Sam Kim collabs with Indonesian pop star Raisa on new single 'Someday'

Korean-American singer-songwriter Sam Kim and Indonesian pop star Raisa released their collaborative track “Someday” on Friday. [ANTENNA]

Korean-American singer-songwriter Sam Kim and Indonesian pop star Raisa released their collaborative track “Someday” on Friday.

The press conference for “Someday” was held on the same day in Jakarta, Indonesia and also online. Raisa attended the conference while Kim joined via video call from Korea.

“The collab with Sam happened since I’m a huge fan of Sam,” Raisa said. “I’ve been referencing Sam’s music a lot to my musician friends. Simply because I love Sam’s music, I said [to my agency], ‘Why don’t we do a collaboration with him?'"

Raisa’s label Juni Records reached out to Kim’s agency Antenna while Raisa contacted Kim herself via Instagram.

“Ever since we started exchanging messages on Instagram, talking about our music and personal experiences, we became friends,” said Kim. “For me, this was an amazing experience to work with someone outside of South Korea.”

The English-lyric song was under production for quite some time, partially due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The first time we video called was one and a half years ago,” Raisa said. “It was during Covid times, so it [communication] was not easy. We really took our time and we wanted the best for the song. That’s what I love most about this collab; we really took our time. I’ve done a lot of collaborations before, but this took the most interactions. For ‘Someday,’ we video called about ten times to get it right. It was super active and very, very personal for both of us.”

“I remember asking her a lot of questions [like] ‘What do you want to sing about?’’” said Kim, who wrote the song and lyrics along with Raisa. “I remember hearing her voice for the first time and immediately getting the melody. I could hear the melody I wanted Raisa to sing.”

The sentimental R&B ballad is centered on a couple who wants to open up to each other but whose egos get in the way. The music video was filmed with Raisa in Indonesia and Sam in Korea, without the two artists meeting in-person to film due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Someday” will be included on Raisa’s upcoming fourth full-length album “It’s Personal.”

Kim debuted in 2016 and is best known for songs “Who Are You” (2016), which was a part of the original soundtrack for the hit series “Guardian: The Lonely and Great God” (2016-2017), and “Love Me Like That” (2021), which was on the original soundtrack for series “Nevertheless” (2021).

Raisa debuted in 2008 and is known for hits such as “Serba Salah” (2011) and "Kali Kedua" (2016).

BY HALEY YANG [yang.hyunjoo@joongang.co.kr]