The day of the big-voiced diva appears to be a thing of the past. While dance music is as big as ever, the job of the actual dance diva has gone from the likes of larger-than-life voices such as Whitney Houston and Aretha Franklin to the likes of Ke$ha and Britney Spears, girls who rely more on autotune and the production skills of their music team than anything else.
This is not the case with Taborah, a dance, pop and R&B artists, who, with her years of experience as lead singer of 90s girl group Blackwood, is now coming back and leading some soul to the dance floor along the way. Both of her recent singles “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now” and “Say I Love You,” show promise that the big-voiced dance diva theme can make a comeback and one day end its current disintegration. Now working on a new album, the diva-to-be is about to break it down at the disco.
Eric Chavez: Congratulations on the new single, “Say I Love You,” but are you currently writing for a new album?
Taborah: Most of my writing comes from what’s going on in my life. For me it’s very therapeutic. It’s a healing process. There’s stuff I have written when I was going through something that I want to put on the album. I always write. There’s not a time period where I say, “Okay, let’s get this album out.” When I write, I write the melody and the lyrics, and the producers do the music.
EC: When can fans expect this new album?
T: I would say, it’s supposed to be the beginning of fall.
EC: In terms of sound and theme, which direction are you going for in the production of this LP?
T: You know what; I will not be Captain Kirk! I do all kinds of things, I wrote a country song. I don’t want to be pigeon hold. When I say I don’t want to be Captain Kirk, because when you see Captain Kirk, you think, “Captain Kirk.”
EC: Definitely! Looking at your career, and your songwriting, who would you say have been the biggest influences for you, artistically?
T: Barbra Streisand is of my favorites I think, because I have a big voice and she has a big voice. She’s good at what she does. She’s a perfectionist. I also like Luther Vandross. Phyllis Hyman and I sound very much alike. People say, “Oh you sound just like Phyllis Hyman.” I finally bought one of her albums and I heard a song on there, “Somewhere of my Lifetime” and I always thought I was singing the Dionne Warrick version, but somewhere in my lifetime I must have heard the Phyllis Hyman version, and that’s the version I was always singing.
EC: For the people out there who don’t know much about Taborah, how would you introduce yourself?
T: I’m a mother first beyond an artist. My daughter asked “mommy, are you famous?” and I tell her “to you, I’m just a mommy and that’s all you know.” I was in Blackwood, in the 90s and we were based in Italy. I wrote all of my songs and rhythms. We started off, and nothing took off. It’s pretty much like my voice and style of writing were ahead of its time.
Most of my fan base is in Europe because they know Blackwood, and that’s one of the reasons I wanted to sing one of my songs [“Say I Love You”] in Spanish because I have such a big fan base in Italy. One thing I tell my kids, “If you want to become something, I want you to own it. “
EC: You said you love Barbara Streisand, as we all do! But if you could duet with any artist, who would it be?
T: I would love to sing a song with Phil Collins. I love him! I love his style.
EC: I know there are tons of remixes out there for your songs, but who have been some of your favorite remixers?
T: Well I love John Rizzo and Scott from Solar City. I’m not that creative, when I sing a song one way, I will always sing a song that way. And I don’t hear it. When I heard “Say I Love You” and I thought, “how do they turn it into a dance track? I can’t imagine!” I think the first mix that came back was the Arena mix. I was blown away! I loved it! I would’ve never imagined doing that! How do they even hear that?
EC: When the album does come out, where will your main focus be, promotion wise?
T: I would like to focus more in Europe because that’s where I’ve established myself. It’s always the labels decision on where they want to focus. I think the label does not want to put their focus in one place, but try to spread out. That may sound foolish because you can’t conquer everything and all places at one time. But you can with music if you do it properly, and that’s the business part of me talking. I want to have a double-CD because I want to have all of the songs remixed because I am known as a dance artist. So for me to go do a love song, people love it, and it sounds good, but they want it to play in a disco.
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