Talibah Safiya talks new mixtape, Hood Rave dance parties in Memphis

Memphis neo-soul artist Talibah Safiya has released a new mixtape titled “Eternal.”
The new music was inspired by a local dance party series she hosts called The Hood Rave.
Safiya will host a listening event on Jan. 31 at the Memphis Listening Lab.

Talibah Safiya’s latest release, “Eternal,” was born on the dance floor.

The new mixtape — which Safiya will mark with an event at the Memphis Listening Lab on Jan. 31 — marks an interesting if subtle shift for one of the city’s most consistently thoughtful and engaging neo-soul artists.

Following the 2024 expanded release of her last album, the historical Hill Country blues concept project “Black Magic,” Safiya found her muse shifting, a change inspired by her work hosting a local dance party series called The Hood Rave.

“The Hood Rave is all about being able to dance, get liberated, sweat, dress weird, feel free,” says Safiya, who presents the events with her husband, brother and sister-in-law. “We had observed that people weren’t really dancing at parties as much as we were used to growing up. We’ve kind of outgrown the club scene. So we were like, we want to move, we want to sweat. So we started having this party series.”

A funny thing happened to Safiya while attending The Hood Rave events. “I started wanting to hear myself and my music so bad at the parties,” she said, laughing. “But I was like, damn, I don’t really fit this vibe as far as my music goes. But clearly this is in me because I would be the main person dancing from the minute the party started to the end. So I made it a mission to try and make music that would fit in that setting. That’s what really opened me up to be available to make ‘Eternal.’”

The new album finds Safiya reuniting with “Black Magic” producer and Grammy-nominated engineer Ari Morris (Mary J. Blige, Macy Gray). The 12-track “Eternal” expands her sound and stylistic approach with a collection of groove-oriented tracks that still offer meaningful emotional messages.

“I was challenged to explore writing from a different part of myself,” says Safiya. “In the past, I’ve been focused on processing my pain through my music and storytelling. But thinking about myself and my joy and my playfulness through my music — I hadn’t really done that before.”

‘My goal was to become an excellent songwriter’

For Safiya the album represents an ideal balance between her musical and narrative interests, something she’s been working at since childhood. Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Memphis since the age of 5, Safiya attended Colonial Middle School’s Performing Arts Program.

“At the time, they made us choose a focus. And I remember being really stuck between picking creative writing or choir,” says Safiya. “I chose choir. And so that’s when I really started to sing and love to sing in front of people. I was in the choir for like eight years or so, but I never stopped writing.”

After high school, Safiya returned to Washington, D.C., to attend Howard University where she studied theater education and became a staple on the local open mic scene. “I went to Howard for my undergrad, but I was like, I just want to sing. I want to write. And my goal was to become an excellent songwriter. That’s really what I wanted to do.”

Drawing inspiration from musicians like Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Erykah Badu and Betty Davis, she also went deep into the work of influential female Black authors. “I was reading a lot of Octavia Butler, Toni Cade Bambara, Alice Walker,” Safiya says. “I was just trying to expand my vocabulary, expand my ability to be a visual storyteller, along with an emotional storyteller.”

She later moved to New York City, where she found work as a session singer, began doing professional songwriting collaborations, and released some early albums like 2012’s “Night Flight.” “I was just trying to hone my skills, but also just trying to like have fun,” she says. “It was such a free time where my ideas of success were so loose and were based on a feeling, you know? Then I did this collaboration with an artist named Kamauu that kind of got people interested in me in a way, because he was signed at the time to Atlantic [Records].”

‘Memphis has always been such a muse for me’

Despite building a small industry buzz, in 2017, she decided to move back home to Memphis to center herself. “I needed a reset, to figure out what I was really doing. And I came back to Memphis and things got so much clearer,” says Safiya, who has since released a steady stream of singles, the live record “Love Spells” and the two different iterations of the ambitious “Black Magic.”

In addition to her time serving as artist in residence at the University of Memphis’ School of Music Business, she’s recently taken on a role handling storytelling and narrative management for Memphis cultural organization The BIG We.

“It just feels like such a natural fit, to allow Memphis to continue to be my muse in a whole different way,” says Safiya. “Memphis has always been such a muse for me creatively, but to do so as I’m thinking about strategy, cultural development… we’re coming together to make Memphis’ potential an exciting reality. That feels really important to me right now.”

With “Eternal” — which is out now on the artists’ platform Even and will hit other streaming services Feb. 1, before a physical release in the spring — Safiya will be sharing both her old and new music with an expanding audience. In March, she’ll head out to the UK as part of an effort by local nonprofit Music Export Memphis. Along with fellow Bluff City songstress Marcella Simien, Safiya will be appearing at the English Folk Expo in Manchester and will play a handful of London concerts.

In the meantime, she will host a free release event for “Eternal” at the Memphis Listening Lab on Jan. 31. Then, on Feb. 7, The Hood Rave will return at Society Memphis, where Safiya’s own music can finally serve as part of the soundtrack.

“I feel like so many people are tight in their bodies and frustrated constantly by what’s happening in the political world and all the stuff that’s going on and makes us all feel powerless and stressed,” says Safiya. “It’s incredibly important right now for us to move our bodies, and be in rooms together, feeling joyful. So that’s what we’re going to be doing.”