One of our favorite up and coming singer/songwriters is Tiara Thomas. You may know her as the edgy, guitar playing girl who was featured on Wale’s hit single, “Bad”, but you better believe she has a lot more going on. With a new single “One Night” garnering her more attention, we had to take the time to get an update on what Miss Thomas had going on. Check our our exclusive interview below as Tiara opens up about sexual liberation, dating industry guys, and loving ratchet music.
Baller Alert: Well first of all, thank you very much, Tiara, for taking time out of your day as well as your birthday festivities to talk to Baller Alert today.
Tiara: Yeah no problem, I love Baller Alert!
BA: Aww we love you too! Let’s get right to it. You gained a lot of fans working on the ‘Bad’ record with Wale. How did you come up with the concept of that song and did you ever think that it would be as well received as it was?
T: I was in my dorm at school when i was in college and i was working on music and stuff in college and i used to post, my parents talked me into posting videos on Youtube so i started posting these acoustic videos on Youtube. Me and my friend, we would make covers to songs, like Kirko, flip these songs, take songs that I wouldn’t normally sing and turn them into something else. When I was younger, my favorite song was ‘Some Cut’ by Trillville and I couldn’t listen to that kind of music. So I was playing guitar and stuff and i was like “I’m gonna do an acoustic cover of this song, I’m gonna do it on my guitar and make it sound really classy.” So I did that, and I was like “I need a catchy hook” and I was playing those chords on the guitar and I just freestyled that hook ‘Is it bad that i never made love, no i never did’ and I was like “Dang that’s tight.” So we put it on Youtube and it was on Youtube for like 8 months and then Wale heard it and he was just like “Yo I’ma throw some verses on this” and I was like “Oh that’s dope” He put some verses on it, put it on his mixtape and i was like “Oh that’s dope.” Then it was a single and I was like “Oh that’s real dope”. Then you know, it went gold, then it went platinum, then Rihanna was on it. So no, I never expected any of that to come from that song. Honestly, I was probably going to use that as my first single. because before Wale heard it I was going around meeting with different labels and stuff and i was playing that song on my guitar and they were like “Yo that should be your first single”. But i ended up collaborating with Wale on it and it turned out really dope.
BA: Your version of it is dope. I love it, I still listen to it to this day. I love the way that you incorporated ‘Some Cut’ into it. Is that something you would think about doing again in another mixtape project, taking ratchet music and making it classy?
T: Absolutely. I love that. I like to mix worlds. I grew up on a bunch of different kinds of music, I grew up on stuff my dad listened to..Elton John, Prince, Marvin Gaye, a variety of music and I take inspiration from all that different kind of music and sometimes I just like to take two worlds and put it together and I love love love ratchet music but I also like to put my own spin on it. Cause what people don’t understand is it’s about the way the song is delivered. People might hear a song like ‘Some Cut’ and be like “Oh that’s nasty” or “This is ratchet” but then have somebody sing it and play it with a guitar and they’re saying “nigga” and “fuck” a bunch of times and you don’t even know they’re saying it because it sounds different. So I just like to test the waters, you know? It’s cool.
BA: Well, you’re doing a great job of that! And now you’re signed to D1/Interscope with Rico Love and you dropped your Dear Sallie Mae EP which I loved a lot. What made you come up with the Dear Sallie Mae name?
T: Dear Sallie Mae EP was basically song concepts I came up with in college and I just had to get those off my chest and that’s why i named it Dear Sallie Mae — because when I was in college I wanted to drop out so many times and my mom wouldn’t let me because i had already taken out these student loans. I didn’t get any financial aid or anything like that so I took out student loans to go to school and I took out like $30,000 worth of student loans when I wanted to drop out and my mom was like “No I don’t think so” cause you know, she didn’t know that I was gonna be making money. So she was like “You’re not about to drop out and go try to pursue your music and then leave me paying your college loans.” So I didn’t drop out and I graduated and I named it Dear Sallie Mae cause it pretty much, that was my main thing of why I wouldn’t drop out of school cause I had already taken out all these student loans and I wanted to finish. I didn’t want that money to go to waste. Those are my songs i wrote in college, I wanted to get those off my chest, and then this last year I went away for a little bit to record my album, just experienced a lot of new things, and my life has changed a lot. So I’ve written about all of that. This new music is like craze-balls and I’m really excited about it and it falls a lot along the realm of “Bad”.
BA: If you don’t mind me asking, what did you go to school for?
T: I went to school for telecommunications actually and a minor in sociology. When I went to college, I wanted to be a musician and so I was like “Ok I’m just gonna pick my major in the major where I don’t have to take a bunch of math classes and I don’t have to buy a bunch of books and where I can kinda just ease my way into the music industry”. If I hadn’t gotten a deal or whatever before I graduated, I was gonna try to work at the music station or MTV or BET, something like that, to try and make my way into the industry that way. But i ended up getting a deal soon after i graduated.
BA: You skipped all of that.
T: Yeah but I had it planned out very strategically.
BA: No that’s good. A lot of people don’t plan it out. They kinda have a dream of what they wanna do and that’s all they have.
T: Yeah, right, and they don’t know how to pursue it, you gotta go after it.
BA: Last week was my first time hearing your new single ‘One Night’ which is pretty interesting because you work with Rico Love, who doesn’t hide the fact that if he’s down for a woman, he’s gonna spend on her, splurge on her, buy her gifts, buy her cars, and then hearing ‘One Night’ , you’re talking about how you’re not really looking for the money, you’re not looking for commitment, you know you’re just down for one night and that’s all you really want. Was Rico Love involved in the writing process of this? Was he an inspiration? Is this totally random?
T: Yeah, me and Rico actually collabed on this song. Most of my album, I think I wrote about 70% of my album but I did do a couple song collabs with Rico, ‘One Night’ being one of them. And we just got in the studio one day, I sat down on the piano, I played some key and we put some drums on it and we collabed on the writing. So it was kind of like a collaborative effort but as far as the message, I’m basically saying like, I have my own stuff, my own money so I’ve never chased after a dude, tried to get him to splurge on me, never been like a dick chaser. You know girls that just try to be with niggas that be stunting and shit, like I hate seeing dudes do that and think that. If you’re shallow as hell, I guess you love that kind of stuff. Not to down rich guys because there’s nothing wrong with dating a rich guy. You could be a dope ass dude and be rich and that’s a double positive but I’m just saying, dudes be kinda leaning on just that. It be some terrible ass niggas out here that just got a lot of money and think like ‘Oh yeah, I’m gonna get with her just cause I got this and that’ but I mean, that’s not that hard to find and girls out here are getting it on their own anyway. Basically, I’m all about female liberation and sexual liberation and I feel like guys say whatever, talking about bustin’ it wide open and pussy poppin’ on a handstand and everything else so I feel like I can say “I just want one night”. I feel like I can say that kinda stuff.
BA: Absolutely. We need more of that. I feel like especially with singers, it’s kind of like everyone wants to keep it so PG and politically correct.
T: Back in the 90’s, these girls, I loved 90’s music cause the girls were so powerful. All the girl groups, I can name like 10 girl groups from the 90’s that were poppin’, solo artists poppin’, and everybody was about TLC, they’re one of my biggest inspirations as well. They said whatever and they were just 3 cool ass girls. There’s a lot of real music, a lot of these new artists are saying some real shit and I think that’s what people need. Like nobody wants to hear a bunch of cliche songs that have already been written before, you wanna hear something real that when you listen to it you’re like “Oh, this is my life” so that’s the kind of music I write. I write music for broken bitches and free people.
BA: You kind of touched on dating rich guys and not really needing money, gifts, things like that. What are your thoughts on dating men in the industry?
T: Oh my god…I don’t know if I would want to do that. Cause I mean, it’s guys that are not in the industry that are mehh? and these dudes in the industry…and I’m not judging cause I have guy friends in the industry, good friends, I’m friends with them but I don’t wanna date these dudes, you know what i’m saying? If I were to date a guy in the industry, he gotta be a different type of dude, like I don’t know, a country star, I don’t know. Not to say that these athletes and some of these R&B singers, they’re not good looking. But as far as dating, I like regular people. I like that balance.
BA: Have you ever had anyone in the industry try to holla at you? Any industry guys? Athletes?
T: The music industry is like college, like when you first go to college…actually it’s not like college at all, don’t quote me on that. Cause this ain’t real life. But when you first go to college, like a freshman girl and the seniors and stuff, they try to fuck with the freshmen, it’s like that. I don’t take any of it to the head cause I know dudes just wanna fuck R&B singers so I say yes but I’m not like ‘Oh yeah he tried to holla at me’ because he probably tried to holla at 100 other girls that same day.
BA: You think industry guys can be groupies too?
T: Yes, well I feel like if you’re both stars, then you can be groupies for each other. I think that’s cute.
BA: Cause I’ve always thought like professional athletes and industry guys were groupies for like, if you notice some of the women that they kinda..I hate to use this word, but pass around..there’s certain kind of models they always date, certain type of strippers they always date and it seems like they’re kinda groupies for these certain type of women.
T: Hmmm I never thought of it that way but I guess you could be right. Yeah I guess they could be groupies for strippers. Strippers got groupies too.
BA: That’s the thing, I’ve kind of figured that. Strippers, their groupies are athletes and industry guys, and I don’t know, it’s kinda weird.
T: That is so true…I agree, that’s true.
BA: So right now you’re working on your album. Do you have a title for it yet?
T: I call my album ‘The Bad Influence’.
BA: ‘The Bad Influence’…why did you come up with that name?
T: Well for a couple different reasons. First off, the music on this album is… this is my first album so everything I wrote, I wrote it from my past experiences from the last years of my life, anything that happened that was hard for me or devastating or whatever, I wrote about it. And I guess an outsider listening to the album might hear it and they might hear some of the stuff i’m saying and they’re like “Yo, what is she on?” but you know, I’m just telling the truth. Somebody who’s listening to it could be like “Oh, she’s a bad influence” cause you know, I’ve been a bad influence on people. And there have been people that have been a bad influence on me. Or things that have been a bad influence on me. I smoke too much, you know? That’s a bad influence but sometimes a bad influence is not necessarily a bad thing, it’s like something that makes you feel good. So I have a song on my album called ‘The Bad Influence’ and I’m talking about someone that is a bad influence on me. Basically saying every girl has had a guy that was a bad influence on her, every guy has had somebody that was a bad influence on him, somebody that you’re fuckin’ with, that maybe they’re not the best for you but, you know, for some reason, you can’t stop fuckin’ with them right now. So that’s what that song is about. So I based my whole album off of that concept. And so secondly, I based it off of obviously the song ‘Bad’ that I have with Wale and a lot of this music, I feel like it correlates well with that song and so that’s why it’s called ‘The Bad Influence’, cause it’s influenced by ‘Bad’.
BA: Do you have a projected release date for it? Or you’re just still working on it?
T: I’m pretty much done with it. But we’re still working on a date. We just shot the music video in LA and I don’t know if I’m supposed to say this but…nobody’s chiming in to stop me so…we shot the video for ‘One Night’ in LA and I based it off of my favorite movie ever, ‘Set It Off’. I just love that movie so much. And I wanted my first video to be, I didn’t want it to be some typical R&B girl shit, where you come out there dancing, that stuff that’s already been done. So I wanted it to be really cinematic so I based it off of my favorite movie ‘Set It Off’. And I said that one day I was gonna make a music video based off of that movie and I don’t care what the song was about, I was gonna make it fit and we made it work so, it’s gonna be tight, I’m excited.
Watch the lyric video for “One Night” below. Keep an eye out for the official “One Night” video coming soon!
Buy on iTunes: http://smarturl.it/TTOneNight
Buy on Google Play: http://smarturl.it/TTOneNightGP
Buy on Amazon: http://smarturl.it/TTOneNightAmz
Follow Tiara Thomas on Instagram & Twitter: @Tiara_Thomas
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