“When I look at the photo of me at that age, the only thing that comes to mind is how envious I was of others.” — Taifa Nia
As a teenager, Bay Area’s Taifa Nia wished he had what others had: “A better life, a better home, confidence to be who I was, and the ability to speak my mind.”
Now, after a series of chronic collaborations, his new solo EP Invidia is named for the Latin word for the sin of Envy, with artwork from a friend’s high school photography project. “I look at that photo and it inspires me to create music for that version of me, what would he want to listen to?”
Invidia’s five tracks traverse the unsettled musical identity of Taifa’s adolescence. From alt rock anthems so dangerously catchy they sound like they should be famous already, to sparse singer-songwriting, to vocoder vocals marrying the DNA of millennial R&B and emo, the EP rises and falls into a nostalgic crescendo. Throughout, sampled voice messages from loved ones tug a cord that pulls past and present crashing together.
“I think everyone deserves to tell their inner teenager that they love them,” says Nia. And with this new record, Taifa Nia has given our past and present teenagers something to make them feel loved.
