I am in Dubai this week for work, attending a party for the local music scene and I am introduced to a young woman who tells me she is an unsigned artist, looking for opportunities. We exchange Spotify links and I head back to my hotel thinking nothing of the exchange. But because I could not sleep, I tapped on my phone and headed to her Spotify page, really out of curiosity. But when I heard Chakra’s voice step into the light after the first tentative acoustic bars of her neo-RnB track “Life of Your Own“, I was not sure I was hearing right. A perfect voice, delivered with such feeling and maturity, it sent shivers down my spine. The song is a quest for self-discovery, delivered with restraint. The lyrics in pop songs sometimes play second fiddle, but in this track they match the music. “My eyes bleed like a high tide” sent me searching for the meaning behind the song, but like the wistful violin solo at the end, it still remains deliciously elusive.

Sreeja Chakra is a Bengali singer-songwriter and activist with a BSc in Music studies from Denver, CO currently residing in Dubai.

@SreejaChakra