Tara Lily: Budding Jazz Singer
Brit-Bangladeshi singer Tara Lily has just finished her set at the Vh1 Supersonic 2023 and is lazing around with her bandmates in the artists’ lounge. With slightly permed hair, a necklace, bindi, nose ring and high heels and with a Rihanna-style look, Tara is a young singer who has made a mark on the London jazz scene. It’s interesting to hear about a 24-year-old new talent who got signed to Motown Records, U.K. with the distinction of being their first British singer.
Hailing from South London and of South Asian/U.K. heritage, Tara Lily spent her late teens developing her own unique brand of jazz, despite growing up around rappers and beat-makers. She secured a place at the prestigious Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music to study jazz vocals and piano, at the same time continuing to write songs and produce her own tracks.
In an exclusive meeting, Tara Lily speaks with VERUS FERREIRA on her journey in music.
Tell us something about yourself. How did you get into music?
So, both my parents are musicians; my father is a Bengali and my mother is Scottish, and they both played music together, but very different styles. My dad listened to a lot of traditional Bengali music, Bengali folk and Bollywood. He used to play the tabla and harmonium and my mum was a punk-folk singer. My mum was more into rock and jazz, so they came together and they basically brought me up with an eclectic mix of sounds. Both my parents were self-taught musicians. I’ve always been a very eccentric person because of my parents, who are from two different worlds with two different sounds. I think I am a unique musician and really embody everything that I do and love to explore new spaces.
That’s great. Have you been exposed to a lot of Indian music?
I listened to a lot of it while growing up. As a child, I would listen to my parents playing a lot of their music too. I grew up in Peckham in South London, so there’s a lot of rap and pop music and that also influenced my growing up years. As I’ve gotten older, I studied jazz for four years at a conservatoire and then I incorporated all of these sounds into my latest project and my new forthcoming music which is a mix of different stuff. I’m into exploring new sonic spaces, drawing on east and west, old and new.
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Verus Ferreira is a music journalist for over three decades. He is the author of The Great Music Quiz Book and The Great Rock Music Quiz Book and the founder of Musicunplugged.in