Tamika Scott Talks Music, Entrepreneurship & Finding Confidence as a Solo Artist

To know the name Tamika Scott is to know good R&B. Being a part of the 90s R&B group Xscape set her on a path of trajectory that can’t be matched. Xscape has been through a lot, but all members have prevailed, and are successful individually. Scott has recently released her debut solo EP, Family Affair, and is coming into her own as a solo artist. Outside of music, Scott has various business ventures, and goals she wants to achieve. (Full audio interview is below)

Let me just, you know, start off by saying you have not lost a single beat. I’ve seen y’all perform twice. When y’all came here to Baltimore, and then down to Essence Festival. Y’all were together, everybody was on point, the dancing, the vocals; you guys showed these young ones how to do it. Y’all have not lost a single beat whatsoever. 

Thank you! Thank you!

Congratulations on your solo debut EP, and your top 30 single “Go Outside in the Rain.” How has it been for you, for it to be your first solo EP? And then also to still have success as a solo artist? 

It feels so good. It really does. The song “Go Outside in the Rain” is a song that my group, Xscape, was singing back in the 90s by Milira, she put that song out. So we would go to the talent shows, we would win talent shows, but that was our trump card. So yeah, I wanted to redo it, but I wanted to do it in my own way. Milira, she reposted my video and gave me the thumbs-up side and felt like, yes I did that. When she approved it, I was good.

You definitely made heartbreak sound, and look so beautiful. It just hit me like, “Oh I’m feeling feelings I ain’t know I had.”

Yeah, ‘cause a heartbreak, let me tell you… It can make you feel like you don’t even want to live no more. Some people get in situations where you just lose yourself. But this song right here is like, ‘let me just go outside and disguise my pain with this rain, and let the rainfall. ‘Cause I don’t want people to know how hard, how bad I’m broken on the inside.’ So yeah, I love the song. One of my favorites off my EP Family Affair. 

Would you say that you do have a favorite song? 

I think all of them are my favorite, ‘cause this is about my life story. Family Affair is basically about things I’ve been through, you know, the hurt, being hurt. “What Was I Thinking” is talking about like ‘why did I stay in this relationship, this toxic relationship for so long.’ You know, sometimes we stay in relationships just to please family members or friends, you lose yourself. It’s not even about yourself. It was like, “What Was I Thinking?”

And then, you know, “Go Outside in the Rain,” being hurt in that relationship… and then from there, falling in love with someone else but afraid to submit to that love, “All of Me.” That song right is featuring my brother Q Parker from the group 112, and RL from the group Next, he wrote and produced that song. I have that one on there, and it talks about reflection, you know, loving on what you have, or reflecting on the things. So it’s just a big open book of Tamika Scott’s life. 

Right. And speaking of reflection, how will that be you making it, you know, a Family Affair, with your daughters. 

Yes! You know my oldest Oshun, she was the Xscape’s first baby. They always say she was Xscape’s first baby (Scott was pregnant with Oshun in the “Love on My Mind” video). She’s singing. Her vocals, oh my gosh. She’s singing, she can sing so good. Like her runs are on the same level as my sister’s run. She has a beautiful voice. She’s on there. Young Niyah, she’s my rapper.

You know, I signed her to my label, Brolic Entertainment, I started my own label, and she’s the first artist. She’s known as the Princess of the South, so that’s Young Niyah, she’s on there. So that song does mean a lot to me because we talk about a mother’s love, you know, what you would do for your kids. You know, your kids hurt, you hurt. You know when they shine, you shine. Like I’m here for you. I said, ‘when I see you, I see me’ type of song.

Why would you say it took you so long to release, you know, your own solo EP?

I consider myself an actor. When the group disbanded in 2000, I started acting, which I felt like was my first love. I felt like I act better than I sing, so I really wasn’t into the singing thing, but I always wrote songs. I was always writing for artists, and just writing for people in; I had a situation last year when I went in for surgery. It was supposed to be an outpatient surgery for a hysterectomy, but my doctor messed up. I had to be rushed back to the hospital. It was a song that I wrote called “Almost Over,” it’s an inspirational song that I wrote. I was like so depressed. I was in a hospital, fighting for my life, not knowing, you know… you think about certain things like dang. You know, my kids, if something happens to me, what’s going to happen to my kids? 

So I had a lot of things that were like burdens, like a burning deep down. This song right here; my husband put this song on cause it’s an inspirational song. And when I listened to it, it cheered me up. It took me out my dark place, and I listened to it over and over again. And you know, I said, “okay, if this works for me, I know it’ll help somebody else.” So I wanted to inspire somebody else. I said I’m going to put this phone out as a single last year. And it ended up being a whole EP off of that song. 

Are you good now? You okay, health-wise?

Yes. I am, praise the Lord. Yes, I am. It took a while, you know, but I had to have like four other procedures just to fix that one procedure from a hysterectomy. So yeah, God is, he’s definitely been good. 

I had to make sure you were good cause that’s serious

Awww, thank you.

No problem. So you said acting was your first love. When it comes to music, was it something that you necessarily had to fall back in love with? Or was it just like with acting, an hand in hand sort of thing?

I never fell out of love with it, I just wasn’t that confident in myself to think that I was a solo artist. I do my parts in the group. When it’s time for me to do my verse, I kill it, then I get back in the back. And then my other sisters will go up and kill it. So, it wasn’t that I wanted… I had to get confident to know that I could do it. 

I’m telling you, seeing you, seeing y’all live, you can do it now. You can do it, okay. I’ve seen you dance, and I’ve heard the vocals, and let me tell you, the vocals match up live with the production. So you can do it. Yeah. 

Thank you. Thank you. 

Do you have any acting projects that you’re working on right now? 

Actually, I’m writing and producing a series about teenagers. So I’m writing on that right now. I want to be behind the scenes as well, you know. I love singing, I love singing with my group, I love doing individual, but I have other talents as well. So I want to try to find other talented kids, other talented people out there to work with. 

Oh, that’s beautiful. Can you talk a little bit about your upcoming web series Xscape The Mic? What can we expect from that? 

Well, people know Tamika Scott as Tamika Scott of Xscape, but it’s different layers to me. I am a mother. I am a wife, I’m a glammom. I’m an entrepreneur. I have my own label. I’m a mommager. So it’s just allowing people to see me in a whole nother light because I think I’m a comedian in my own right. I just haven’t wrote my material out, so it is just to show it me as Tamika, that you’ve never seen before. 

Being all of those things, right. How have you been able to balance the celebrity, star power, entertainer, with being a wife and a mother? 

I think it was easy. I think it was my upbringing, I always was taught to be humble. It doesn’t matter what you have, or, you know how much money you have, or what kind of talents you have. Everybody’s the same. Nobody is bigger than nobody else. So I’ve always been taught to be humble, so it helps me a lot. Even being a wife, you know. Being a successful entertainer, I still submit to my husband. I still cook, I clean, or when I’m at home, I do the wifely duties and I, I encourage my husband. I love on my husband, he helps out a lot. Even being just who I am. 

Given the fact that you have been successful for so long, have there been any real obstacles in terms of you know, maintaining that balance of home, mom, wife and celebrity? 

I have a great support system. Like when it gets to the point where I have to be out of town for a long time, my mom steps in, my husband’s mom steps in. Or Oshun, which is my oldest, she’ll come and help whenever I need help. So my support system is the bomb . com.

That’s great.

So it makes everything easy for me to be the entertainer that I am. God is good, I’m telling you.

All right now! 2020 coming up, you know, hopefully, we can still go back and do everyday things. Something that you hope to put forward?

Ohhh, let me tell you, I need a trainer. I want to work out, okay. I’m working on a cooking show, when I finish the cooking show, Ima need a training show. ‘Cause I’m sitting the house, gaining all this weight from eating all this good food. Woo, I tell you. 

I understand. I look at the scale and be like “uh huh, we’re not gonna do that evilness today.” 

I might  need to run around the house a couple of times, but every time I go out, my neighbors they be like “hey.” They try and come over. I’m like, no, no, no, no, no. Social distancing, stay on over there on the side of the road. So I don’t know. We gotta figure this out. Might run up and down the steps, gotta do something. I can’t be the big girl on the stage. I’m already the thickest out the group. I don’t need to add no more pounds on top of the curves that I already have. 

So my last question. Is there anything that you want the people to know? What don’t we know about you that you want to put out into the universe? 

I want to tell the people to,  I want to thank them first of all for supporting us, the group Xscape, us individually, collectively. I just want to tell everybody to love themselves. Learn to love yourself. Love is a big thing. You know, you can’t look for validation outside. Once you validate yourself, and love yourself, there’s nothing more you can’t conquer. And I want to tell everybody by EP  is available.  Family Affair is available on all digital platforms. Spotify, iTunes, Pandora, amazon.com. You can stream it, download it, just purchase it and just support your girl.