Tawiah [pronounced Taa-We-Ah] has a well earned reputation as a trailblazer as one of the UK’s finest alt-soul singer / songwriters, a mesmerising live performer and in recent years, prolific film composer.
Tawiah began her career by self-releasing the award winning EP In Jodi’s Bedroom (Bush Girl Records) and Recreate (Lima Limo Records). In 2019 she released her debut album Starts Again with First Word Records, securing support tours for Recreate with Moses Sumney and Starts Again with Michael Kiwanuka. In 2022, Tawiah’s track Baytree appeared on For The Birds: The Birdsong Project Vol 1, a compilation album featuring contributions from an eclectic line-up of artists including Nick Cave, Terry Riley and Tilda Swinton among many others.
Starts Again [LP] is an exploration of Tawiah’s identity as a queer woman of colour, raised in a pentecostal family, and her determination to express her musicianship in all its raw glory, free of the constraints of major label wrangles.
Ertha [LP], released at the end of 2022, is a concept album, created collaboratively with writer Al Moore. It tells a story of the human journey as one of “getting lost in order to be found”, suggesting that despite unavoidable suffering there is great hope. The album depicts the character Ertha’s life from birth to death, with Tawiah responding musically to compose to Al’s poetry.
As a composer for media, Tawiah scored the Audible comedy series Algorithm and independent short film Joy directed by Kayla Feldman in 2021/22. Not long after these initial projects, Tawiah started on Leftbank Pictures‘ multi-episodic drama series starring Vicky McClure Without Sin (ITV), co-scoring alongside Lindsay Wright, with the OST released digitally for streaming. The duo continued their partnership, scoring BBC‘s comedy-thriller series Black Ops, for which their score was nominated at the 2023 RTS Awards; and the Sky Original TV series The Lovers starring Johnny Flynn. Most recently, the duo scored the BBC series Domino Day.
Her latest solo score for the short film If You’re Happy premiered at Rhode Island International Film Festival on 12th August 2023. The film receives its UK premiere at Bolton Film Festival, and will also screen at Aesthetica Short Film Festival in November.
Tawiah has scored for advertising and provided vocals for film & TV projects, as well as numerous syncs including the ground-breaking series, I May Destroy You. She has worked in collaboration with artists including: Blood Orange, Kindness, Mark Ronson, Cee-Lo, Kano, Wiley, Ghostpoet, Zed Bias, Eric Lau, Cinematic Orchestra and Speaker’s Corner Quartet. Her work has received acclaim and coverage from OkayPlayer, The Fader, Afropunk, The Guardian, iD, Complex, Stylist, Refinery, London In Stereo, Bandcamp and Time Out, to name a few, and personal accolades have come far and wide over the years, from Quincy Jones to Adele, Jeff Goldblum and Queen Latifah.