There’s a quiet kind of bravery in Tamtam’s “Make It Through.” The kind that doesn’t need volume to exist. It sinks into your chest and stays there. The kind that keeps you writing your story down even while you’re crying through it.
“Just tell me I’m a liar / To make it all easier.” That line caught me immediately. It’s a relatable moment. “Too hard to make the right kind of sound / To go against the grain and the crowd.” There’s a deep ache in that. But also clarity. If you’re a woman trying to push past cultural lines, emotional ones, even just the ones in your mind, this is the soundtrack.
Tamtam’s known for precisely that kind of push. She was born in Saudi Arabia and lives in Los Angeles, and that blended identity gives her a surprising edge. She defies stereotype. At 13, she performed Thriller at her school in Riyadh and got a standing ovation. That was a defining moment for her, creating the gap between where she was and where she wanted to be. That feeling bled over on her earliest viral track, “Gender Game,” where she had to mask her face and name to stay safe while naming the very rules that tried to silence her.
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She’s sung in both Arabic and English. She’s worked with global producers while staying rooted in her culture. One minute she’s quoting Fairuz and Asmahan, the next she’s channeling BANKS, Aurora, even Red Hot Chili Peppers. Her music lives in the space between tradition and self-invention. And she never softens her truth for palatability. Every part of it lands heavier than it first seems. You can hear how personal it is.
“Gets lonely / But lovely, yeah.” That little phrase says everything. She describes the feeling without needing to explain it. Honest, stripped down. The verses sit in the pain. “Find love or you’ll end up alone / I’m hurting / But I’m hungry.” The ache goes past wanting someone. It touches every corner of who she is. “She’s reaching for a kind of truth that connection alone can’t always give.”
When the chorus opens, she lifts herself out of it, not in a cliché kind of way. There’s no forced uplift. It sounds like motion. “I wanna run / Faster than an eagle flies / Go higher than the cosmic skies / I wanna make it through.” The melody soars right with it. I don’t usually get swept like this, but her phrasing pulls you upward. Like she’s dragging her hope up from under the weight of everything she’s been told to settle for.
The Kyrgyzstan line—“I wanna climb / All the way to Kyrgyzstan / Forget about the oxygen”—caught me off guard. It’s strange and specific, which makes it land harder. That line hits like someone who has already decided how far she’ll go. She’ll keep climbing with or without breath. And when she says “I know I’ll make it through / With you,” the “you” feels both personal and universal. A person, maybe. A listener, probably. Herself, definitely.
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And then at the end—her mother’s voice. You hear it in Arabic first. Soft, steady. She says, “This world has trials… we will keep getting tested… and we have to be patient… God is always with us.” It’s a real voice note, not a studio trick. You feel it more than you understand it. She calls her Reemawy, a nickname, like a breath into the past. Her voice settles everything around it. Her mother doesn’t wrap it in comfort. She just says what needs to be said.
This song hits different if you’ve ever tried to write yourself into existence when the world would rather erase you. If you’ve ever loved your culture deeply while still needing to stretch past it. If you’ve ever felt like giving up, but didn’t. That’s who this is for.
Tamtam’s not echoing anyone because her path feels personal. If you like BANKS, Aurora, or Lykke Li, this is the same emotional space. But warmer, steadier, and deeper. She’s moving forward. And sometimes, that’s louder than anything.
