Tamar-kali on Creative Growth and Owning Her Process

Tamar-kali on Creative Growth and Owning Her Process

A candid dive into the mind of the Brooklyn composer who champions self-discovery, creativity, and staying fearless in the world of film scoring.

Tamar-kali Brown is exactly the kind of person you could lose hours with, diving into conversations that spiral from film scoring to crocheting Excel-designed throws for her studio. She speaks with the kind of measured confidence that comes from years of finding and forming her creative path, first as a performing artist and now as one of the most compelling voices in contemporary film composition today. 

Based in New York, Brown has become an increasingly vital force in the scoring world since her breakthrough work on Dee Ree’s’ Mudbound. Her journey into film composition wasn’t exactly conventional - she started as a performer, catching Rees’ attention with her storytelling through song, which led to her music being featured in Pariah. That initial collaboration eventually bloomed into a full-scoring opportunity with Mudbound, and she hasn’t looked back since. She’s gone on to create scores for Josephine Decker’s psychological drama Shirley, co-composed Palmer with Terlan Mirzeyev, created the music for Daniel Roher and Edmund Stenson’s Blink, and most recently scored The Fire Inside, which made the Oscar longlist - a powerful story of Claressa Shields, a boxer from Flint, Michigan who became the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in boxing. 

“Don’t be afraid to take up space and own your voice.”

“It’s been about learning to find the line between quality and control and neurosis,” she reflects, discussing her evolution across all of her film projects. There’s something refreshingly honest about her approach to composing. She’s analytical rather than precious, describing herself as “more Vulcan” when it comes to feedback. “I’m not falling on my sword or jumping off a cliff because of it I’m here for the lessons.”

In her studio, where that meticulously designed mudcloth-inspired throw lives (created through Tunisian crochet, with patterns mapped out in Excel, because, of course), Brown approaches each project with a blend of technical precision and intuitive artistry. She’s the kind of creator who will stay up until late, perfecting every corner of her sound while also acknowledging the need to trust her collaborators. “When you’re a Type A person, sometimes you conflate the two,” she admits, discussing the balance between control and delegation. Her toolkit is analog first and live instruments are her religion. “As an artist, my focus is live instruments,” she declares, pushing back against the ever-increasing reliance on digital shortcuts. It’s a stance that comes from years of understand music as a living, breathing form of communication.

Her perspective on the industry’s current state is particularly enlightening. She talks about the evolution from “temp love” to “mockup love” in film scoring, a shift that reflects broader changes in how music is integrated into the filmmaking process. “There’s so much fear in the industry, it’s all about formulas and certainty,” she observes. But rather than letting this constraint stifle her creativity, she’s developed a nuanced approach to collaboration, becoming what she calls “a psychologist, learning how to speak to each director’s particular listening style.” 

For emerging composers, especially women and people of colour, Brown’s advice is both a rallying cry and a masterclass. “Don’t be afraid to take up space and own your voice,” she says. It’s advice that comes from hard-earned experience and she’s a blueprint for young artists who’ve been told their voices don’t matter. 

As we wrapped up our conversation and said our goodbyes, I came away from that hour feeling energised, that’s the feeling you get when you spend time with Tamar-kali. Her personable and thoughtful approach to conversations and interactions, just as much as the music she makes and anything creative she touches, reveals why she should be a composer who appears more and more on our screens. 

Follow Tamar-kali here.