If you’ve attended Indian music festivals in the past year, watched a little AVS or flipped through the pages of Stuff magazine you may have stumbled across the hottest upcoming artist to be hitting the American music scene, Tina Sughand. From family to tabla to singing Tina gives iStyle a sneak preview into the life of an Indo-American pop star.

How did this all get started?
Being brought up in a musical family is what started me on the path towards my own musical career. Mom and Dad used to do shows on the weekend when I was a child. It was really fun listening to them sing the Beatles.

Being a master of the Tabla, how have you incorporated this into your upcoming album?
I’ve been playing the tabla since I was really young. As each song on the album was in production I would often stop the producers to show them a beat I thought went really well with the track. The tabla is an eastern instrument that I knew much more about than some the incredibly experienced and talented producers that were working with me. It was really neat that I was able to show them something.

Describe your musical style?
Describing what I sound like is a challenge as everything on the album is a 100 % reflection of who I am. I have influences on the Eastern and Western sides. From A.R Raheman and Hari Haren to Heavy metal its all in there. The style of the album is main- stream pop and vears off to a bit of hip hop and rock. It all has an Indian flare.

What’s your favorite track?
One of my favorites is “Stay”. It is a really heart wrenching, beautiful ballad, a classical Indian hybrid.
Tina will be doing some shows in New York this fall and be sure to be on the look out for Tina’s album coming out this spring.