Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with TALIA

TALIA is an emerging artist whose empowering message and genre-defying sound has earned her recognition from publications like Earmilk, Atwood Magazine, and Indie88. As a strong Black woman, she’s encouraging listeners to occupy the space they deserve and urging them to never let anyone define who they are.

Pop Culturalist had the pleasure of speaking with TALIA about her journey of self-discovery and the release of her debut EP, headrush.

PC: How did you discover your passion for the arts and music?
TALIA: I was introduced to it at a very young age. I honestly don’t remember a time without music in my life. My dad, growing up, played reggae music. My mom was involved with music through the church. So, we were either singing in choir or going to my dad’s show. From there, music became a language that was very natural to me and my brothers. A lot of my family members also play instruments. It was always around us.

At seven, I started taking piano lessons. That was what I looked forward to in my day. Flash forward a few years later, I got interested in more instruments. I dabbled a bit in violin and taught myself some guitar.

Then, I started writing music. I never really shared it with anyone. It’s such a recent thing for me to be sharing my music out there because it’s been with me my whole life, but I don’t think anyone knew how important it was to me. I just started writing in high school and never really shared it. In college, that’s where I started playing for my friends here and there. People were like, “What? This is really good.”

Getting that feedback was amazing because it gave me the confidence to keep going. It helped me find my voice in music. I’m still finding it. I’m still figuring it out and experimenting with a lot of different things. But yeah, that definitely gave me the push to share it with people, because I saw that it was connecting, which was really cool.

PC: Who or what has had the biggest influence on your career?
TALIA: I immediately think of my younger brother, Kai Blu. He’s an artist, too. We have literally journeyed life as artists and people together. He’s one year younger than me, but I feel like he’s my twin. I remember growing up, we tried to start bands a bunch of times, and definitely failed. [laughs] We would come home from school and play Rock Band. We had different types of influences. My dad was playing reggae music. We’d listen to gospel at church. We were listening to rock and alternative, and then my old brother introduced us to rap. We had the same language around music and a love for different sounds.

We have different strengths. He’s an amazing lyricist and inspires me to be more specific with the story that I’m telling. He’s the first person that I go to with any sh-tty lyric that I have. I’ll send it to him, and he’ll help me envision it fully. He’s definitely one of the most talented people that I know and is a huge inspiration to me. He knows me so well as a person. We have similar interests in genres, yet he makes rap and does a lot of hip-hop, R&B, which is different from me. He offers a different perspective and inspires me so much. He always pushes me to be my best self.

PC: Your debut EP is out now. Tell us about headrush and the inspiration behind it.
TALIA: It started as me just having nothing to do in quarantine, really. I wrote “colder”, and it was the first song that I wrote off the EP and the first single that I dropped. I wrote that around April in the middle of the pandemic. Things were really scary around that time. I just found myself gravitating towards music. I hadn’t had a lot of time to write music before that because I graduated college in May—school was really busy for me. Whenever I found time to make music, it was such a joy. I barely had the time to do it though. So, as soon as the pandemic hit, I gravitated towards writing a lot. It was how I was coping with the moment. I wasn’t sure how long I had to be stuck inside. I was feeling very lonely and questioning the future because I was about to graduate and wasn’t sure about my next step.

I sat down and I wrote it in twenty minutes. Then, I wrote another song the next week. I found myself almost writing a song a day, which is so rare for me because I didn’t have the time to do it for the past four years. I was writing a bunch of songs and slowly around that, there was a story happening, and I found that I was writing about my experience of falling in love, heartbreak, and then falling in love again, and being able to travel the world in college. I found these different stories that I was gravitating towards.

It didn’t start as an EP at all. I was like, “I haven’t really released any music, but this feels like it can be something.” By the middle of the summer, I was like, “Okay, this is going to be an EP.” I just kept writing, dwindling down on songs, and by the fall is when I thought of the title. headrush came to me while I was writing, and it felt right. It felt right because I was like, “These are all the things in my head.” It’s almost like a diary of sorts. These are all the things that I feel or have felt. They’re very personal, but a lot of people experience heartbreak, pain, and love. We all experience them differently, but at the root of it, they’re the same things that makes us all human.

PC: If you had to select one song off of headrush that best encompasses who you are as an artist, which would it be and why?
TALIA: Can I give you two?

PC: Of course!

TALIA: I’m going to say “better for u” is definitely a highlight to me. I’m curious as to how people will respond to it, but it’s a highlight to me because that’s the one song where I’m talking to myself. Everything else is mostly about another person or experience, but “better for u” is where I’m really talking to myself, and I’m like, “How can I be better to myself and give myself some love?” It’s introspective. I’m excited about that song because I was able to write it just for me. It’s a love song to myself, which is great. Musically, it’s a bit of alternative indie, and the outro goes into a very spacey, celestial world. I’m very proud of it. I produced it myself, and my brother, Kai, helped me write it. That one’s super special because it’s just all me.

Then, I would say “HML”. I’m so proud of “HML” because it’s just R&B lyrically, but I had this incredible idea of, “What if we threw in a guitar solo in the middle of it and then an acoustic outro?” I feel like that song extends into ten different universes. I’m really proud of that song because I pushed myself to find different sounds and really experiment—that’s what I’m overall proud of with the EP: I allowed myself the space to play.

PC: Your goal as an artist has been to create space for people who have felt their voices have been minimized or silenced. Why has that been so important to you?
TALIA: On a personal level, I’ve experienced it, and it’s not a great feeling; it’s heartbreaking. I’ve had to fight to find my voice in a lot of spaces, especially being a Black woman and wanting to make sure that I take up the space that I deserve. I want my music to let people feel heard, and I hope that people will hear it and connect to it, and feel like I’m a voice that’s magnifying those emotions for them and empowering them to experiment, and not put themselves in a box. Too often, I’ve felt like people look at me and put me in a box. I want to be that empowering voice to other people, the voice that I wish I had.

Pop Culturalist Speed Round

PC: A band or artist that fans would be surprised to learn is on your playlist?
TALIA: Coldplay.

PC: First album you bought?
TALIA: Justin Bieber. I was a Belieber. [laughs]

PC: First concert you attended?
TALIA: OneRepublic.

PC: An album that changed your life and why?
TALIA: Solange’s A Seat at the Table. It’s so, so, so vividly her, and the fact that she intertwined these conversations with Black women and created a whole revolution…she created a seat at the table for herself. The visuals are stellar.

PC: A venue on your bucket list to perform at?
TALIA: Madison Square Garden.

PC: A must-have on the road?
TALIA: Chocolate.

To keep up with TALIA, follow her on Instagram. Pick up or stream headrush today.

Photo Credit: Josefine Cardoni