Tiwa Savage Makes Debut on Vibe Mag, Talks Music Journey & Roc Nation

Tiwa Savage Makes Debut on Vibe Mag, Talks Music Journey & Roc Nation

Tiwa Savage has finally penetrated the American market.

Yesterday, the Mavin queen who recently landed a deal with Jay Z’s Roc Nation made a debut outing on the prestigious American music and entertainment magazine, VIBE, founded by producer Quincy Jones.

The ‘Eminado’ singer dished on her family, finding music, relocating to Nigeria and how much the Roc Nation deal has affected her career.

Recall that the singer went on her first US tour, attended the MTV Video Music awards, and has been in the United States where she is coordinating her first project with Jay Z’s Roc Nation.

Now, she speaks with Vibe and promises her fans that joining the American market won’t affect her brand.

Check out the excerpts from the interview:

On growing up, she said:

“I’m the only girl. I’m the last-born. I have three older brothers. Life was beautiful. I had two loving parents; my brothers were always very protective because I was the only girl. Because I grew up with only boys, I was very tomboyish and a lot of people don’t see that,.

A lot of people see heels, makeup and being glammed up, but 90% of the time, I like sneakers, track suits and being cool and relaxed. Growing up was fun and [had a feeling of] being free. Strict at times, but fun.”

On finding music, she 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.”

On how her father felt about her love for music

“When I did tell my parents that I wanted to do music, my dad thought that I just wanted to sing in the choir,” she recalls. “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.”

On starting up as a songwriter

“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.”

On how she deals with criticisms

“You get this acceptance and then you’re seeing all these headlines. Now I’m a really immune to it. I don’t care who you are, when you first start, there’s no way it will not affect you, so I ran back to Los Angeles. I was like, ‘I am not doing this anymore.’”

And why she took the risk to penetrate the international market

“I know a lot of artists have gotten international deals, but for me the genuine passion for Africa was just there and it started with me and Bee-High and just him taking time to come to Nigeria several times. That speaks volumes.”

“For someone who is not from there, coming and spending time and learning about the culture and saying that this can crossover, it made me feel really comfortable. When I went to the Roc Nation office here in New York, there was a genuine interest and genuine love. It was the same feeling when I met Jay Z. He was genuinely interested in the African culture and you can even see from some of the artifacts he has in his office. It was a no brainer for me. I didn’t have to shop around and see what my options were. There are some things that when it just comes, you know it’s right. That was just the situation. You hear a lot of times when people sign after a month, they’re on their own. With Roc Nation, it seems their day-by-day support is only getting stronger.”

Now she promises that joining the global market will not cause her to change focus

“I’m still very pro-African and you can’t take that away from me. 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.”

On her latest project with Roc Nation

“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 what she thinks about the difference between Afrobeat and Afropop

“I don’t even know how it came about. 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..

I think at the next forum we have in Nigeria, we should have this discussion.”

You can read up the rest of the interview here.