Tulisa - The Biography (11 page)

With the underdog card played, the second N-Dubz favourite theme is introduced in the chorus, when the band declare that everything will be all right. Positive unity in the face of adversity – this was brilliant, vintage N-Dubz stuff. The house music duo Bodyrox collaborated on the fine backing track, making this a magnificent three minutes and seven seconds of music. With dancing placed as a metaphor for facing the challenges life throws at us, this was almost an urban, 21st-century twist on the 1930s
big-band
song ‘Let’s Face The Music And Dance’. It was also compared in theme by two critics to the sort of message reggae star Bob Marley would impart. ‘Like a big bowl of chicken soup, this leaves you feeling warm, fuzzy and generally a bit better inside,’ said Digital Spy. Too right it does. From Tulisa’s personal perspective, the most pleasing critical response to the song came in the
Mirror
, where Gavin Martin wrote: ‘Often forced to take a back seat while her male counterparts lead, N-Dubz’ front lady Tulisa comes out front for this crowd-pleasing and unifying floor filler with a hint of classical spice.’

Perhaps the final word on this remarkable moment in Tulisa’s band’s career should go to BBC website critic Fraser McAlpine, who accurately placed the song’s message in the context of the lives of Tulisa, Dappy and Fazer, as well as admitting it brought him to tears listening to it. ‘They know they have the strength to get through the bad times, because they have already had to find this out, the hard way. And so long as they’ve got each other to rely on, the way they always have, well there’s nothing they can’t do…’ It reached No 6 in the UK singles chart. With such a great lead single, optimism and expectation were high for their forthcoming third album. Before that hit the shops a second single from it was released, called ‘Best Behaviour’, which we will discuss below.

The album was released in collaboration between Island Records and All Around The World. It had been reported that Island Def Jam boss LA Reid – a hugely successful and influential music industry figure – had become a big fan of the band and was keen to sign them. It was reported that he rolled out the red carpet for the band in America, arranging helicopter trips and plush meals. The Island Def Jam A&R man Max Gousse announced that a deal had been struck with the band. He said: ‘I signed N-Dubz because they’re great entertainers and speak to London’s youth unlike any other band. We want to bring their message to the rest of the world.’ No wonder Gousse was proud of the deal – it had been he who had first brought the act to attention of Reid and the other label bosses. Fazer spoke for himself, Tulisa and Dappy when he said: ‘Getting a US deal is something we’ve been working towards for a while and we can’t wait to get out to the States and have our music heard globally.’

The band found they had a clash of cultures with their new producers when it came to their liberal use of certain British slang terms. ‘We worked with some massive names: Jean Baptiste, who works with Black Eyed Peas, Salaam Remi, who does a lot of Amy Winehouse’s stuff, and Jim Jonsin, who worked on Beyoncé’s last album,’ said Dappy in an interview with the
Daily Star
. ‘And to be honest it was tough at times trying to get our lingo across to them. We were saying stuff like: “I swear down, man”, but they didn’t know what we were talking about. They didn’t like the slang and tried to get us to talk proper English. We got our vocab up to scratch a bit but we also said to them: “We come from the country that made the English language, just trust us.” We put our creative foot down and in the end lost none of our Englishness.’ He was in ebullient mood – even making the boastful claim that the prestigious American producers had eventually deferred to him and his male band mate. ‘Me and Fazer do all the post-production on our records – the arrangement, the beats, the mixing. We take it from a demo to the finished product,’ he said. ‘We couldn’t stand aside even when working with those big American guys. In the end they said to us: “You know what, you guys might as well sit at the desk and do it yourselves.” That was great to hear.’

The album begins with a short track called ‘Intro’. After Dappy has made some rather half-baked remarks about life in Baghdad, Basra and other hard-hit areas, the song rather fades away. It is not an opener in the class of
Against All Odds’
intro. ‘Best Behaviour’ begins by dealing with the highs and lows of touring and the feeling when the act returns home to normality at the end of it. Here, the band cries out for the stability of a real love. Tulisa is again on strong vocal form, singing about how she cried on the floor of an empty room following a tour. The song develops into a decent indictment of a feeling that plagues many live performers: what is the use of being cheered by thousands of audience members if there is not that special one person to love you when the curtain goes down. It is a gentle enough song, but it takes a more intense angle when the lyrics warn of ‘danger’ if a partner is not found soon. Tulisa sings emotionally as the song comes towards its end.

For the next track, ‘Took It All Away’, it is as if the band have worried that all that yearning for love in ‘Best Behaviour’ had shown a bit too much sensitivity. So in ‘Took It All Away’, Dappy is soon admitting to a number of infidelities with girls. Tulisa is fuming in her lyrics, calling Dappy a ‘traitor’, and leaving him complaining that she responded with such anger. She taunts him that it is now her who is flirting with others. In ‘Living For The Moment’, Tulisa sings about her own life, in a cramped council flat with her mother, and how she was the one that had to save them. It might not seem the most positive of songs, and one that sees Dappy drop numerous F-bombs. However, the ultimate message is that listeners should let go of anything that has bothered them in their past and instead live for the moment. For Tulisa this was a particularly pertinent message. Anyone who knew of her past would consider her well placed to deliver this message.

A similar message is delivered in ‘Love Live Life’, the next track. However, this time it is delivered in a more positive – and certainly more commercial – fashion. The song is in part a throwback to the house sounds of the late 1980s, when the band members were scarcely alive. In ‘Scream My Name’, the band speak about the experiences of fame. With its references to Twitter and YouTube, as well as its sense of a star who wants to be loved, it is in a way – and N-Dubz fans may like to avert their eyes for a moment – almost like a Justin Bieber song. It is certainly narcissism at its finest.

‘Love Sick’ is one for the ladies, in which Tulisa and Lady NY sing about how the romantic hopes and expectations of the fairer sex are not always matched by the realities of life. Although Tulisa did not write the lyrics, they reflect well the experiences she had with many guys earlier in life. Again, a positive message comes out in the end. Although she does not appear in ‘Toot It And Boot It’, the song remains relevant to Tulisa. Many women – even those who do not self-define as feminists – would be uncomfortable with some of the lyrics and imagery of songs like this. Whether Tulisa’s ‘feisty’ image is compromised or in fact strengthened by the fact that she is in a musical genre that frequently refers to women in less than flattering terms is a matter of taste. The question is resolved in part later in the album.

He and Fearless later trade lyrics of fury aimed at an unnamed wannabe act who worked hard for fame but never achieved it, in contrast to their own sincerity and success. It’s an angry song that takes no prisoners and spares no blushes. In ‘So Alive’, Skepta guests. In the promotional video he rather dwarfs the band. That said, Tulisa looks magnificent in her white outfit. The lyrics of the chorus again encourage listeners to hold their hands up to the sky. In the second verse, Tulisa attempts to show the world who the real (female) boss is. She then boasts that she drives men crazy, as they all wish she was theirs. Tulisa also says that she is earning more money than any of the men who fancy her. It is her answer to those who doubted how she existed in such a macho world as urban music. It might not be enough for all observers, some of whom will just say that she is the subject of male domination. However, in this song the female boss is in no doubt over where she stands. In ‘Cold Shoulder’, she shares the lyrics with Dappy as they each beckon a lover to spend a passionate night with them. Again, she stands here on equal terms with the men of the world.

In ‘Morning Star’, the band goes all romantic on us. Both Tulisa and Dappy show hitherto rarely demonstrated sensitive sides. The lyrics even hint at the classic soul song ‘Wishing On A Star’. This is a song about a special someone and the love that can be shared with them, rather than about hump ’em and dump ’em encounters, as many of their other songs have been. Tulisa pleads with the man not to go. Given its late place in the album’s track list,
N-Dubz
are also sending that message to their fans. There is still more they want to show the fans, they are saying. Little could anyone have known as the album was released quite how long it would be until such demonstrations would begin.

The outro then brings album to a theatrical close. Again, we have the bookend theme, as in
Against All Odds
. Except here we get the addition of the aforementioned triumph that is ‘We Dance On’. Given the indefinite hiatus N-Dubz are on at the time of going to press, perhaps this song is a fitting closing message.

In the
Daily Mirror
, Gavin Martin said Tulisa and co were ‘boisterous’ and ‘upbeat’. However he added that the quality ‘wavers’ and gave the album just three out of five stars. The
Evening Standard’
s David Smyth gave it the same score, and complained that: ‘They’re in too much of a hurry to develop their frantic, hip-pop sound.’ Perhaps the most positive part of his review came in passing: he described the band as ‘rising fast towards national institution status’. For Andy Gill of the
Independent
, the album was mostly ‘fairly predictable fare’. Awarding it three stars, he nonetheless said ‘So Alive’ is ‘blessed with an ebullient bonhomie which, despite the lingering attitude, proves engagingly infectious.’ Killian Fox of the
Observer
wrote that the album: ‘sees the Camden trio blowing the spoils of their success on Gucci and champagne’ and complained that ‘the insistence on having fun soon wears thin’.

It was Caroline Sullivan of the
Guardian
who spotlighted Tulisa’s place in the collection. ‘If they sound transatlantic, their lyrics are still quintessentially British, especially on “Living for the Moment” … Their teen audience will love it; adults may find it all too frantic.’ Again, she awarded the album three out of five stars.
Metro
, too, focused on our heroine’s contribution to that song, declaring that: ‘Singer Tulisa takes an appealingly spirited turn on “Living For The Moment” and there’s something oddly endearing about the boundless enthusiasm of N-Dubz for enjoying a life they’ve grafted hard for.’ It was slightly guarded praise, but praise nonetheless.

Which is more than could be said for the review of the
Scotsman
. It began by saying of Dappy that he is ‘a rapper who makes Flavor Flav look like Stephen Hawking’ and said the band had ‘never been taken as seriously’ as acts such as Tinie Tempah. ‘Even with the occasional sweary word, it’s still just kids’ stuff,’ concluded Fiona Shepherd, giving it just two stars. Fraser McAlpine also took aim at Dappy, writing in the
NME
that he is ‘a self-righteous storm in a tea cosy’. He gave the album five out of 10 stars, saying: ‘This is, of course, both crackers and compelling, like a philosophy lecture in a chimps’ tea party.’ Plenty of record buyers were happy to give the tea party a chance.
Love.Live.Life
reached UK No 7 and an exciting UK No 3 in the RnB chart. At the time of writing, it is the last
N-Dubz
album to be released. Tulisa would now move to new areas – and her fame would rocket.

****

Before she decided it was ‘time..to face…the muusssic’ of
The X Factor,
Tulisa had another stab at acting. She took the part of Amber in a British horror film called
Demons Never Die
. It follows the knock-on effect that a suicide has on a group of friends. Other people to act in it included
Misfits
star Robert Sheehan,
Hollyoaks’
Emma Rigby and
Hustle
actor Ashley Walters. For Tulisa, this was a break into a new part of the arts world and one she welcomed. Since watching films such as
Tomb Raider
and
Resident Evil
she had been keen to get into the world of acting. ‘The movie’s got that urban twist, but it’s also very dark,’ she said. As such, it had one foot firmly in one of Tulisa’s favourite cinematic genres, with an original and refreshing twist. ‘I love urban films, but it’s nice to be able to combine urban with something else and I think this is the first to be able to do that; here it’s not just revolving around urban life; it’s actually got a plot within urban life.’

‘The character I play is a pretty dark one – very on edge and unstable. It seems she’s like that because of a boy, so it’s not too hard to relate to! I remember when I was 15 years old, but she’s a bit psychotic and has a lot of issues going on. It’s all about this suicide that’s happened and why it’s happened.’ Although Tulisa’s acting experience was not particularly deep at the time, she knew enough from past acting ventures to evaluate and appreciate how helpful it was for her to be playing a part of someone who had been through similar experiences to her. ‘It’s always easier to play a character if you’ve experienced those issues yourself. Obviously she’s quite depressed and when I was a kid I went through certain issues; so it was easier to get in to that mode.’ On a lighter note, she said: ‘I’ve always wanted to do a real kicking butt role. A bit of a Lara Croft,
Tomb Raider
… I love the
Resident Evil
character. Being able to learn a fighting skill and having to do training… just beating people up and I’ve got guns in holsters on my thighs which I pull out.’