Khatumu: Electrified
At a school like Emerson, with its thriving artistic environment, and in a city like Boston, with its diverse community of young creatives, one can’t help but discover new kinds of music. My personal discovery doesn’t just occur on the ground, but also online. TikTok has had a huge influence on my music taste because it’s where I discover the most artists. It’s where I’ve found some of my favorite indie artists, including Chloe Ament, Charlie Bennett, and now Khatumu.
The indie-folk artist came across my page with the promise of, “If you’re watching this, you automatically get backstage passes when I’m famous.” Normally, I scroll, but her voice is what held my attention. Khatumu’s vocals are comforting and nostalgic, evoking memories of cross-country moves, slow road trips with my friends, and summers with my grandparents.
Recently, Khatumu shed the label of ‘digital artist,’ announcing a U.S. tour following the release of her second EP, free therapy. A few weeks before hitting the road, the artist sat down with Five Cent Sound to chat about the tour, her newest releases, and her goals for the future.tk, tk, and tk.
Khatumu fell in love with folk music at her alma mater, Yale University, where she joined a singing group called Tangled Up in Blue. The beauty of the genre, to her, is that it’s “very communal,” making it a great way to connect with her peers and like-minded people across the internet.
TUIB helped the artist hone her personal sound that she describes as “electrified folk,” or “folk that uses a ton of distortion.” She also takes great inspiration from American singer Dijon and London artist Humble the Great, and their emotional musicality shines through in Khatumu’s resonant lyricism and style. Like the artists that influence her, Khatumu sings from a very vulnerable place, focusing on life changes, home, and feeling out of place. In her mid-20s, Khatumu’s discography is diverse, covering a range of emotions and tones across her singles and EPs.
Two of her favorites from her collection are “hunting days,” a 2024 single, and “departure time” off her new EP free therapy. “hunting days” pulls the listener into the end of a relationship. Khatumu is asking for the worst to be done, for her ex-lover to “put a bullet in [her] brain”, rather than having a nice and clean breakup. She wants to feel the pain of a fight, the resignation of her “hunting days” being over, rather than a mutual sense of closure.
“departure time” details a very different kind of pain. In an interview with Ones to Watch, an online music blog, she describes the track as being about “leaving home, comfort, reality, the beaten path, and finding meaning in life on my own terms.” The track embodies both a sense of great homesickness and a desire for change. The track, which Khatumu describes as a “journal entry,” is the last track on free therapy, Khatumu’s newest release. The EP is a step toward her first full-length album, which she hopes to finish by this time next year.
In its entirety, free therapy highlights the somber time following her move from New York to Los Angeles, and is special to her because it “encapsulates a very special time of [her] life.” Khatumu is constantly writing songs, but for free therapy specifically, she puts together a “visceral collection” of songs written after her move. She affirmed that the decision to exclude songs prior to this change was the turning point of this EP, maintaining a clear story about homesickness.
Now, Khatumu is about to embark on her first tour opening for Appalachian folk artist Mon Rovîa, hitting stops west of the Ohio River. With over 58,000 followers on Instagram, this young artist is spreading her love for folk music in a very unique, Gen-Z way. She engages directly with her following on her social media—through stories and comment sections—and has a very active presence that can’t be overlooked.
Khatumu is stoked for the upcoming tour. The indie artist loves to sing live, saying it’s “unreal” knowing she’s about to hit 15 states in the next three months. The place she’s most excited about is Texas—her first three stops—with Illinois as a close second, as that’s where her biggest fanbase is located. However, the artist is also looking toward the future and dreams of playing Webster Hall in NYC. So we need not worry about her skipping the East Coast in future tours as Bostonites.
As her career has launched, Khatumu said the biggest roadblock to anyone in music is “trying to get people who don’t like you yet to listen to your music.”
“Roadblocks are a thing that happens to anyone in their life.”
She believes the best thing for a beginner musician—or any artist, really—is to be persistent and believe in yourself. “Now in LA, when my friends aren’t believing in [themselves], it doesn’t work… You have to be your biggest cheerleader.”