That’s so amazing, to have experienced all those different places so young.
It was amazing in hindsight but back then I hated it. I was like, I do not want to live here, we were only supposed to be in India for two years, but it's been four. All I wanted was to go back to New York so I ended up coming back here for 2 years. My mom had a tough time getting her green card, so I moved in with my Godparents when I was 14. Then for my junior and senior year I went back to Miami and then finally once I graduated and my mom had gotten her green card I moved back to New York and I’ve been here ever since.
Wow.
I know! It was a lot of traveling, and I love it now, but also now after COVID I just feel like I need to get out of New York. I need nature and trees!
You have so many amazing sounds and samples on your album, how did all of the traveling you did growing up inspire your sound? If at all.
Yeah, I mean there has definitely been some inspiration from my traveling. Music is always about what you've experienced. I feel like for the most part, drawing inspiration from life is what artists do in general, regardless of what type of art they do. I’m always drawing inspiration from my life, like with my first EP, 3:33 AM, that was really about me dealing with the loss of my mom. I wanted it to encapsulate the kind of person she was, and I mean she's German if I didn't put any German folk music in there, but she was obsessed with India and probably would have lived out the rest of her life. So with 3:33 AM, I really wanted to utilize that sound of the time we spent together there and all of the sounds I fell in love with when I was a kid there. The traditional singing and, you know, classical tabla playing all that stuff. Music from all over the world was such a prominent part of my childhood I feel like it really helps in explaining who I am as a person and as an artist. I am never going to try to make a traditional Indian piece, but that was such an important part of my life I want to utilize and respect those sounds within my own music.
Also living in Berlin I have always loved Berlin techno and house music, we didn’t spend much time in Brazil but my mother was always listening to Bossa Nova. She was obsessed with Stan Getz so I take a lot of from that as well. I always wanted to go into the Bossa Nova vibe with those kinds of sounds.
Absolutely, you’re drawing inspiration from your life and almost honoring that time and those experiences you had in those places.
Exactly. And that’s been a crazy thing about the pandemic too. I think this is the longest I’ve ever gone without traveling. It’s definitely been a be careful what you with for moment. I remember sitting in my apartment like, ‘if I could just get a few days! Not having to go anywhere or do anything!’ This was definitely not what I meant by that.
I’m really interested to know where you kind of see your music falling genre wise? Is there a genre that you want to experiment with more? What is your thought process around that been?
That's a tough question. Honestly, I don't know. There's definitely accents of R&B, I think that's probably the most prominent sound, but honestly it's, it's always changing. I've been dabbling a little bit more like the hip hop world, especially with this album. My sister used to call it tribal soul. I kind of went with that for a while and then my sound kind of changed a little bit. I've been saying it's like alternative R&B with some house influence and then there's also a bit of rap singing thrown in there. What do you think it is?