After “Seldom” Tamara Madison Tells Us What We Should Look Forward To

Meet Tamara Madison, the Canadian born, Toronto R&B singer-songwriter primed for stardom. On this exclusive interview with the “Seldom,” crooner, a song which premiered in 2017 and saw the singer express her breakup rage. Although she confirmed it was the lead single off her upcoming RELAPSE 2 EP project, but till date there’s been no public update about the project from Tamara. Today we had Q&A with her, and the R&B songstress tells us the challenges of being a mother, attending school classes, working and at the same time making music, but she assures the planned EP will arrive later this year.

Tamara, Tell us about you?
I’m a Toronto native singer/songwriter and chef with a Jamaican background *humbly throws up gun fingers*. I am also a single mother with a 4 year old son, Orion – my world.

How did your music career begin?
Thanks to my parents, I was exposed to diverse music throughout my early years and developed a gospel influence from growing up being in and out of church. Singing/songwriting and dancing became my passion early on in life. My music career started to develop after high school. I attended a school of the arts for Vocal and teamed up with a friend from school who is a producer and we began to make music and released them on Facebook lol. After receiving positive feedback, it motivated to take my music career more seriously, and I released my first single and a music video to a Frank Ocean remix I did, shortly after.

Your last release was in 2017,  why is it taking so long to release a new project?
Life! I became a mother in 2015 and it has definitely changed my whole life. Being from a city where cost of living is very high, we’re forced to work a lot. With working, attending school, becoming an entrepreneur and being a mother, music has had to take a back seat for awhile. Definitely not by choice. 
Being from a city where you have to leave and take advantage of opportunities elsewhere in order to gain real success, it became impossible to do so with a newborn or toddler. It’s coming though! I’m just not rushing it. Letting everything come organically.

Tell us about ‘Seldom,’ your last single release?
“Seldom” is a song I wrote about how I was feeling at the time. Being a Cancer, we can get emotional and music has always been an outlet- mainly pertaining to my love life. It’s about the difference between loving and being “in love” with someone. It’s also about your feelings towards someone changing after you’ve taken time to get to know and experience the real them. Sometimes after you’ve experienced it, you realize you really were never in love with them because the parts of them you thought you were in love with, weren’t real to begin with. And as a result, you let them go. 

Tamara, tell us the message behind your music?
Each song has it’s own message. Most of my music is about love – good and bad. There’s a lot of things I’ve had to go through and still go through in order to become the woman I am and meant to be. If what’s therapy for me becomes therapeutic to someone else, then that’s amazing.
I just express how I feel and keep it real. 

What was growing up like and the type of songs you listened to?
Growing up with Jamaican parents, I definitely listened to a lot of reggae. Beres Hammond, Sanchez, Garnet Silk and Barrington Levy, just to name a few. Then I had my father who was a retired break dancer and listened to a lot of 70’s and 80’s funk, electric boogie and disco (to this day). Outside of reggae, my mother listened to a lot of R&B. So, I listened to a lot of Luther Vandross, SWV, Tevin Campbell, Janet Jackson, etc. through her and my step father. And of course growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, I listened to a lot of Hip Hop and R&B. 

Where do you find your inspiration?
Life inspires me. Love inspires me. Sex inspires me. And Heartbreak inspires me. I feel everything deeply and it conveys through my writing.

What can we look forward to in the future?

You can look forward to music being released this year. For real. I’m sitting on a few tunes, so if time permits, I can finally release an EP of 5 or 6 songs.