Armed with piercing, gem-studded pop ballads, NYC-based cowgirl Tiffany Baira disrupts our world's safeguards long built off repression and hesitancy. Native to New Orleans, 23-year-old performer, songwriter, and model, Baira brings bleeding passion to conventional glam. Channeling enigmatic love: there is desire in isolation, and isolation in desire. Who else to talk about the will to power but with Tiffany Baira? With the release of her 2020 pop anthem, “Plastic,” Baira speaks to Coeval Magazine about roots, truth, and uncertainty in love and lust.

What got you started as a performer?
Growing up in New Orleans, music was ingrained in me since I can remember. Some of my fondest memories are of me and my grandmother sitting by the piano singing Johnny Cash, (I think my first word was Ring Of Fire, haha) and that's when I first remember knowing I loved to sing. As for performing, like a lot of people, I started as a theatre kid. I was definitely the annoying type that sang ALL the time and often got in trouble by my teachers and laughed at by my peers, but I couldn't help it. I was always drawn to performing because for me, it's a safe haven. Performing gives me the option to be a character, to be whoever I want to be, to dwell in the artifice of whatever or whoever I desire. I have always found safety in the freedom of creating my identity through performance; there is no limit to who I can be while on stage.

Anyway, Alone, Hurt Me Again, Know Me. Your track names encircle candid images of
unsympathetic, painfully necessary recognition. How do you convey the space to
recreate these honest moments?
I don't think I have ever written a song while I was happy, haha. I sit down during the pinnacle of these negative feelings and let it all go on paper. It's a very cathartic experience that lets me take ownership and develop an understanding of the pain I'm going through. In a way, these songs give me the space to say, "I am not fine, but hopefully in time I will be." I also journal every day which allows me to re-experience those moments of pleasure and pain in my relationships and in growing up. For me, while writing, I try to find the pain that I would typically escape from through two dirty martinis or a night at the club and force myself to sit there and dive deeper into it rather than run from it.

What inspires you about desire and isolation?
I think my relationship with desire and isolation is a relationship filled with great tension and ambiguity. Being active and performing in the New York City nightlife, there can be the appearance of a lack of physical isolation, but I have always found that I feel most isolated in a crowd. I have always loved having a lot of friends, but it often does take a while for me to open up to people about certain aspects of my life. In that way, I feel I have always been somewhat isolated from others. I have always loved running from one group or person to the next because I'm scared of slowing down and actually letting people get to know the Tiffany that transcends happy hour conversation. I'm always bouncing from one desire to the next (call me Schopenhauer, haha), and in that lifestyle, I am isolated.

There is an impenetrable wall between the isolated parts that I hide or protect from myself—that being my introspective or my creative self—and the person I often portray to society. In my new song "Plastic," I explore the relationship of desire and isolation by exploring the tension between desiring to give love to someone, but also desiring to remain untouchable by the pain that affection can bring. In today's society, we pride ourselves on being emotionless or pretending to be, so for me, the instant gratification of fleeting honeymoon love or the endless blur of one night stands gives me a way to isolate myself from a potential connection that could lead to pain. That being said, there is always the unshakeable desire to give and receive the love that I have never held on to.

If you had to specify your genre, how would you begin?
At the moment, my genre is a merge of pop and R&B. There are definitely clear undertones of my classical jazz training and my admiration of disco. I am releasing a new album this year where I'll be experimenting with different genres on one record. I think during my live performances you can see that I love putting a country spin on some of my tracks. For example, last month at Piano's, I brought a full jazz band on stage while performing, what could arguably be my most unapologetically pop track, "Plastic." I love having a set sound on the record and letting it evolve into whatever I imagine on stage. Since you have a brand new audience every night, I never think a track is ever really finished.

How does desire and desiring play a part in your writing and performing?
Desire is the epitome of what all my music and lyrics revolve around. In all my songs, there is always a longing for something: for the things I have lost in myself, for the people I will never see again or for the relationships tarnished. It is the desire to hide and be seen at the same time, the desire to destroy myself in the pleasures of the ephemeral while also finding eternal redemption.

My life is the constant exchange of acting on my desires while also desiring something completely different. Being in your early 20s, it's like everything is beautiful, but it's also a fucking shit-show. In general, my music and my writing are places where I can sit with myself and speak on the desires I have acted on while also desiring something better or something new without any judgment. I try to be as honest as I can with myself about the ups and downs of growing older and experiencing things for the first time through love, sex and literally surviving the NYC dating scene, haha. Going through all these obstacles allows me to get a pen and face that I have no clue what I'm doing and that I don't know if anything is going to work out, but this desire for creation and to do more, to better myself, is still there. Each song is a chance to explore my desires and regrets and speak on them from a truth I often neglect in everyday life.

Your lyrics so often surrounds the problems of identification and love in meeting people and unknowing others. We stan Nietzsche here. What in us really wants the truth?
WE DO STAN Nietzsche here! I think the truth we desire is in the destruction of our constructed identity. We are all conditioned to think that stability and routine is desirable, but whenever we have the chance to escape, whether it be through love, religion, a bottle of whiskey, or a trip to the Bahamas, we take it. I was deeply impacted by The Birth of Tragedy and what it means to really lose yourself or destroy your identity without looking back. The truth we desire is found in emotions or feelings and not through beautifully packed words. This idea is expanded upon in my song "Sweet Lies", where I reference the idea that the magnificently packaged box of bullshit that our society often says is truth is typically just a quick fix for what we truly desire. In my life and in my music, the truth I desire is to feel everything as deeply as possible regardless of its consequences. I think the truth we seek can be both intoxicating and terrifying at the same time. I find myself wanting to stay lost in a truth that I can't always identify, but that allows me the potential to dance through both my destruction and self-evolution.

What's next for Tiffany Baira?
Honestly, I am trying to figure that out for myself, haha. Right now, I'm extremely excited about my new track, "Plastic," which will be released on March 1. This track is extremely precious to me, as it explores so many of the vulnerabilities that have held me back in the past and allows me, for the first time, to speak on my bisexuality and take claim of my sexuality in a public sphere. As for the rest of my career, I am just as excited as you to continue to see where both my music and modeling career are headed. Being unsigned has pushed me every day to strive for more, and it's been a journey so far creating my whole music career by myself and with the help of some extremely gifted artists. My new album is on the way and, hopefully, the tour will soon follow! I am definitely still single, so I am sure I will be hitting the dating scene for more inspiration for the album. If you know anyone looking to break some hearts, send them my way, haha. Again, in your early 20’s, there is so much uncertainty and fear about being successful, especially with this Instagram bullshit, but I'm taking it one day at a time and doing what I love so, hopefully the rest will work out along the way.