Tamar-kali

Tamar-Kali, born Tamara Colletta Brown, works from Brooklyn as a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and film composer. Her music merges classical elements with alternative rock and post-punk in a distinctive, soul-infused style rooted in Gullah traditions from South Carolina’s Sea Islands, bringing both critical praise and broader commercial attention. The 2010 release of her first album, Black Bottom, highlighted rock, funk, and soul textures. Recognition grew sharply in 2017 when she supplied the award-winning score for Dee Rees’s Oscar-nominated Mudbound. Subsequent film projects sustained that momentum: she scored the 2020 biopic centered on author Shirley Jackson and, in 2024, both the boxing drama The Fire Inside and a film chronicling Shirley Chisolm, the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress. Beyond solo and cinematic work, Tamar-Kali unites classical and post-punk approaches through her string sextet and voice project, Psychochamber Ensemble.