Profile | Tia Ray: my music isn’t ‘fast food’, it takes time to understand – Chinese R&B singer on new album Allure, singing in English and honouring her roots
- ‘I want my content to stand the test of time,’ says R&B singer Tia Ray, who has redefined Chinese pop music for a global audience
- The singer-songwriter talks to Post Magazine about her new album, Allure, her coming English-language release and how she honours her roots in her music
On a frosty December evening in Beijing, more than 300 fans showed up at the Yushe Art Space, inside a repurposed medical equipment factory in the central business district, for rhythm and blues singer Tia Ray’s album showcase.
Putting out music in her birthday month has become something of a tradition for Tia, with her past three records also delivered in December, and the fans, who flew in from around China, all came for free – a treat from the birthday girl gearing up for a highly-anticipated tour.
Over the course of an hour, Tia performed her new record top to bottom, and at the end previewed “Bored”, her new dance-pop single made with platinum-selling producer Khris Riddick-Tynes, who is up for five Grammys this year.
The next day, Tia rushed to a hotel cafe for our chat after a lunch with label executives, and immediately afterwards headed to the studio to finish her first full-length English-language album with Riddick-Tynes, who was visiting Beijing for the first time – he and Tia usually collaborate in Los Angeles.
“With this album, I wanted to convey the message of me really taking courage to accept who I am, all the way from my roots,” says Tia, sporting a light beige tracksuit sold exclusively at the concert. “This album feels like a landing.”
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“Like a river, our lives flow continuously, but at every location and upon every corner, our shape varies,” said Tia, referencing Lee’s analogy. “Water changes form depending on where it is placed – when in a container, it is stationary; when freed, it comes into motion – just like ourselves.”
“Honouring my roots gave me an abundance of energy – even though I was physically in California, I felt the need to incorporate Eastern philosophy into the song,” says Tia, who is no stranger to international collaborations, with hits shared with the likes of Kehlani, Jason Derulo and Far East Movement.
“The creative process was like making pottery – I used water from China and clay from the West to make an art piece fusing the two […] Because it was a collaboration with a Western musician, there were Western musical elements in my expression.”
The Chinese lyrics to “River Flow”, written by acclaimed lyricist David Ke Dawei, show an ever more compelling and self-assured Tia, who has lived two decades of highs and lows following her move to Beijing at the age of 18:
“Unfazed by dust and dirt,
I will not be tainted by anyone;
be it fervour or frigidity,
there is no form of loneliness
that I cannot overcome”
The music video for the track, filmed on the outskirts of the Chinese capital by a 140-person crew in sub-zero temperatures, was released to rave reviews.
There were expectations for the singer to release another R&B record, but Allure has more pop ballads, driving some fans to ask why?
“For me to find courage and pursue an album like this wasn’t because I had to let go of anything; it was because I had to embrace more. There’s no need for me to deliberately chase a specific genre or what is considered ‘stylish’.
“Allure has broken the confines imposed on me to consistently make one type of music,” she says with conviction, adding that the album reveals the process of her “finding herself”.
Tia’s determination has driven her from hard times to industry domination, and she wants “no labels” from here on out. “I can certainly make an album with songs that are sonically consistent with one another, but I’ve done that many times, and I wanted to challenge myself,” she said.
Tia’s manager, Linda Lee Wai-kuen, feels that “we live in a world where people listen to playlists more than albums, and this album plays like a playlist – the songs are cut from the same piece of wood, but each has a different appeal and keeps the listener intrigued”.
Lee, a former journalist who discovered Tia as a young artist in Beijing almost two decades ago, refers to herself as a “fanager”, and throughout the years they have supported each other in spearheading urban music’s popularity in China.
“Things like numbers, rumours and commercial factors live in the moment,” says Tia. “But to me as a singer, my value system is centred upon longevity – I want my content to stand the test of time, I don’t create ‘fast food’.
In 2022, in celebration of a decade in the mainstream, Tia released Trip, a compilation of new tracks and the original, English versions of the songs on her 2019 album 1212, which was mostly produced in Los Angeles.
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Fans were ecstatic, drumming up calls for a full-length English album.
This year, there will finally be a complete record of self-written English tracks from the soul-inspired vocalist. “Bored”, the witty first single from her coming English album, was released simultaneously with Allure.
“I want to get out of my comfort zone, again, with the English album,” says Tia. “If I was like a river in Allure, I want to swim in the sea on the English album.”
Over the past year, she has teased collaborations, posing for selfies with budding Nashville artist Bren Joy as well as legendary songwriter Diane Warren – the woman behind Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time”, Celine Dion’s “Because You Loved Me” and Braxton’s “Un-break My Heart”.
With a dozen demos already in the bag, Tia says she wants a few more before finalising the record.
