2023 is a great year to be an artist from India. There’s a new-music boom happening all over the country, led by a crop of young pop, rap, and R&B musicians with a hunger to leap into something greater — artists like the 22-year-old rapper, singer-songwriter, and producer Nathan Mendes, better known as Tsumyoki. “A lot of people outside of India are tapping into the country and seeing what it has to offer,” he says. “I feel like I can represent [us] and show people that we can do pop on a global level. We’ve just got to keep at it.”
Born and raised in Goa, South India, Tsumyoki has been making music since he was 17. He sees songwriting as a way to tell the world who he is and what he’s feeling. “Talking to people about my emotions doesn’t really work out for me too well,” he says. “I found that making music helps me feel better. It’s the best way to get my thoughts out there.” He first began winning fans with songs like 2019’s “White Tee” (a trap-influenced anthem about brushing off negativity), but he broke out to a new level with 2022’s breezy, bilingual pop hit “Pink Blue.”
The upbeat love song, written and produced in collaboration with New Delhi-based singer-songwriter Bharg, quickly reached a million views on YouTube and boasts more than 4 million streams on Spotify — promising numbers for an artist who’s still new on India’s independent-music scene. Tsumyoki has a theory as to why “Pink Blue” has resonated: “Because of its simplicity,” he says. “It’s such a simple song, and it just hits the right spots.” The music video keeps things simple, too, with a diverse group of friends having an outdoor party — a pretty accurate picture of Gen Z India, and a welcome form of representation.
Tsumyoki is thoughtful and introspective — shyer than you expect him to be and incredibly self-aware. There’s almost a sort of purity in the way he talks about his art and a drive to be who he is that sets him apart from his peers. “If you took away the money for from this stuff, I would still do music, because I’m just so hungry for this, and I love it!” he says with a big grin over Zoom. “I love performing and I love getting messages from fans, saying ‘This helped me, this saved me.’ If I just try to make another hit, I’m not going to be happy as a musician. I go in the studio thinking I’m gonna do what I love to do. And if that’s a hit, it’s a hit; if it’s not a hit, we try again with another track.”
Tsumyoki has dabbled in hip-hop (“White Tee”), dancehall (“Run Around Town”), emo rock (“Jackets”), and more; he says his signature style is best described as “absolutely haywire.” “It’s hard to balance all of it, but I want to make the kind of music I enjoy,” he says. Most important, he says, he wants to give his fans a way to express themselves without fear.
Through his music, he also proudly represents his home state Goa — one of India’s top vacation destinations, often seen as a place where people go to relax and unwind. “The thing is where I come from, we are indoctrinated to think that we can’t achieve what we are meant to achieve,” Tsumyoki says. “Everyone that’s really excellent moves out of Goa… I think that’s one thing that my parents didn’t let me think. They didn’t tell me just become this or that, or work hard to become a doctor, none of that. My parents said, ‘Do what you want to do. But if you’re doing that thing, do it to the fullest.'” It’s a philosophy that explains his work ethic, and why he wants to take his music as far as he can.
His new LP, which dropped on his 22nd birthday on June 2, is called A Message From the Moon. He calls it his most emotional release yet. “For the last three years, this is what I’ve been through, and this is how vulnerable I am,” he says. “And now you guys get to hear my message.” The LP toggles between the soft pop, Afropop, and trap sounds that Tsumyoki has explored in the past, but still delivers a surprise by seeing him lean into his vocals. ”There’s maybe a little bit of rap and stuff like that, but the main particular thing is that this is a singing album where I’ve really explored my vocal range,” he says. “So there are some screaming songs, some angry songs.”
Working on the LP, he says, helped him process a lot of unaddressed trauma, boomeranging back to his initial point of music being therapy. “It was like, I felt this way — why was this bottled up inside me? Let’s make a song about it.” Focusing on addressing his own mental health also meant fewer collaborations on the record. Fellow Goans Kidd Mange, 2jaym, and Jayden Maskie are longtime friends, people Tsumyoki was already comfortable working with. He reveals there is a deluxe version of A Message From the Moon coming which will feature bigger collabs, but he is hesitant to reveal more.
At the end of the day, Tsumyoki’s focus is on creating a safe space for his audience and giving them a way to tell the world who they are. “I’m making music for people who don’t have a voice and don’t know how to express their emotions,” he says. “[Maybe] all they can do is put on their headphones and dive into a different world. They want an escape from this cruel world, and I want to be that escape.”
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June 26, 2023 at 08:00PM
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Tsumyoki: The Heartfelt Pop Artist Who’s Proudly Representing Goa - Rolling Stone
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