Mavin first lady and ROC Nations’ new bee, TIWA SAVAGE has been breaking grounds this year even after her plenty marital palava. The singer was the topic of discussion as Vibes Magazine interviewed the singer on her rise to stardom, the love for music and also the ROC NATION deal.
From her interview exert, Tiwa seems to be a pretty good song writer as she can proudly boast of writing songs for the likes of Mary J. Blige, May, Monica and a couple others before she met her manager and estranged husband, Teebillz. Let’s get to the interview
Speaking on his she ventured into music, the RED crooner said; “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. 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.”
As usual, a lot of African parents find it difficult accepting that their kids want to venture into music. Hers Tiwa’s ordeal; “When I did tell my parents that I wanted to do music, my dad thought that I just wanted to sing in the choir. 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. I wanted to do music and he said that I have to go and study music. I’m glad he did because I ended up going to the Berklee College Of Music and I studied jazz and music business. It really comes in handy when I have to look at music contracts.”
When asked of her song writing skills, it would surprise you what the singer has achieved with that; “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.”
Vibes Magazine also spoke extensively on how she grew in the music industry as thry narated her story. Tiwa has come a long way and has been involved with a lot of international acts, the likes of the Undersogs, James Fauntleroy, Frank Ocean and Kenny Edmonds and also the late Whitney Houstin as she was a backup singer on the hit track “I Look To You”.
The Keys To The City singer, was convinced by her estranged husband and ex-manager to take her talent back home where the AfroBeat genre was gradually growing like a mustard seed. after caving in to that advice, Kele Kele love was the birth of something entirely new for the Mavin Star.
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