Caturday with Tamera
August 28, 2021
Culture & Music
Photographer:
Nwaka
Nwaka
Words:
Lavinia Woods
Lavinia Woods
Stylist:
Alize Demange
Alize Demange
Tamera brings hip-hop to pop, raw female power to the stage, and vulnerability to her music. Originally from a small town in the UK, Tamera found the spotlight at the early age of sixteen while being on The X-Factor and haven’t left the light since. Below Tamera talks inspiration, femininity, and independence.
Lavinia Woods: As someone who grew up in a small town right outside of London with very little contact to live music, how were you able to connect yourself with other artists?
Tamera Foster: Growing up I didn’t meet a lot of other people that actively make music but there was a huge love for it, I remember making little freestyle raps with friends at school but other than that my main reach to live music was in church, that inspired me a lot. When I later moved to London I met so many incredible creatives from all walks of life and the story really began from there.
LW: Is there a silver lining to growing up in a town with very scarce music opportunities? Perhaps it allowed you to find your own voice in a more clear and direct way?
TF: It definitely gave me a hunger to get into it seriously but I’ve always been creative from a young girl. I would love to paint dance act, write poems and short stories and only later all those skills met when I became an artist.
LW: Now, moving on to your new single, Strong for Me, what inspired you to create this song?
TF: That song came at the end of a long road of hardship and transformation, it was inspired by all the grit we have to go through to get from hard times back to the good ones and how closed off it can cause us to be towards those who are closest to us due to the embarrassment of feeling so small.
LW: The song is very vulnerable, the lyrics, your voice…is it easy for you to write and perform with such raw emotion? What is that like for you?
TF: This song was surprisingly the easiest song I’ve ever written. It came to me suddenly during the last hour of a studio session I would say it was a release of deep emotions I had tried to suppress but when I finally gained clarity on how and why I had felt such a way the song just came out of me & we recorded it right there and then so I was completely in that emotion. I always feel at ease working with P2J so it was comfortable for me to navigate that particular concept.
LW:There’s such a femine nature to your voice – it’s very soft and sweet, but also has the power of a girlboss. How has femininity affected your work and creativity?
TF: This is such a great question ! As I used to feel as though my femininity was somewhat of a burden being in a male dominated industry. I’d become more of a boisterous version of myself when working and I wore that as an armour but it also made me become a little colder. I went through a deep depression a few years ago that I didn’t speak about but coming out of that taught me to to truly love myself and the things that make me the woman I am and I was able to tap into my femininity in way I hadn’t before. Honestly I’ve never been so empowered or comfortable in my own skin and I think it really translates through the music.
LW: Now to your song Wickedest. The music video to the song has such a strong visual component. Is exploring other creative mediums, such as visual ones, important to you and your music? Is there any correlation between the two?
TF: The visual aspect of my art is extremely important to me and a huge contributor to who I am as an artist and a person or at least the person I was when I create the piece. I’m quite an introvert and my path is very much so internal in the sense that I’m always looking in on how I can become greater so a lot of the time it’s hard for me to open up and that’s why being able to create is such a significant part of my life because it’s a means for me to truly and boldly express myself.
LW: The song reminds me very much of pop songs from the early 2000’s. Is there a certain era of music or musicians that have influenced you?
TF: I love to listen to so many different artist so to pinpoint exactly who’s inspired me would be hard, I base my creative direction on what I’m going through in real life that then translates into conversations around that then that translates into colours and sounds haha. I hope I’ve explained that okay.

