“I have to do things that I find exciting."
With the release of her much-anticipated album Speak In The Dark (2024), Tara Lily cements herself within the jazz canon.
South London native Tara brings an interdisciplinary approach to jazz with her debut album, weaving together soul, electronica, and traditional Indian sounds.
Released on September 27, 2024, Speak In The Dark is weighted with meaning, addressing themes of truth, secrecy, and personal freedom as she fully embraces her artistry.
The album contains everlasting tracks, including ‘No Way Out’ and ‘Breathe Now’.
Once signed to Motown Records UK, the label’s venture was to globalise jazz. Tara is the first British South Asian female artist in this space.
As she wraps up her tour following the album’s release, Tara Lily’s unique approach marks a significant moment of growth and self-expression, telling Dazed magazine:
“You’ve got nothing to lose by speaking your mind. Just voice your truth!”
Roots
Tara Lily’s musical journey is deeply rooted in her family’s eclectic background and her upbringing in the sonically diverse landscape of Peckham, South London.
Raised by a Bengali folk musician father and a mother who toured with a Scottish punk-folk band, Tara was introduced to a rich blend of musical traditions from an early age.
Growing up in Peckham, Tara thrived in a vibrant and multicultural environment.
She explained: “The main thing [was] the huge amount of different people that are [there], which [created] a mad landscape for exploration.”
Her musical identity was further developed at the prestigious Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where she received classical training in jazz.
Despite this, she never lost her connection to the streets that raised her, balancing her formal education with grime music’s raw, playful energy.
Tara often reflects on her “hard-worn sense of self” forged from both her private school education and her immersion in the grime scene under the tutorage of grime icon Jammer.
Jammer and crew played a key role in the launching of her career, with DJ Target endorsing her very first radio play.
Tara reflects: “The grime world put me on, not the jazz world.”
It is under this mentorship her first single, ‘Who Saw Who’, was released.
The Jammer-produced track seamlessly fused gritty grime beats with traditional jazz progressions, establishing Tara as a bold, genre-bending artist.
Speak In the Dark further reinforces this, sitting at the intersection of jazz, grime and alternative R&B, cementing her dynamic identity.
Listen to Breathe Now:
In ‘Breathe Now’, Tara Lily weaves together old-school jungle riddims with a stop-motion clip of her dancing.
The music video is composed of a mixed-media visualiser endorsing the corporeal experience of living.
She sermonises: “You can leave now.”
Composition of Speak in the Dark
The composition of Speak In The Dark is rooted in Tara Lily’s global experience, with much of the writing process occurring during her travels within Southeast Asia.
Touring jazz clubs in Nepal and performing on stages in India, Hong Kong and Thailand have shaped her intimate yet forward-facing perspective.
Tara shares: “[I] wanted to go out and connect with [my] culture and perform songs to people there.”
This sonic playground of travel and exploration underscores the album, creating a soundscape that reflects the experience of being in two places at once.
Collaborating with fellow South Londoner producer Don Valentino, the album spans 30 minutes of sultry indie jazz, exploring the extremes of creation and destruction.
This is a theme that underpins the entire project.
The spiritual being Kaali, keeper of time, death and destruction, also finds resonance in Tara’s music.
She is featured in the music video for the fourth track, ‘Double Time’.
Her influence is evident as the album remains a brooding meditation on the parameters of identity and empowerment, life and death.
The album also touches on her experience living with ADHD, a topic she openly discusses, explaining how it fuels her creative process:
“I have to do things that I find exciting and interesting – that’s my addiction!”
The spontaneity and unpredictability of ADHD are mirrored in the album structure as we swing from bluesy smooth ballads to frenetic jungle-riddim-infused melodies.
Tara maps her neurodivergence into the album, acknowledging how it has shaped her:
“Around that time, there was no radar for women with ADHD – it was just not a thing.”
Her undiagnosed status eventually led to her expulsion from the prestigious BRIT school, a turning point that later pushed her to seek a diagnosis.
She reflects on the challenges of that period: failed GCSEs, extreme difficulty concentrating and feeling like an outsider despite her many friends.
Though she laments the late diagnosis, she now fully embraces her ADHD and channels it as a driving force in her music, no longer dwelling on what might have been.
With over 78K monthly listeners on Spotify and over 800k streams on her single ‘Six Feet Under’, her tenacity in embracing her neurodivergence and creating beauty from chaos is clear.
Speak In The Dark remains Tara’s first release under her new label, the independent Brighton-based ‘Tru Thoughts’.
She comments: “Being in a place where I’m understood has meant a lot to me.”
Listen to No Way Out:
‘No Way Out’ unfolds like a short film, with Tara Lily visually navigating the ‘deep dark place of sadness’ that lingers throughout the complicated process of letting go.
The moody colour-grading complements the sombre tone as the artist navigates across a barren wasteland detailing the beautified destruction of a toxic relationship, the very embodiment of Kaali, whom Tara Lily considers an icon.
Touring with Tara & Future Endeavours
Tara Lily’s live performances remain a highlight of her career.
For example, the singer-songwriter took the stage at Glastonbury 2023 for BBC Music Introducing, rocking out for her first large live performance.
She would later describe the experience as “extreme experimental madness”, the positive reception from fans old and new inspiring her to embark on a national tour the following year.
2024 has seen her travel across all the major cities, including Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds, before returning to her hometown, London.
In her recent Rough Trade East performance, Tara embodied every bit the modern cool girl, her eclectic sound complimented by the sultry swing of US-based trumpeter Theo Croker and a more than grandiose opening by DJ and creative producer Rohan Rakhit.
With her UK tour wrapped up, Tara Lily set her sound on an international stage, touring across Europe supporting jazz mainstay JP Cooper (Perfect Strangers, September Song), hinting at even greater things on the horizon.
The soulful Tara Lily draws from a rich tapestry of genres, blending jazz, funk and jungle.
A true trailblazer, Tara embodies a softer autumnal palette in her latest work, with brushes of brass and flushes of piano, inviting deep reflection, signalling the end of Charli XCX’s ‘brat girl summer’ and ushering in a more contemplative ‘reflective girl autumn.’
There’s absolutely no doubt that the Desi girls are here to stay.
One only must look at the cover of the album to feel its deep emotional impact – her unapologetic gaze, never shrinking, fully whole – a true theatre of emotion.
Speak In The Dark is available on all streaming platforms.
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