It started with a nyc artist corps grant.
After sitting with songs she had compiled over a period of 5 years, Tsebiyah started to pour into her own work in a new way. Then, in 2021, she received a $5,000 NYC artist corps grant. The only stipulation of it was to put on a show, for free, for the public. “Perfect timing,” she thought. That’s exactly what she wanted to do.
THE MAKING OF “TANGLED UP.”
The name for the forthcoming debut album from Tsebiyah, “Tangled Up,” comes from that first line of “Coastline”: this life is tangled up in strings. After the first string of shows in the year following receipt of that grant, the album began to make itself apparent. It is a project that reflects on a 20-something life tangled up in strings; bills, fractured friendships, ill-advised crushes, insecurities and traumas not yet let go, and the weight of adulthood in a world suffering from a constant barrage of unprecedented events.
the poet is a singer.
As the album began to take shape, it became very clear that Tsebiyah’s voice as a poet was a crucial element of her artistry. Performing her poetry live at the top of her shows became a grounding ritual that pulls everyone in and provided larger context to the storytelling of her music— in this house, lyrics matter. And when you hear them, you’ll realize you feel them, too.
As an artist with over a decade of experience performing as an actor in the theater, Tsebiyah has had the pleasure of lending her instrument to the telling of stories from so many voices and experiences. In this way, Tsebiyah has developed her artistry within the words and worlds of other authors. Now, she is ready to tell her own story with the tools gained from the many years of experience doing ensemble work. The album, still in the works, currently slated to be 13 tracks, is hybrid album of music and poetry that tells the story of becoming for Tsebiyah, a Black woman artist from New York; a descendent of her Black American father and Jamaican American mother. This is the story of the Black girl who wears her heart on her sleeve, learning how to survive without shutting down. It is about her refusal to be anything but who she is: an open, optimistic and audacious force of love soaring through her wildest dreams.
And doing so in the face of the unforgiving structures of this world.