Avara’s Collaborative Mixtape Is A Love Letter To The Beauty Of South Asian Creativity

I wonder how many potential South Asian stars we’ve lost to brown realism. The “doctor, lawyer, engineer” stereotype emerges from a reality where our dreams are often suppressed before they have the chance to mould into something real. For many of us, it takes true bravery to pursue a career in the arts, to circumvent expectations and break the mould. 

Based in LA, Avara is an artist who took a leap of faith. Her latest mixtape, a softer place to land, fuses R&B, neo-soul, and Indian classical sounds, crafting a sonic haven that encompasses the different pieces of her identity. “This project is meant to feel like a warm hug, a late-night conversation that slightly changes your brain chemistry,” she told me, calling it “healing to make.” Nine out of twelve tracks on the mixtape were made in collaboration with her closest friends, parts of LA’s South Asian creative community who, Avara said, “inspired me to fully step into who I am.”

Avara’s dreams of becoming a pop star were born when her parents bought her Speak Now by Taylor Swift. “That album cracked something open in me,” she recalled. Although she had been raised playing the piano and taking Indian classical vocal and dance lessons, this was “the first time [she] really felt the power of storytelling and being transported through music.” And yet, as an Indian American, the child of immigrant parents, she found herself steered in a “more realistic direction,” and went on to pursue a degree in business at Emory University.

Lucky for us, her story doesn’t end there. On a journey paved with ups and downs, she learned how to produce music during the Covid lockdown, planting the seed for the artist she would go on to become. “[Producing] gave me access to a new creative world I didn’t know I needed,” she said, finally letting her passion for music seep back into her life. But it still took her some time to believe a career in music was right for her; like so many South Asian artists, she was told “that girls who look like me can’t make it.” And so she moved to Austin, Texas to work as a software developer.

It wasn’t until she played her first show, performing songs she had written years prior, that something shifted in her. “That show lit a fire in me,” she expressed. Soon after, she released her first track, left her job, and challenged herself to make a beat or a song every day for six months, reminiscing, “I learned almost everything I know during this time.” For Avara, “Moving to LA was the final shift.” The move meant she would give music her all; “it was a crazy leap of faith,” she said, “but everything I’ve done since has stemmed from that moment of believing it was possible.” 

In some ways, a softer place to land feels like a love letter to what LA represents in Avara’s musical journey: a free, accepting creative landscape. With collaborations at the core of the mixtape, the intimate stories she’s trying to tell come to life through her and her friends’ rapport. When describing the collaborative creative process, Avara shared, “I think what’s so special about this project is that each song is an enmeshment of our distinct worlds– how they write, how they sound, how they feel is completely different from me, but there are always overlaps.”

This feels especially pertinent considering Avara’s South Asian background. The majority of the collaborators on a softer place to land are also South Asian, part of a tight-knit and supportive network of artists based in LA. This is a stark contrast to Avara’s upbringing in South Georgia, where she revealed, “I felt like I had to reject my culture to fit in. I hated the color of my skin, our food, our clothes, the fact that I went to India every summer to visit my grandparents, anything else, you name it.” These feelings of self-loathing are, unfortunately, all too common amongst the South Asian diaspora. Struggles to assimilate lead us to detest the parts of ourselves that aren’t reflected in our surroundings, when we should be appreciating them.

But then Avara found community in LA with other South Asians who were pursuing their dreams, and uplifting one another in the process of doing so. She expressed that “Finding this creative Desi and POC community in LA changed everything for me. For the first time, I felt seen. It made me embrace my culture more and feel safe & beautiful in my skin.” She sings the praises of other South Asian artists in the Western pop and R&B industry, crediting Rehma, AYUSH, KOAD, Rahul, Jaya, Rumsha, Akshara– with whom she just released a new song–, Shreea, Amit, and Aly, for getting her to where she is today.

While a softer place to land is Avara’s most mature, cohesive project yet, she insists that it's “still a mixtape, a chiller prelude to what’s coming next.” She’s currently sitting on more than 2 years worth of music, much of which taps into an experimental sound with more Indian influences.  “Now, I try to be super intentional about honouring my roots in my work,” Avara said, explaining that whether she is incorporating traditional Indian instruments into her music, or just acting as a source of representation as a South Asian woman producer, she “wants to make space for more of us in the industry.” This sentiment, in and of itself, is enough to make a difference. 

Follow Avara here.

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