Tamaraebi releases new single 'Brown Angel', out March 10th
FROM THE FORTHCOMING EP ‘SPECTRUM’, AVAILABLE MAY 19 VIA BELIEVE
‘Brown Angel’ is the brilliant new single and video from Tamaraebi, the first track to be lifted from the London-based musician’s new EP ‘Spectrum’, which will be released May 19 via Believe. ‘Spectrum’ is a set of six classy and sensual songs that suggest Prince, Miguel and The Weeknd as kindred musical spirits, while revealing Tamaraebi’s voice as a warm, soulful instrument with a modern edge and an effortless, knockout falsetto.
The songs on ‘Spectrum’ run the relationship gamut, from a hook-up with someone who’s not single (‘Brown Angel’) to unreciprocated love (‘Telephone’) and – on ‘Square One’ and ‘Serious’ – the hazards of switching up a friendship to something more. A team of sympático producers/writers helped Tamaraebi realise his ideas in the studio: FloTheProducer, All About She and Eddie Serafica.
“Brown Angel is a modern-day psychedelic blues song with hip hop and RnB undertones,” comments Tamaraebi of the single. “It’s been described as a stoner’s love song. The video was directed by Tatenda Jamera and we came up with the concept together. We shot it in an old pub in Peckham at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests last year. I wanted to do something visually that contributed to black art and also celebrated the varied beauty of blackness - from a fuller figured model to really dark-skinned ones. I wanted everyone to enjoy the beauty of blackness in its natural element, no matter what race they were.”
Born in Lagos to parents who worked for the UN, the musician born Daniel Tamaraebi Itombra began singing at just two years old in the choirs of the various Pentecostal churches his mother joined, something that carried on well into his teens. This gave him not only an advantage in terms of performing experience but also a deep appreciation of the connective power of music. The family moved around a lot, first to Calabar in southern Nigeria, then to Nairobi, Sudan, Tanzania and – when he was 16 – Leeds. It was here that Tamaraebi, whose childhood listening had been limited to gospel and (his father’s passion) country, first heard hip hop and “properly fell in love with music”.
So much so that alongside the choir at his nan’s church, he started performing every weekend at a local club’s open-mic nights. That was soon stepped up to a regular Saturday session with a soul-funk band, followed by a short stint as a hired-in member of a trio, which meant travelling from Leeds to London to record old-school, soul-pop songs.
Meanwhile, Tamaraebi had graduated in law from Leeds University, completed his Legal Practice Course and secured a coveted two-year traineeship in London. He moved to the capital – and quit the job after two weeks. Law wasn’t for him, Tam realised. Music was. It was then that he began “trying to figure out how to be an artist”, determined to write and record his own material.
He started seeking out male singers with high voices when he was younger and felt self-conscious about his own - “I used to hate it because I wanted to be normal, like the other guys,” he admits - and while he loved Smokey Robinson and Michael Jackson, it was Prince Rogers Nelson who presented the complete artistic package. Explains Tamaraebi: “I came to Prince late because I wasn’t really allowed to listen to secular music, but he’s everything I want to be as an artist because he was unapologetically himself – how he dressed, how he embodied his masculine and feminine energy, his lyrics were explicit, his videos were mad, his performance was sick… he was just a great guy, especially from his era, when people were a lot more conservative. And he was a Black man.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly for someone who started singing at the age of two and hasn’t really stopped since, Tamaraebi is still hooked on that feeling. “When I sing I don’t feel shy, I enjoy it,” he declares, “because that’s when I feel the most connected to everybody. They’re just in the moment and we share this… thing. It’s like a big group hug and I like that. I definitely feel like I was born to sing.”
Tamaraebi ‘Spectrum’ EP:
1. Brown Angel
2. Waistline
3. Square One
4. Telephone
5. Just Cry
6. Serious
Available May 19 via Believe
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