Tiana Major9 is a singer/songwriter whose soulful and often meditative songs have recalled Lauryn Hill and Jazmine Sullivan, as well as fellow England natives Marsha Ambrosius and Estelle. The Londoner and Motown signee broke through in 2019 with "Collide," recorded with EarthGang for the Queen Slim soundtrack. After an uncommonly long run on Billboard's Adult R&B Songs chart, the organic ballad was nominated for Best R&B Song at the Grammy Awards in 2021. Between those achievements, Tiana issued the At Sixes and Sevens EP (2020), and she has since released Major Mantras (2021) and the Fool Me Once EP (2022), among other material.

Born and raised in a Jamaican household in the London Borough of Newham, Tiana Thomas absorbed numerous styles of music, sang in church, and was particularly drawn to jazz and R&B. Naming herself Tiana Major9, after one of her favorite chords, she gained some notice in 2014 as a finalist in MOBO's UnSung competition. Her first commercial recordings arrived in 2017 and 2018 with the singles "Merry Go," "Levee (Let It Break)," and "Mr. Mysterious." A busy 2019 began with the Rehearsal Nine EP, which contained the latter two singles, and continued a few months later with the finalization of a Motown deal.

"Collide," Tiana's collaboration with Dreamville affiliates EarthGang, appeared in November 2019 on the Motown-issued soundtrack for Queen Slim. The track entered the Adult R&B Songs chart the same month, remained for 26 weeks, and was subsequently nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best R&B Song. Tiana's profile back home was raised during this period with a featured appearance on Stormzy's number one U.K. album Heavy Is the Head. "Collide" was featured on the EP At Sixes and Sevens, which arrived in August 2020, and was followed four months later by Back at Sixes and Sevens, offering acoustic versions of At Sixes and Sevens material (with the original versions added as a virtual second disc).

At Sixes and Sevens was interspersed with a handful of brief affirmations doubling as acoustic interludes. For Major Mantras, released in February 2021, Tiana expanded the approach with seven two-minute mantras using the same acoustic motif. (The entirety of At Sixes and Sevens was presented again as a virtual second disc.) Only two months later, the singer issued At Sixes and Sevens Remixed, featuring alternate versions of At Sixes and Sevens songs with appearances from the likes of SiR and Vince Staples, plus "On Read," a duet that originally appeared on Lucky Daye's Grammy-winning Table for Two EP. ("Disc two" of At Sixes and Sevens Remixed recirculated At Sixes and Sevens once more.) Also in 2021, Tiana contributed a cover of Janet Kay and Dennis Bovell's U.K. reggae classic "Silly Games" to the soundtrack of Small Axe, and issued another remix of the At Sixes and Sevens track "Lucky." Fool Me Once, a four-track EP with a Smino collaboration, was released in March 2022. ~ Andy Kellman, Rovi