In this interview recorded during New York Fashion Week, host Lee Richter talks with musician, songwriter, and environmental activist Tara Lea. Tara shares how she arrived at the fashion event through connections with event organizer David Robles and her role covering the scene for Grit Daily. She explains the inspiration behind her song “One World,” highlighting urgent environmental issues such as Amazon deforestation, plastic pollution, and reliance on oil energy, and directs listeners to find the track on SoundCloud. Tara expresses interest in sustainable fashion showcased at the show and seeks out humanitarian elements within the industry. She also discusses an upcoming indigenous advocacy event, Aniwa, organized by the BOA Foundation in Fishkill, NY, featuring the Huni Kuni tribe from Brazil, and reflects on a spiritual retreat in Joshua Tree where she experienced Native American ceremonies. Throughout, Tara emphasizes the need for broader awareness, cultural learning, and actionable change to protect the planet.
Chapters
One world, stick together. One world, so everybody play your part. One world, we won't get another. One world. I just can't stop. Thinking about us, one word, so everybody play your part.
We are so lucky to be here with Tara-Leigh, who absolutely, number one, loves to save the planet and make a difference on the planet, but she also is a music songwriter, and she's here at New York Fashion Week to cover the music scene. So how does it feel to be here?
It feels great. The energy here is amazing. I mean, it's New York. It's great to be back here. I love it, yeah.
You love it. And how'd you get involved here?
So I actually met David Robles, who does a lot of events for Style Fashion Week out in LA, and he introduced me to the whole scene. And I told him that I'm covering for Grit Daily now, and he's like, hey, come on down and see what— see what you'd like to— see what you'd like to cover. So—
Excellent, excellent. So is today your first day here, or were you here yesterday?
Today's my first day, yes.
Oh wow, so there's going to be a lot of activity today.
Yes, yesterday there was a world peace program, a world peace event at the Williamsburg Hotel that I felt like I really needed to be a part of.
It's a balance in life for you.
Yeah, you know, there's always so much going on. Yeah, it's hard to balance it all.
So we just heard a beautiful piece of your music. Do you want to explain what inspired you to write that and what it's about and the name of it and where we can find it?
Sure, so you guys can find it on SoundCloud. You can look for me on Google at Tara Lea. But basically it's called One World, and it's about how we're spending a lot of our time like focusing on issues that don't really matter. So for example, within 20 years from now— Yeah, within 20 years from now, if we don't pay attention, about 40% of the Amazon rainforest is going to be deforested. If that happens, no one is going to be able to breathe. So I feel like that's a really huge issue. And also plastic, you know, we've got plastic in our In our food, in everything, in the water, you know, it's genetically modified into fish. And then there's the fact that we're wasting our energy focusing on getting power from oil and all this war over oil when really we have more than enough natural ways of getting energy. So that's what inspired the song. Yeah.
And for you and your generation and for the whole planet, it's really important to get this message out. So I'm glad you share it through your music, and it's so beautiful, and to hear you play is so lovely. So what do you want to see happen for you today here at the show?
Today I would love to see some amazing, you know, potentially sustainable fashion. I'm looking into that, and I'm interested in seeing a lot of the musical performers and seeing what type of— if there are any kind of humanitarian events that are involved with some of the fashion today. So I'm gonna look into that as well as like what the next possible trends are gonna be for upcoming seasons. I really love clothes, so.
Love it. I love it that people are thinking that way too, on how to make it better for the planet.
Yeah.
So one of the things you also mentioned is you are going to a special event in a week and you wanted to share the word about that. Just tell us a little bit about what inspires you to be part of that.
Okay, so I was at an amazing spiritual retreat in Joshua Tree and I got to experience some amazing Native American ceremonies there. And I met an amazing tribe of people that are putting on this event called Aniwa. It's going to be in upstate New York next weekend from the 14th to the 16th in Fishkill. So there's, there's a page about that. Google the Aniwa organization. It's going to be put on by the BOA Foundation, which the BOA Foundation gives back to these different indigenous tribes and these different indigenous villages, and they talk to the chiefs and And they're able to fund these people being able to have, you know, basic necessities in their villages as well. And yeah, these are just amazing people that are doing amazing work. And I feel like creating advocacy for our natives, we're in America, we should go up there and really learn about the different cultures that, like, were here on our ground and in other places too, like the Huni Kuni tribe that's gonna be there, which that's the tribe that I'm going with. They're from Brazil.
Wow.
And they're from the Amazon rainforest. So they're really— they've seen firsthand, like, the devastation that we've done to the land. And I think it's important to talk to those people and see their perspective as well so that we can all learn, yeah, to be better.
Well, I'm glad that you're here and that you've joined us and that you're sharing this perspective and you're sharing this message because it's so valuable. And I want everyone to be listening to what she's saying and to her music because it really is inspiring.
Thank you so much for having me.
And we're so happy, and we will share this with you later, and we really enjoy sharing your message too.
