An Introduction to Essence of Soul: Swarthmore’s Premier Black A Cappella Group
Last month, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Marie Inniss ’23 and Whitney Grinnage-Cassidy ’24 to learn more about Essence of Soul (EOS). These two students have been working together towards the revival of Swarthmore College’s only all-Black a cappella group. Following several years on hiatus, EOS is coming back, and you don’t want to miss out.
The group’s origins lie with Black Coffee, the mixed company, all African-American a cappella group founded in the Spring of 1995, according to Swarthmore College Computer Society. Inniss estimates that the group dissolved in the early 2000s, and some students later decided to bring it back under the name “Essence of Soul.” Another difference was that they would not be an all-Black group, but instead a group that sings Black music.
Marie Inniss: It was originally mostly or all Black people, but then as time went on, like always, non-Black people infiltrated. By 2010, there were maybe two Black people in the group, and I’m not really sure what happened, but they stopped performing and kind of disintegrated. So then in, I guess, November 2020, I was like “Hey, why don’t we have an all-Black a cappella group?” My brother had actually gone to Swarthmore and had been in Essence of Soul, and he asked me, “What happened to that group?” I said, “I don’t know, but let me try and bring it back.” So I decided to do that, and I was like it’s going to be a Black group though. Black people singing Black music.
Whitney Grinnage-Cassidy: Period.
MI: So that’s that. So we did a Zoom recording last year, but it was just kind of hard to get off the ground because everyone was virtual, but now here we are.
Inniss and Grinnage-Cassidy successfully held auditions for the group on February 12. In promoting the auditions, they emphasized that no experience was necessary and that EOS was looking for all voice parts.
WGC: Auditions were great! We had a great turnout, I think we had maybe 11 people. We’re currently in the process of picking a meeting time for us to start getting rehearsals off the ground. It went really well. I had never done or led any audition process before, so it was a cool learning experience, too. It was fun.
Image sourced from https://www.instagram.com/p/CH6jJYPJUfZ/. Follow Essence of Soul on Instagram @swatessenceofsoul.
Katie Ryu: I also noticed you put on your flyers that singers could audition with one minute or a verse plus chorus of a song that makes them feel confident. I was wondering if you could elaborate on the confidence part, if it was just like we want you to come and sing and have fun with it, or anything of that sort.
MI: I mean, I find for auditions—I’m a theater director, so I watch a lot of auditions—I tend to notice that sometimes people try to choose the hardest thing and impress us, and instead of them coming off as really confident or having fun with it, it’s just a lot of nerves and just an energy that’s not really what we want to see. We want to see something that you really are comfortable with that shows off what you like to sing. So, I think that’s really why we put that.
WGC: Yeah, and I’m not a director but I am somebody who participates in the stuff that Marie directs, and I do a lot of auditions. I think a lot of the time, people tell you to bring something or sing something that shows off your voice, or something like that. And that can be hard.
MI: That’s stressful.
WGC: Yeah, that’s stressful, as Marie said. But ours was a pretty chill audition. This is not Broadway. We just want to have fun. We want cool Black people to sing cool Black music. Especially because, as we said, no experience is necessary. So there’s a lot of people in our group who have never sung before, that have maybe sung in choirs but have never done a cappella. We have all different levels, so it made the most sense for us to kind of assure people by saying just make sure you feel good in whatever you sing. Pick your favorite song, pick whatever. We just want to make sure you can carry a tune and are happy to be with us.
MI: It also gives us a good sense of what people like—not that that influences whether or not they’re in the group, but it’s more like, “Oh okay, we like a lot of this type of music.” It’s helpful to know.
KR: What kind of music does EOS intend to sing?
WGC: A couple of people were asking us that in auditions, and I think the way we’re thinking about it is, obviously we sing music by Black artists, but Black artists make all types of different music. They cover all types of different genres. Our group is called Essence of Soul, so we will probably be really heavy on soul, R&B, that section of music—or music that has those influences, like neo-soul. But, we can do any genre that our members feel connected to, as long as it’s Black people who made that music.
By this point in our interview, it was already clear that Inniss and Grinnage-Cassidy were probably two of the coolest people I had met so far at Swarthmore. It only makes sense that they would have cool music taste as well.
KR: Turning to you two as individuals a bit, what music have you personally been listening to? Is there anything that has played a significant role in your work with EOS?
WGC: I grew up listening to a lot of the music my parents listened to, and as I had two Black parents in their, like, 6os, they naturally listened to a lot of 60s, 70s, 80s R&B, soul, pop, those types of genres. So, I listened to a lot of Mary J. Blige, Luther Vandross, Anthony Hamilton, Maxwell.
MI: I mean, she’s saying that, but verbatim I could say that exact same thing. My parents are also Black people in their 60s.
WGC: That's what they listen to. And then those big Black groups that had like 15 members in them, like L.T.D., Earth, Wind & Fire, all those people, I grew up listening to that. And that’s a lot of the music that Essence of Soul probably ends up singing—so all those influences that as a kid I listened to. But also, I feel as though we listen to a lot of different music and a lot of different genres. We have people who come from a wide range of different backgrounds. So it’s nice to have Essence of Soul that really focuses on Black music.
Inniss shared another glimpse of her personal story with music.
MI: There’s this joke in my family that when I was four, someone asked me who was my favorite singer, and I said Peabo Bryson who was like—Black women in the 80s were probably falling over him.
Together, Inniss and Grinnage-Cassidy are not only fun, but honest and supportive. It seems reflective of how EOS intends to be as a group.
MI: Another thing, I’m excited about people knowing very different music than I do. I could learn some new stuff because I find it hard to learn new music, other than what I already enjoy, which is a lot of old stuff, a lot of musical theater.
WGC: I’ll put you on. I listen to a lot of stuff, I got you.
We also looked towards the future and what the two hope for the group and its environment.
KR: What would you say is your goal for EOS?
WGC: The first goal that comes to mind is having fun, having a good time. I don’t think we would do it if it was a bad time. I love to sing. It’s my number one favorite thing to do. I just want to do that with other people who are also Black, singing music that we care about that means something to us. So I say that’s the first goal. And a more practical goal, I guess, especially for a lot of people who don’t have a lot of experience performing, I want us to have that first experience performing together. I want us to grow as a group and as singers skill-wise, but also just enjoy the work that we’re doing.
MI: I mean, my goal for most things I do is have fun and learn. And I think we’re going to do both. We also talked about “chill.” A lot of things on campus tend to be very high pressure, very uptight like “we have to have this perfect and that perfect by this day.” I want us to be able to learn at our own pace and just be very relaxed about the whole thing.
WGC: It should be something you look forward to, something you enjoy going to at the end of the week or the end of the day.
This is a meaningful group and space, and the significance of this all-Black a cappella group at a predominantly white institution like Swarthmore shouldn’t be lost on us. Grinnage-Cassidy notes, “We made it very clear what we were looking for.”
MI: The first question on our audition form was ‘Are you Black?’ Well, actually it was the name, and then it said ‘Are you Black?’
WGC: I said it on our poster, I said: ‘Are you Black? Do you sing?’
Simply put, EOS wasn’t messing around. This is a group for Black singers specifically.
At the time this interview took place, there was nothing officially confirmed in terms of upcoming EOS performances. But I’ll be keeping an eye out, as we all should. Inniss and Grinnage-Cassidy were nothing but genuine, passionate, and enthusiastic about EOS. Their vision for the group is admirable and incredibly cool, making me excited for what they’ll be up to.