Pac, 50Cent, Marley Family (Bob Marley, Ky-Mani, Damian Marley, Stephen Marley), John Legend, Akon (the song Ghetto was one of the tracks that motivated him to follow his dream) Busy Signal, Bounty Killer, Buju Banton, Elephant Man, Beenie Man.

Sonny Flame is being seen as a rising star but the large public is not yet aware of all the struggles he had to overcome in his fight for his dream. This fight is still fought every day and Sonny Flame’s story is still being written.