Singer speaks on songwriting, Roc Nation deal, more with Vibe Magazine
The Mavin first lady lets in on her background and how her crush for a boy led into discovering her love for music.
Tiwa Savage speaks with Vibe Magazine on her background, music, growth, deal with Roc Nation and much more.
She delves into her background and upbringing, and how her crush for a boy at school who used to hang around musicians, dancers and the cool kids ultimately led her to discover she could make a career out of music.
“I played trombone. Don’t ask me if I still play [laughs], but I literally picked it up because I had a crush on a boy in high school. He used to hang around with the cool kids, the musicians and dancers.” She chuckles to herself as she recalls how it all started. “Here I was: this kid fresh from Nigeria, strong accent, my mom shaved my hair off. I tried to get his attention. I went to this music teacher and said that I really wanted to do music. He looked to the corner of the room and said the trombone was the only instrument left. I picked it up, but eventually got bullied for it because it was always getting in the way on the bus. That was having the opposite effect of what I wanted because this guy’s now laughing at me instead of falling in love with me. So, I gave up and joined the choir.”
It was from that moment on she knew she wanted to do more with music, and began listening to a number of songs cutting across different genres - from Christian Hip Hop and R&B songs to Afrobeat sound from the originator Fela Anikulapo Kuti.
On gaining support from her parents to pursue music as a career, the singer explained that though her dad passed it off initially as her not wanting to do it big.
“I told him I wanted to be a musician and initially he wasn’t really for it, so he told me to go to school and study in either business, engineering or be a doctor or a lawyer.”
She went on to read Business Administration at Kent University but her dad would later support her music dreams which saw her attend the prestigious Berklee College of Music where she studied Jazz and Music business, which Tiwa says always comes in handy when she has to look at music contracts.
After completing her education, she found herself as a songwriter in New York.
“Songwriting kind of happened. I was in the studio trying to create a demo for myself. I finished the song and went back home. The next day, I was supposed to come and do some ad-libs on it and learned that when I left, Fantasia Barrino heard the song and liked it. Long story short, she took the record and I got a publishing deal. I had to start writing songs for other people, which is a learning process for me because usually I write songs just for myself. When you are submitting [music] for other artists, they make like the song, but they might say tweak a certain part. I had to learn how to tailor a lot of songs to different artists, but the beauty about being an artist now is that I can say what I want say and how I want to say it.”
She went on to write for the likes of Baby Face, Mya, Monica,Mary J Blige and even went on to singing background vocals for'I look to you' one of last songs from the late and legendaryWhitney .
She was however not satisfied with writing songs for other artistes alone, and as luck would have it, she runs into a certain Teebillz Balogun an A&R executive at Interscope Records, who convinced her to take the bold step of moving back to Nigeria and start up as an artist, which she agreed to eventually and went on to be the star amidst bumpy roads and obstacles to become what she is now.
On her Roc Nation deal, the singer affirms it will not change her African roots and will do well to strike a balance between the two divides of Africa and the international market.
“I’m still very pro-African and you can’t take that away from me,” she points out. “There’s nothing you can do to change that. I think only time will tell and they need to be rest assured that Roc Nation is really trying to introduce the African culture to the world, not even just America. When I say culture, they’re not just interested in the music, they’re interested in the fashion, in the culture and in the movement. I think that is because everybody is kind of reconnecting back with each other. A lot of the Africans in the diaspora are connecting back home and they see that buzz and they’re just trying to assist in building that bridge.”
“It all starts with great music,” Tiwa says. “I love that at Roc Nation they’re giving me the liberty to create great music. Mentally, I’m just trying to create something that crosses over, but appeals to Africa. Once we get the right music, I think the music is going to determine what we do. Obviously, the press, the plugging in to radios, the strategic collaborations, all of that is in the works. It depends on the music that we determine which artist I collaborate with.”
On the Afrobeats vs Afrobeat controversy, Tiwa says:
“I don’t even know how it came about,” she admits. “I know Afrobeat is from Fela and the reason why I guess people wanted to start a new genre of Afropop was because a lot of the music we’re doing now is influenced by hip-hop, R&B and pop. You can’t really say it’s just Afrobeat, because Afrobeat has a sound. When you hear it, you now it’s Afrobeat. I think that’s where the argument is.” She ends with a smile. “I think at the next forum we have in Nigeria, we should have this discussion.”
