HOPE TALA 
“The whole thing about music is that it isn’t about the artist and what the artist is trying to portray. It’s all about the listener and the experiences that they bring to it."
Age: 21
Origin: London, U.K.
Genre: Bossa Nova | R&B | Neo-Soul
#1 Streamed Song: >>Lovestained<<
My 1 Song Recommendation: >>Moontime<<
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It’s hard to encapsulate Hope Tala's voice, production and musical influences into one genre; but then again, she never intended for it to be done. Hope was my first introduction to Bossa Nova music, a style of Brazilian music, which was developed and popularized in the 1950s and 1960s. The blend she creates with noticeable R&B influences comes along with a unique tone that I don’t tend to come across often. She credits her R&B and soul background to her mother, and more distinctly to the first time she listened to ‘To Zion’ by Lauryn Hill:
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“I’ll never forget where I was that day. It was the most transformative thing I’ve heard in my life. From that point onwards I just listened to neo-soul music and R&B.”
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While she’s still working on releasing her debut album, her songs over the past year have shown that she’s well equipped to paint a story about her sensitivity to love and relationships.
The first song I heard from Hope was “Eden”, one of the tracks of off her EP “Starry Ache”. The featherlight voice that I’ve come to recognize as Hope’s trademark tells the classic story of Adam and Eve, retrofitted to convey the story of two female leads – a story shared of her own experience. Over 2019, Hope released two singles leading up to her dropping a new EP “Sensitive Soul”. If Hope showed up on my Spotify rewind for any reason this year, it was because of this EP – and more specifically the track “DTM” (short for Don’t Tell Me), the second single of the summer.
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Don't tell me I'm too harsh for you
Don't tell me that you never see me cry
Goodbye
I wept when we said goodbye
Don't tell me that I'm mean to you
Don't ask me how I can be so cruel
Stop playing the fool
You know it hurts me too
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Hope explained the meaning of the lyrics in an interview earlier this year.
“The person who initiates ending a relationship often gets accused of not feeling anything – of being insensitive and heartless…I wrote this song from the point of view of that person asserting their own sorrow and sensitivity about a relationship ending.”
It’s hard not to resound with the feeling that Hope describes. Breakups are rarely clean – and more often than not can have long lasting impacts on the way we view ourselves, our decision making and how we’ll evaluate future partners. But giving yourself the room to acknowledge the emotional impact of separating from a partner – even if you are the one that made the decision to end things – is an important and justified process to go through.
DTM is just one of the many songs on Hope’s latest EP Sensitive Soul. After declining an offer by the University of Cambridge to pursue her Master's degree in English, Hope has decided to pursue music full time having balancing formal education and her music career over the past few years. With the momentum she has now, it’s hard to argue that she made the wrong decision. Be on the lookout for her debut album which may drop next year, and take a listen to one of her tracks listed above.
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