If you thought you had Laci Kay Somers figured out, the credits on her newest record are going to complicate that for you.
“Dreamers Only” puts her in a room with E-40, CeCe Peniston and Velvet Cash. Written out like that, it reads less like a song and more like three different radio formats accidentally booking the same studio. Bay Area rap, early-90s house, and modern pop are not supposed to share a track. Somebody forgot to tell them, and the result is the most confident thing in her catalog.
Start with who actually showed up. E-40, born Earl Stevens in Vallejo, has been running Sick Wid It Records since the early 90s and has released more than 27 studio albums. His 1995 record “In a Major Way” went platinum, and “Tell Me When to Go” turned him from a regional legend into a national one. He is one of the few rappers alive whose slang genuinely entered the language. CeCe Peniston needs even less setup. Her 1991 debut single “Finally” spent two weeks at number one on Billboard’s Dance Club Play chart and peaked at number five on the Hot 100, and in the decades since, Rolling Stone and Billboard have both ranked it among the greatest dance records ever made. Getting either of them on an independent release is a phone call most artists never get to make. Getting both, on the same song, is something else.
The record was produced by Velvet Cash inside The Saltmine Studio Oasis, a Diamond Certified room with more than ten times platinum on the wall. That matters, because “Dreamers Only” is doing a genuinely difficult thing. Laci Kay carries the melody and gives the song its pop center. E-40 drops in with that instantly identifiable cadence. Peniston arrives and the floor opens up. There is also a separate house mix that leans all the way into the dance side, and on Spotify it is currently outperforming the original, which tells you exactly where the audience wants to take this thing.
It is the anchor of “Love Me Like I’m Famous,” the album she released this year through her own label. Twelve tracks, and she is credited as an owner rather than a signee on every one of them. Velvet Cash appears throughout. Dame Grease shows up on “2 Pretty 2 Pay.” The album title is either a joke or a thesis statement, and after listening to it a few times, we are fairly confident she means both.
Then there are the numbers, which are the part people underestimate. Somers is sitting at over 211,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. “Soul Tied” has crossed 827,000 streams on the platform alone. Across her full catalog and every platform it lives on, the streams run into the millions. And all of that is happening independently, without a major label pushing a single dollar behind it, which is not how this usually goes.
Her Instagram is where the scale gets absurd. More than 12 million followers, a number most signed artists spend a career chasing and never reach. That audience was not built off music. It was built off a decade of modeling, MMA ring work, a fitness business, brand partnerships and a level of internet presence that made her name recognizable long before any of these songs existed. What is happening now is the reverse of the usual story. Most artists build the music and hope the audience follows. She built the audience first and is now making the music catch up to it, at speed.
Which brings us to the part her comment sections have been busy with. Fans have spent the last few months reading into the chemistry between Somers and Velvet Cash, who by multiple accounts have known each other for over a decade and have logged serious hours together inside the Saltmine. Neither has confirmed anything beyond the obvious creative partnership. Everybody has an opinion anyway. What is not up for debate is the output. Two artists who work together this often tend to produce records that sound like they were made by people who actually like each other, and that shows up all over this album.
It would be easy to file her as a personality who decided to try singing. That framing does not survive contact with the work. She runs the label. She books the features. She sits in a Diamond Certified room and makes a pop-rap-house crossover record with two artists from two different eras and makes it hold together. She is a model, an entrepreneur, a recording artist and a business owner, and she is doing all four at once without any of them looking like a hobby.
Where it goes next is the fun question. A record that already touches pop, hip-hop and house has a lot of open doors, and we would love to see her walk through a few of them. A proper club run with Peniston. Another West Coast collaboration off the strength of the E-40 relationship. If “Dreamers Only” is a preview of the swings she is willing to take, the next one should be worth watching.
Stream “Dreamers Only” and “Love Me Like I’m Famous” on Spotify, and keep up with her on Instagram.
