Welcome to the fourth post of The TikTok Series! Up to 2 times a month, we’ll be interviewing YOUR favorite brown TikTokers, and their perspectives on South Asian Issues. Today, learn more about Kavya Borra and her opinions on Pursuing Arts in the South Asian Community!
Tell us about yourself!
My name is Kavya Borra, and I’m 18 years old. I’m from Central New Jersey, and I currently attend the University of Richmond. I just finished my freshman year about a week ago!
What inspired you to start your TikTok account?
I downloaded TikTok in the Summer of 2019, when it started becoming big. Immediately, I started seeing a lot of singers on my For You Page. The first singing challenge I saw was people doing a Burlesque Riff. That challenge inspired me to showcase my own voice and talent on TikTok. So, I posted a video of me doing the challenge in December 2019. That was my first viral video. Ever since then, I’ve been so inspired by the singers on TikTok to keep posting covers consistently. A lot of those people are my friends now, so it's super cool! I was just inspired by the amazing singers on the app when I first joined, and I looked up to them. I immediately knew that I wanted to be a part of that community on TikTok.
When did you start singing? What inspired you to continue learning?
I started singing around the age of 4. I started taking Carnatic music lessons, and I had been doing it until about junior year of high school. For a majority of my life, the only singing I did was Carnatic or film music, specifically Telugu music. In middle school, I auditioned for Paadutha Theeyaga, which is a Telugu singing show. I was on that show, which allowed me to follow a little music journey. Ever since then, I've been performing and competing around New Jersey, Texas, California, and other states. I started performing professionally at some point in Middle School and High School, so people would hire me to sing at Indian Cultural events.
I really started venturing into western music around High school. I had been taking classical piano in middle school, but I never really sang Pop or R&B music until I got to high school. I then discovered musical theatre and started taking voice lessons, which sparked that journey. I posted my first TikTok my senior year of High School. Ever since then, I've been mainly focusing on western music. I tend to post some Bollywood and Tollywood covers here and there. I still love the art of Indian music so much; I actually was at a gathering where I was able to sing Telugu songs for my guru! I still hold it very dearly to my heart.
Tell us about your growth journey on TikTok and how it led to EARCANDY and much more.
I love talking about this because I think it's really cool! After I posted my viral video, I got to about 10k followers within a week. Ever since then, I've been posting consistently. I used to even post multiple times a day to grow my platform. Also, TikTok brought me a lot of joy, especially during the pandemic! I think things started picking up for me once the pandemic hit because I had so much more time on my hands to start posting and collaborating. It's been almost 2 years since I joined TikTok, and I'm around 620K followers! I had established a place for myself in the TikTok singing community. This meant I made a LOT of friends on the platform and we all wanted to collaborate with each other! Me, my friend Anthony, Sri, Taylor, and Jonathan, came together during the summer of 2020 we thought to start an acapella account on TikTok. We didn't expect it to take off, but within a few weeks, we had gotten to 100K followers, and we were posting everyday at this point. When I went to college, things started picking up even more! Around mid-September, Republic Records discovered our group and they reached out saying that they wanted to do a Christmas Album with us!
By this time, we were still pretty new of a group, so within a span of 3 months, we had established ourselves not only as a TikTok group, but a signed group to a record label! Now we have 1.5M followers and it’s been really cool to see how quickly we’ve been able to grow, and I love seeing people connect to the music we make; it’s definitely the most important thing to me! It really warms my heart!
We noticed that South Asian singers are underrepresented in mainstream music. Tell us your experience with this and what steps we can take to change this.
I grew up having little to no representation when it came to people that looked like me in the music industry. I think so many other South Asians can say that it is very discouraging.
As a kid, I thought that there was no place for someone that looked like me in Mainstream American Media.
I think that was really discouraging to any kid that wants to be a musician. I didn't know that I always wanted to be a musician, but I knew that it was my greatest passion in life. But, I've been getting DMs that thank me for being the representation, and this is one of the best compliments you can give to me. I think a lot of young Desi girls see me and my friends succeeding in this way, and are inspired to do it too. It's definitely the most rewarding thing ever. It’s unfortunate that I wasn't able to have anyone to look up to while growing up. But if I can be that representation for people, I am more than happy to! I hope that there are hundreds and hundreds of South Asian singers that can establish themselves in the American Music Industry. In order to change to have more SA singers in Mainstream music, we need help to get into the industry, but it’s really hard if you don’t have the connections. Luckily, Sri and I were able to make a lot of friends in the music industry, and hopefully we can have many more South Asians succeeding. We haven't established ourselves as super famous, but just being on TikTok and having a platform has shown a lot of people that no matter what you look like, you can do anything!
The reason why there's not that many South Asian musicians is because there is a lot of stigma around pursuing music. Music is definitely not a traditional career.
I believe that this stigma within our own culture is what contributes to that lack of representation in the media. So few of us are allowed to experiment in this way. I'm very lucky that I have supportive parents that allow me to do TikTok and fly to LA to record an album. Unfortunately, there are very few parents like mine in our community. A lot of it is the industry’s fault for not branching out, but a lot of it is our community and families that stop children from exploring their dreams.
If someone has a passion, I don’t think parents should stop them from it.
Who is a South Asian musician that you look up to or has influenced your career?
I would definitely say Sid Sriram is one of those people for me. I relate to him because he grew up here, he learned Carnatic at a young age, he started pursuing R&B at a little older age, and then was discovered and became a playback singer. That journey of growing up in the US and going through oppression and underrepresentation, but still being about to come out on top, is really inspiring to me! He has an amazing voice and I love his music. Sasha Tirupati is another person I look up to and she’s an incredible vocalist! She sings a lot of music for A.R. Rahman and I really like her singing style. I look up to her a lot as well!
It was honestly very cool to work with S.P. Balasubrahmanyam as a kid. I don’t think at that age I understood the importance and the impact there was to work with him, but now I realize how influential he was. I think that experience of working with S.P. was short-lived, since I didn’t make it too far in Paadutha Theeyaga, but I was able to establish a name for myself after being on the show. Being able to simply meet S.P. Bala, especially because I grew up listening to his music, was an honor! My parents would always tell me, “this is such an amazing opportunity! Not many kids get to do this,” and of course, I didn’t understand this at a young age. After his passing, I was devastated. This man has had such an impact on my life, and the Indian music industry. I would say that my experience with him was very, very valuable for me, and shaped me into who I am as a musician.
Have you experienced any gender discrimination in both American/South Asian music industries. If not, how do you think we can change gender roles in South Asia?
I have definitely experienced gender discrimination. I think being a woman, a lot of people don’t take us seriously. They think we can’t really make important decisions or business decisions. It also has to do with the oppressors and dismantling the submissive women state of mind within the South Asian community. I think it exists no matter where you are, whether in the South Asian music industry or American music industry.
You’re going to be looked down upon simply for being a woman.
Me and Sri talk about this a lot. We are women that are establishing a name for ourselves and we are being very assertive about who we want to be and the decisions we want to make. I think setting that example is also really important so that other women can grow up and learn to not be talked down to by men.
Do you think the “What will other people think” mentality has affected you?
Yes for sure. I’ve kinda been told that my whole life. Anything that I do as a kid will be a reflection of my parents and how they’ve raised me and what other people think of us and our family. I think that with me pursuing music, there have been a lot of Indian aunties who say “Oh she should just go to college and become a businesswoman or something like that.” Or that I should just focus on family rather than my own career and my own interests. I think there’s this idea that women are submissive, especially in the Indian culture. “Women are the mothers and they have to stay at home while the husband goes to work.” I think that that sort of mentality should be dismantled. Women should be able to pursue whatever they want. Just as men should. Women shouldn’t be limited to the few careers that Asian parents and Indian parents want their children to go through. If you have the passion and perseverance you can make money in whatever you go into. I think a lot of parents don’t realize that. They want the best for us. But if they gave us the freedom to pursue whatever we want, we will come back and be successful and have money to support ourselves and our parents and families. I think the submissive mentality towards women needs to be gone because we deserve every sort of freedom just like men.
We’ve noticed that you like to advocate for mental health. How can we break down the stigmas about mental health in the South Asian community?
I do advocate a lot for mental health because I’ve suffered through it myself. I’ve gone in and out of depression since high school and I definitely think that there's a stigma around it. I’ve been told that people think I’m crazy or that I’m a bad kid. And that it’s somehow my fault for external factors contributing to my depression. A lot of it is also growing up as a minority in the U.S.
You are looked down upon by your own peers, and I think that’s something that our parents didn’t have to experience in India around people that look like them and act like them.
I think a lot of non-white people growing up in the U.S. experience a lot of mental health issues because of growing up here. In terms of breaking the stigma, I think we just need to spread awareness about it a lot. Mental health issues are completely normal and common and the kid should not be blamed; instead they should be accepted and receive help for their mental health issues. It’s really not something to be ashamed of at all. Almost all of my friends have talked to me about their own struggles with mental health. It’s so normal and it honestly helps a lot. It helped me mentally to talk about it with people and to not be ashamed of it.
I honestly really don’t feel ashamed of it at this point because you can still succeed and still pursue what you want and also will have mental health issues. They can co-exist.
It’s not something that stops you from being who you are. It’s not something you should be defined by. I think that being defined by your mental health issues exists a lot in the South Asian community. The only way to get rid of that is to start educating our own parents and our own families and aunties about it. This is completely normal and it’s to be expected especially in teenagers. I like to spread awareness through my platform to educate others. To see other South Asians spreading awareness about it is really important too.
I’m not ashamed of it, so why should you be?
Could you describe your experiences with toxic aunties in the South Asian community and explain how that mindset is very harmful to our generation and future South Asian generations?
I think that there’s a really competitive vibe that exists between aunties in general. They want their kid to be more successful than the next family’s kid. That kind of comparison is really harmful to any South Asian kid growing up in the U.S.
We’re told that our successes and failures are a reflection of the family and we’re told to succeed because it will make our family look good rather than being encouraged to succeed because it will benefit ourselves later in life.
You get compared a lot. For example, “Your cousin is going to Harvard! What are you doing?” That doesn’t do anything for me. Each person’s success is their own. One person’s success doesn’t take away from another person’s success. The comparison vibe between Indian families is so prevalent. It really does affect kids’ mental health because you think everything you do has to be good enough so that other people will think that you’re good or that your parents are doing a good job, which is not how you should go about things in life. You should be working hard for yourself. I don’t think that other families' opinions should even affect how you go about your life. It’s really toxic and it’s affected me and a lot of people I know. The comparison was very prevalent for me growing up. It’s so funny because your parents will brag about you in front of other people but then you’ll get home and they’ll compare you to someone else.
Do you think the Brown Community on TikTok is toxic?
Yes, I do for a number of reasons. I’ve seen a lot of internalized misogyny, colorism, and North Indians vs. South Indian battles. I don’t think the entirety of brown TikTok is toxic. There are a large number of creators that I follow who actually speak out about these issues and call people out for their behavior. I’ve seen a lot of brown boys especially talking bad about brown women. How are you gonna do that to your own community? I’ve seen a lot of internalized racism too. Making fun of our own parents, their accents, and our culture. I do think a lot of it is very toxic. However, on the flip side there are a lot of really great South Asian creators who call out this behavior and spread awareness about it. I’m not too prevalent on this side of TikTok but being a brown woman, I do see this kind of stuff all the time. There’s really no excuse for it. There’s no reason to be racist or sexist towards your own community. I’ve also seen a lot of North Indian women make colorist jokes or talk over South Indian women and that to me is really offensive as a South Indian woman. Even in the Indian music industry or media , you don’t see anybody that looks like us with dark skin. It’s really hard for us to succeed when North Indians are viewed as the beauty standard. There’s one creator Lekha; I really appreciate her content because she spreads awareness about being a South Asian woman and how colorism within our own Indian community is really harmful and affects our mental health. I try to stay away from it; not the community as a whole but that side of it.
What is one issue that is really important to you right now that you would like to share with our followers?
I would like to talk about the COVID situation in India right now. I’m sure you guys also have a lot of friends and family being affected by it right now. I’ve had my own family members be hospitalized and even pass away from it. It’s really really scary. A lot of people aren’t necessarily spreading too much awareness about it because we are halfway across the world from India. But seeing my own family and my own best friends being affected by this pandemic even while being halfway across the world from their families makes me really want to spread awareness about it. I think people need to understand that even a $1 donation can go such a long way, especially with the rupees to dollars conversion. I think it’s just as important as any sort of COVID thing that’s gone on here if not more. It’s one of the biggest humanitarian crises that has to do with COVID around the world. It’s really sad to see how little resources are left to help those in need. My mom has also been helping out families to get resources to find oxygen tanks or stay at home nurses to help families or even cremation sites. Being so far away has hindered us from being able to feel like we can help. I feel helpless a lot of times too. I feel like I can’t do anything. I’ve been calling my grandparents and asking “Please come back and live with us. You can go back to India at any time.” We’ve had those difficult conversations but yet we still feel like we aren’t doing enough. I think anybody that is spreading awareness is doing enough and anybody with a platform should be posting resources to educate others. It’s really really scary and being so far away I think we are almost desensitized to the deaths that are happening. But it’s affecting me very very personally.
Attached here are some of Kavya's favorite COVID donation sites!
What is your favorite part of being South Asian?
I would definitely say the culture, traditions, and the beautiful art forms that we get to share with the world. There’s so much diversity even within our own south asian culture. For example, different types of music - Carnatic, Hindustani, and Film music and different types of dances - Kuchipudi, Bharatnatyam, and so many more. Even our religious practices are so diverse and complex. I love being able to be so proud of people who are sharing these things with the world. Even being proud of mathematics or yoga being invented in India are some of my favorite things about being South Asian. I love getting to experience so many different traditions and celebrating holidays. Every aspect of our culture is just so beautiful and I think the rest of the world needs to see it!
The Pasupu loved interviewing Kavya and we hope you learned more about her perspective on Pursuing the Arts! Attached below are her social medias! There won't be a post next Sunday, but make sure to check back the following week!