Greentea Peng (2025)6 Images
‘Tell Dem It’s Sunny,’ urges Greentea Peng’s third studio album, and, for the first time all year, it actually is. She sits in her favourite East London cafe in late February, the rare Winter sun beaming through the window behind her. Peng is hot off a photo shoot for the project and her numerous tattoos and trinkets are on full display, each hinting at a battle untold.
“Initially, Tell Dem It’s Sunny, but then having the black and white artwork, was almost sarcasm. Like, ‘Yeah, tell dem it’s sunny. Everything’s blessed.’ But everything’s not fucking blessed,” Greentea Peng tells me. “But then, after I made ‘Glory’, I realised it’s actually a philosophy. It is sunny, no matter how much shit they spray in the skies to block out the sun. I travel the depths with the sun in my chest.” Looking at the weather that day, the magic of such a philosophy was hard to deny.
It’s a hard-fought positivity that accompanies Greentea Peng’s turn inwards on this latest release. Where previous album Man Made was a colourful, psychedelic response to the madness of the lockdown era, Tell Dem It’s Sunny’s visuals are almost entirely grayscale, enlisting distorted guitars and cavernous dub basslines to soundtrack its tale of repairing a psyche worn down by external turmoil.
“There are no insecure masters, no successful half-hearters,” Peng proclaims on lead track “TARDIS”. The line arrives as a mission statement for Peng’s new direction on the project. “How could you possibly imagine being able to manoeuvre your exterior environment if inside you’re alien to your inner goings?” she says. “They’re intrinsically interconnected, a constant reflection of each other.”
Peng knows full well that this isn’t easy. Despite her newfound self-assuredness, a darkness loomed over Peng throughout our conversation, hinted at through phrases and mantras that could only have been baked in through repetition. “I get called a hippy a lot,” says Peng. “This is to let them know that it’s been a dark, dark road to reach them glimpses of colour.”
But, for Peng, a key turning point arrived with the birth of her daughter in 2022. Choosing to deliver the child at home, with no painkillers, the experience was a labour of love in every sense, but it also gave way to the confidence she displays today. “It had quite a profound effect on me,” Peng recalls. “I realised that actually I could do anything I fucking want to do, and no one can really tell me otherwise.”
Peng’s new universe is rooted in this experience, with the opening seconds of the project featuring Peng attempting to teach her pre-verbal daughter the title of the project. It’s a lesson that the child helped her learn, and also one Peng is determined to pass on. Between the wide-reaching dichotomies of external turmoil and internal conflict, black and white, there really is only one answer: Tell Dem It’s Sunny, and it just might be.
Below, Greentea Peng breaks down the philosophy that underpins her latest release.
It’s funny, the project is visually and sonically very British, but the doorway into that is the “Bali Skit”.
Greentea Peng: Yeah, I always find myself wanting everything to be quite London heavy, just because I feel like, and I have felt like, I have quite a London sound. But it has transcended that on this project, it feels a little bit more global. Songs like “Nowhere Man” address that idea of not really knowing where you come from, and being able to just claim everyone as your own. As I grow older, I find myself less and less affiliated to geographical spots and more just a citizen of the cosmos.
This project does feel like a big turn inwards.
Greentea Peng: Man Made was a political statement in one of the most unprecedented times in my lifetime, especially as quite an outspoken person. So Tell Dem It’s Sunny is very much… What’s the opposite of introspective? Outtrospective? I make up words all the time. But, yeah. I’ve started to recognise a pattern within myself and the projects, going inward, outward, inward and outward again. This one’s definitely inward. A lot of the songs are addressed to myself. I like to think that I’m engaged in sonic journaling.
Sometimes I find myself delving so deep into the chaos of society that it’s debilitating. That’s no use either. It’s about finding that balance
– Greentea Peng
Most of the visuals are in black and white, too. Where did that come from?
Greentea Peng: I knew I wanted “TARDIS” to be in black and white, and then I knew I wanted “One Foot” to be in black and white. Then, before I knew it, I was like, actually, this whole album is black and white. I think it’s been easier to associate me with flowers and sunshine and hippy shit.
“TARDIS” really sets out some of those themes early on, right?
Greentea Peng: “TARDIS” is one of my favourite songs I’ve ever made. It was just pure channelling. We made the beat just fucking around, and then the lyrics were just pouring out. I couldn’t keep up. I was on the mic and writing at the same time. If you listen to the track, you can hear me turning the pages and spitting at the same time. When I’m able to tune in to ‘source’ like that it’s mad.
What gave rise to this new philosophy?
Greentea Peng: There were a couple of moments, I won’t delve into them. But I think becoming a mum was a catalyst, bringing bravery and expansiveness. Once you become a mum, there’s no not thinking about your child. She’s in everything that I do.
Over the years, I’d got used to dulling myself down a lot, even putting myself down. Since having a baby – especially the way I did it, no doctors, no medicine, very raw – had a profound effect on me. It was a death of many parts of me, but it was also a birthing of certain versions of myself that are now in real life. It’s in my mannerisms, in the way I carried myself as a woman, and also in my heart.
On a personal level, I’m obviously not a mother, but this journey resonates. I think there are lessons in here that are really important for people to hear.
Greentea Peng: It’s within all of us. It is a constant struggle and sufferation. It’s been a constant battle my whole life with my mental health, my personal narratives, my inner voice. It’s been a lot, and it still is, in many ways. But that’s where the beauty comes from, in the articulation and translation of them battles.
But sometimes I think about the ideal situation – would it be no pain whatsoever?
Greentea Peng: Probably not. Roses need shit to grow. Them good, good roses need that horse manure. I firmly believe that it builds character, and I got a lot of fucking character. So, yeah, I’m a big advocate of the journey within, coming back to centre. That only comes through the pursuit of knowledge of yourself. It’s not an easy task.
Here this balance of inward and outward resurfaces, right?
Greentea Peng: You know, I find myself battling, and then I’m like, ‘Bro, look at these kids in Gaza, look at these kids in the Congo.’ What right do I have to even claim [suffering]? But it’s all relative. It’s important we don’t take away from others, but who knows how people are battling inside? Sometimes I find myself delving so deep into the chaos of society that it’s debilitating. I sit in the dark and I’m just depressed for days and days and days. That’s no use either. It’s about finding that balance, and that’s something I’ve struggled with my whole life.
Tell Dem It’s Sunny is out now
