Table of Biography
SoMo is a popular American artist, singer, and songwriter who gained fame by covering famous singers’ songs on YouTube. SoMo is popular for its unique blend of soul, pop, and R&B.
Early Life and Childhood
SoMo was born on the 11th of September, 1987 as Joseph Anthony Somers-Morales in his birthplace, Austin, Texas. His age is 36 years as of 2024.
His mother’s name is Sarah Somers and he has a younger brother named John. However, there is no information about his father’s name but he is a musician and his mother is a homemaker.
Since his father was a musician, his father kept traveling around which made his childhood kind of lonely.
Due to his father traveling most of the time, his mother had a hard time bringing up two kids mostly alone. He also drifted towards music as he grew up but he never took it seriously for some years until the seventh grade.
A female friend from his class wrote him a note calling him JoSoMo endearingly. He thought that it would be a cool stage name if he became a musician.
Further, he also used this name as his username on several websites.
He also had good grades and he also knew about the hardships of becoming a musician since he saw his father struggling. He never took professional lessons but only sang for fun.
His mother thought that he had a natural talent and hence gifted him a piano in the year 2008. He was hooked to the piano for a year and by the end of 2010, he decided to try making music.
Caption: SoMo’s childhood photo with his mother. Source: Instagram
Joseph started performing at a very young age, however, he kept his childhood mostly away from music. Joseph went to Denison High School.
The media and the web do not have much information about his educational background.
Personal Life
Coming to SoMo’s love life, he has kept his private life and relationship status a mystery from the world. Moreover, Joseph has not disclosed his marriage.
But he has a daughter named Finley. He very frequently shares posts with her on his Instagram account. He also has another baby girl named Madeline.
Caption: Joseph SoMo and his daughter (Source: Instagram)
he has so far kept himself away from the controversies. However, rumors have been here and there about his dating life and relationship.
Professional Life
His favorite musician was Chris Brown and he chose his song Crawl as his first cover to record and upload on YouTube in the year 2009. This cover song helped him rise to fame almost immediately.
Additionally, this video amassed more than 13,000 views within the first week after its upload.
It was a major feat for a young artist like himself. Drake was another artist who inspired him and he released his medley of tracks from Drake’s album Take Care on the same day as the release of the original album Drake.
His subscribers kept increasing on his YouTube channel and hence experienced local fame that he had never imagined. This gave him enough confidence in his music.
However, he still wasn’t sure about a music career even after he crossed 1,00,000 subscribers on his channel.
Then starting in the year 2011, he began writing original songs. Back to the Start is one of the very first of his original songs uploaded on his YouTube channel.
However, it received a little backlash from its fans for its sex fuelled lyrics. Nevertheless, the song received a respectable amount of views.
In early 2013, he had already started working on his debut mixtape as a singer-songwriter. He also recorded the tape in a studio to upload it on a YouTube channel.
Moreover, he took a major risk and blended hip-hop with pop-soul in his mixtape. He then released it in September 2013.
After the first album…
Additionally, after he released My Life, Republic Records contacted him. He was surprised since he had no idea that the label had been tracking him for some time.
In October of the same year, he joined the label and this marked the beginning of his professional musical career. Republic Records helped him digitally release his mixtape My Life in November 2013.
Soon after its release, it reached #24 in the US Heatseekers chart. Similarly, the album talked about his experiences with women and his life in general and hence it gained the attention of youngsters soon.
In addition to this, he made his debut on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with the single from his debut mixtape Ride. The song peaked at #76 on the chart.
It was a good start for a newcomer. By the end of the year, he started working on his debut self-titled album.
He also announced the release of his album SoMo officially in February 2014 and he released it in April 2014.
The self-titled album was partly produced by Mic Schultz. It debuted at #6 on the Billboard 200 chart, which is great progress in the music career.
This helped him develop confidence in his music and since he was already in the mainstream market by then, his YouTube subscribers also skyrocketed. The immediate success of his debut album helped him embark on back-to-back national tours.
Second mixtape and more
Moreover, in September 2015, he released the second mixtape called My Life II. This mix-tape featured some more mature themes about his love life,
however, it still had some raunchy singles such as Makeup Sex and Bad Chick. Additionally, he hinted that he was working on his sophomore studio album by the end of 2015. z
He also released some singles before releasing the album.
Some singles from the album are Control, First, and Play, among others and these singles featured several other artists. His album gained moderate critical and commercial acclaim.
In addition, some made the official announcement regarding his second album and revealed that its name was The Answers. The album was ready for pre-order on the same day of the announcement and another single titled Just a Man was also released.
The second album didn’t get much recognition and in September 2017, he released the third installment of the mixtape titled My Life III. At this time, he already had his record label and he released the mixtape under his own SoMo label and LLC.
which was newly established at that time.
Caption: SoMo performing at Washington, D.C. Source: Instagram
On February 12, 2018, he issued his new single called “Nov 12” before beginning on The Reservations Tour. On August 6, 2018, he released his lead single “I’m Comin’ Home” from his upcoming third studio album, A Beautiful November.
Also, on September 24, 2018, he issued his single titled “Better Me”.
Further, he released “All the Time” in October of 2018. This song, he describes it as the most personal song he has written. A week later, he released another single titled “Weight”.
Moreover, his other single album is “Roses” (2018), “I Wish”(2018), A Beautiful November (2018), “Wild Heart”(2019), “Neck”(2019), “Visualize”(2019) and”Maybe”(2019).
Social Media
Joseph is very active on social media. He often posts his daughter Finley’s pictures on his Instagram account which has about 231k followers.
As of August 2022, his account with the username @officialsomo has 1,227 posts. Likewise, his Twitter account has 222.2k followers which he joined in November 2010.
Also, 328k people follow his official Facebook page as of August 2022. Additionally, he is also available on YouTube with 1.89 million subscribers.
He created his channel on November 14, 2009, and it has 570,335,230 views so far.
SoMo – Awards
Like every other artist, he too has dreamt of winning a Grammy Award. Though he has been invited to the award ceremony a few times, he has yet to win a nomination.
SoMo – Net Worth 2024
SoMo gained popularity through his covers of popular singles on YouTube. Likewise, one of his main sources of income is his YouTube Channel.
Hence, his channel, album, and mixtapes have also earned him a net worth of $1.5 million as of 2023.
SoMo – Body Measurements
Joseph Anthony Somers-Morales has a height of 5 feet 10 inches. He is tall and has an athletic body that weighs approximately 179 lbs. Furthermore, he has Black hair and dark brown eyes.