Home is where the art is

Taba Chake had to leave Arunachal Pradesh to find success, but through his music, he takes a piece of home wherever he goes

- NIRMAL JOVIAL

In his live shows, when Taba Chake sings in Nyishi—a tribal language spoken by fewer than three lakh people—fans across the world sing along.

His voice, weaving indie-folk, pop, jazz and tribal influences, dissolves language barriers and carries emotion straight to the heart.

The 32-year-old recently released 'Khud Ko Miloon,' the first of 13 tracks from his album of the same name. True to his style, the song leans into philosophy—raw, real, and reflective. "My songs are not just about sounding nice. I want people to think," he tells THE WEEK. “To pause and ask themselves: 'Am I confused? Am I lost in this glossy, glamorous era of social media?' Because the real world isn't that. I try to bring people back to reality, back to themselves.”

The singer-songwriter says his songs draw heavily from his own journey. Since 2009, he has been away from his home in Arunachal. "I remember selling my dad's old Hyundai Santro just to leave Arunachal, step outside the northeast and pursue music," he says. "I kept moving—Tamil Nadu, Bangalore, Delhi, Kerala, Pondicherry, Goa, and finally Bombay. Each place taught me something about life, music, passion, discipline and control. But I feel like it's not enough. There's always another chase. Now I've seen money, but even that doesn't stop me from wanting more. I don't even know why."

He is critical of the ‘greedy’ side of himself and of human nature, and his music, he says, is about slowing down and embracing simplicity. That spirit seeps into the space where his latest songs were born—a tiny home studio in Arunachal, barely the size of a bathroom, with a colourful world map on the wall reminding him of both the vastness he sings of and the simplicity he holds on to.

In 2019, Taba released his first album,