Tulisa - The Biography (5 page)

Luckily, they had a real-life guardian angel looking over them in the early days, to point them back in the right direction. Always overseeing them was their mentor Byron, or ‘B’ as they took to calling him. If anyone wanted an example of someone who mentored young musicians with attention, wisdom and love, then they could not have done better than watching B work with the three youngsters. Fazer believed that it was B’s disappointment at not fully realising his own musical dreams that drove him to work so carefully and supportively with them. Indeed, B’s mentor role went beyond musical matters. He offered them advice and wisdom for their lives in general. Often, it was only later that they realised just how useful and true his tips and thoughts had been. For instance, he warned Fazer that ‘vampires’ would attach themselves to him once he became famous. This was not just a warning – he also taught the youngster how to recognise such predatory and fake individuals before they got a grip on him.

Tulisa meanwhile has painted a picture of B that suggests he was hard man with a big heart – an attractive and particularly effective combination. For instance, she recalled, if he ever caught whiff that one of the band was indulging in a moment of self-pity he would come down hard on them. ‘He was a very harsh man,’ she said. Indeed, her stepmother Mel claims she once heard B telling a
13-year
-old Tulisa that she needed to lose weight. ‘Byron told her she was fat,’ she said. ‘She was only 13. He said no one wanted to see a fat person on stage. It was so inappropriate.’ Naturally, during the long periods of hard work that come before any act ‘makes it’, there are always moments when individuals concerned will begin to doubt whether it will ever happen for them. Self-pity and crippling doubts are indeed huge enemies of any aspiring artist. Therefore, B’s no-nonsense response to any hint of them was in many ways his greatest gift to the band. To be clear, he was not a tough mentor in the style of, say, Joseph Jackson of the Jackson 5. Rather, he gave them appropriate love all the time – of both the soft and tough varieties. Within the band Dappy also played a role as motivator – encouraging Fazer to pull his weight, for instance.

B’s striking down of their doubts was just one of many gifts diligently offered over the years. For instance, the way he assembled the equipment for the band in the studio was imaginative as well as generous. The speakers he gave to Fazer were a Christmas present, the keyboard was an abandoned instrument he had lying around in his house. Then he would get an unwanted microphone from somewhere and a computer somehow too, and before Tulisa and her band-mates knew it they had an impressively equipped functioning studio. Plato helped teach them how to use all the gear. However, it was B who truly moulded what became the N-Dubz style and attitude. As Fazer wrote, ‘The main part of…the N-Dubz philosophy comes from him, no two ways about it.’ It was almost as if B was the screenwriter of their story, guiding and shaping the themes of what would become the N-Dubz drama.

He was, in fact, a man of many roles and talents. Indeed, Fazer considered his uncle to be ‘almost like a community leader’ in the role he had in Tulisa’s band. He wanted to get as many young people as possible out of the grips of temptation and negativity. He encouraged Tulisa, Fazer and Dappy to bring any of their friends to the studio so they could share in the fun and opportunities he wanted to provide. ‘Bring all the ghetto boys here, bring them in here off the streets, man,’ he would tell them. As the band remembered, he was never one to be intimidated. Sometimes the studio would be full of ‘ghetto boys’ and all manner of colourful characters. B would not be scared by this. Instead, he would walk in and act like he owned the place – which he did. In doing so, he won the respect of such folk, as they are rarely impressed by anyone in whom they sense fear. Mel, Tulisa’s stepmother, has a more cynical theory regarding B and Plato’s motivation. ‘All that stuff about making them perform music to get them off the streets, I don’t think that’s the only reason,’ she said. ‘Byron and Plato also saw it as a way to make money.’

Make no mistake about it – B wanted to turn these people away from crime and negative, destructive behaviour. He wanted to keep Tulisa and her band-mates far away from such conduct, too. As Dappy candidly put it: ‘He knew if he didn’t help me I could get in trouble and maybe go to jail, or get hurt.’ He even arranged for them to participate in a tour for the UK Crimestoppers charity. It was a strange choice for a band aiming at an urban market to take. Although Crimestoppers is an independent organisation it is perceived as being a wing of the police. As Fazer put it, the three band members ‘hated the police’ at this stage. However, B knew what he was doing. Firstly, he was subtly showing them that he did not want them pursuing a life of crime. Secondly, he was showing them that there were immediate rewards to be had by ‘staying straight’. The reward was not just the live experience. They also earned £200 per night. Tulisa felt great: she was earning money for making music. Her sense of
self-worth
rose again. While the occasions of N-Dubz live performances sometimes seemed incongruous, bands cannot afford to be picky in their nascent times. Even pop royalty such as Take That and leading boy band The Wanted did scores of dates to tiny audiences of schoolchildren as they bid to make it in pop. Indeed, Take That even did a tour in conjunction with the Family Planning Association during their early days. It is fair to say that the finer points of contraception were not at the forefront of many of their fans’ imaginations as they screamed at the hip-gyrating boys.

Sometimes the band would not take on a suggestion B made. For instance, he once said when they were discussing a promotional video that it should feature guitarists dressed in ninja suits. He then suggested that he and his brother would appear in the video. The band laughed off his suggestion and said there was no way they were letting them appear in one of their videos. In reply B told them: ‘You’re nothing, man, you’re amateur to us, you little rascals! Shut up, Dappy, you’re my sperm – you be quiet!’ These moments of banter could not mask what was a mutually respectful relationship between the band and their mentor.

****

Romantic adventures continued and Tulisa’s spiritual side also developed. The more sensible relationship she had embarked on in the wake of her tumultuous times was bearing fruit. Her partner had, in her words, been ‘a player’ prior to them getting together. At the start of their relationship they were quite laidback about things but they began to get slowly more serious about one another. Tulisa puts part of this down to her developing a belief and faith in God. Her religious awakening not only took her away from ‘dark times’ it also gave her a renewed sense of personal worth and esteem. Her partner reacted to this not by panicking as some men would but by feeling even more attracted to her. He did, she said, ‘pack in the crap’ and get serious with her at last.

Things got even more serious when they got drunk one night and decided to get engaged. It was, as Tulisa tells the story, more a mutual decision rather than a case of one or other of them getting down on bended knee. Indeed, the engagement was a ‘facade’ according to Tulisa. Nevertheless, as a 19-year-old and into her early twenties, she was engaged to be married. The relationship then ended. It had been more a matter of convenience for some time, with neither party willing at first to bring it to an official end. ‘We were just in the groove and it was an easy thing to do,’ she reflected later. Eventually they did split but Tulisa is keen to emphasise that this was not caused by any misbehaviour on her part. Rumours that they split after she had cheated on him are without foundation, she has said. She insists that as someone who is not oriented on sex she is always happy with just one man in her life. However, the fact remained that after she and her fiancé broke it off she was 21 and single. She had come a long way from those tumultuous times she endured after her painful break-up. By now she felt she was a ‘fully empowered woman’. She was wiser and more confident partly as a result of the harsh experiences she had endured and partly as a result of her growing faith. The passage of time and the maturity that naturally grows as a result also had a part to play in the new Tulisa.

The next man in her life was actually a blast from her past – an ‘old crush’ of hers called Justin, whose stage name was Ultra. She had dated him before but nothing serious or lasting had come of it. This time they got on better. The communication was more honest and profound; a connection was made. Previously there had been some game-playing but as they became reacquainted, Tulisa felt the difference. As they embarked on a fresh, more serious relationship Tulisa spoke very positively of what they had together. She wrote in
Against All Odds:
‘Finally, this feels right. For the first time ever it feels like a completely comfortable and trusting relationship that’s equal on both sides. It’s my first time of being in love as a love should be.’ Most significantly, she said she had finally become involved in a relationship because she
wanted
to be with someone rather than feeling she needed to be. She had, she felt, grown from a slightly needy girl into a woman who did not need or even want ‘imitations of love’. Although her relationship with Justin was not to last, the confidence it ignited in her make it a highly significant milestone in her life. She felt and knew she deserved real love. It had just become a lot harder for any man to treat Tulisa badly, or for her to take herself into difficult, painful situations.

With her band gathering experience and momentum and her personal confidence the highest it had ever been, Tulisa could afford to feel optimistic that good times were ahead for her. How right she was. With their sound and image coming together, Tulisa’s band wanted to push things to a new level. They wanted to be noticed. The band was beginning to gather some mentions in small journals. Meanwhile, they were building their own mini-library of photographs of themselves rehearsing, recording and performing live. They were ready to be introduced to the media. B assembled these together to build a home-made ‘press kit’ for the band. Were they signed to a record label the press relations team would have thrown its resources into compiling a kit of information and photographs with which to promote the act to the media. For Tulisa and her band-mates they had to start one step away. Their roughly assembled kit was put together to attract both a record label and the press. Anyone, in fact, who could or would help them up the musical ladder.

Assembling these kits and then posting them out was a mundane task for B. A painful one, too: he got paper cuts and even broke fingernails as he sent out many hundreds of missives on behalf of the band over a period of several months. The band members would then have to endure the three responses familiar to all who have tried to break into the music industry: mass silence, cold ‘no thank you’s and insincere interest. It was the third one that really got them down. They were so keen to get a record label or press attention that when people promised them the earth it was a painful blow to realise that the promises were not going to be kept.

These testing times were actually a useful education for Tulisa. The entertainment industry has plenty of fickle characters who will pay you lavish attention one moment and then disappear completely when they spot a more tempting or important person over your shoulder. This happens literally, at show business and music industry parties, and more metaphorically, where the flavour of the month is suddenly ruthlessly dropped as a new exciting prospect appears. Record companies lose interest overnight in backing a previously favoured act. The press builds up entertainers and other celebrities, casting them as the golden child of the day, only to either forget about them abruptly, or continue to write about them but in the most destructive, intrusive and negative of ways. Therefore, the insincere promises that she and her band received from B’s mail-outs were useful lessons for them.

That said, the frustration soon became too much to bear for the man at the heart of guiding Tulisa’s band. ‘I’m not doing this package shit no more,’ said B. However, rather than give up on the dream, he and the band all agreed that they had to change tack. There must be a better way to make it happen. They decided that a video of them was required in order to grab the attention of the industry. It was a wise choice. A video is always harder to ignore. Also, given the energy, cheek and attitude that were the strong point of the band, a moving image was always going to show them in their best light. For sultry acts that were low on charisma, a moody black-and-white still was the order of the day. For this band, the more energy the better.

The first steps for the band came when they recorded a song called ‘Bad Man Riddim’. Their second single, ‘Life is Getting Sicker By The Day’, saw them garner more attention, thanks to the nationwide play it received on pirate radio. They changed their name in time to NW1, the postcode of Camden Town. They then recorded further demos, including tracks called ‘Every Day Of My Life, ‘Don’t Feel Like Moving’, ‘Girl On Road’ and ‘Livin Broke’. Then they released a download-only single called ‘You Better Not Waste My Time’. An early champion of their music was urban digital channel Channel U. Having originally got their rough promotional videos on to the channel’s night time playlist they then broke onto the
day-time 
playlist. Viewers were able to vote to see the video and they began to do so in numbers. The band noticed at their live shows that a lot of the audience seemed to be Channel U aficionados. People would also sometimes approach them in the street to ask if they were ‘that band from Channel U’.

This was all a great boost to their spirits. Meanwhile, their energy continued to be boosted by B. Tulisa’s insights into his workings are particularly moving. In the book
Against All Odds
she paints him as a man full of energy, ideas and love. Sometimes that love was tough, as we have already seen. For instance, when she arrived at the studio one day in a bad frame of mind due to her mother’s ongoing health issues, he asked her why she was bringing to the studio with her ‘all that shit at home that’s doing your nut in’ and, in doing so, doing the nuts in of her
band-mates
. At the time she was enraged by his words but when she looked back she saw how they were just what she and her band-mates needed.