“We stay on the front lines, yeah, but we’re still here, after the bomb drops/We go so hard, we lose control/The fre starts, then we explode/When the smoke clears, we dry our tears/Only in love and war,” Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Tamar Braxton sings on the title track of her 2013 comeback album Love and War – her first album in 13 years that she describes as “a true description of who I am as a woman and as an artist.
Though the album successfully debuted at #1 on the Bilboard R&8 Charts and #2 on the Billboard 200 Charts, selling over 114,000 units in the first week, the truth is, nobody else could get back in the game like she did. The album came out just 3 months after the June 6 delivery of her first child, Logan (Braxton has been married to Vincent Herbert since 2008), and she had already broken a blood vessel on each of her vocal cords by then. Experiencing five failed record deals and being dropped from numerous record labels before the Love and War release. However, she refused to step back even a bit; rather, Braxton went on a national SIX-week tour with John Legend. In the midst of the tour, furthermore, she released her first Christmas album, Winter Loversland, and a month later, she won three titles at the 2013 Soul Train Awards, including Best Female R&B/Soul Artist. “It was just really, really hard. I’m just glad that I’m not there anymore and I’m on the mend,” Braxton says of the vocal issues. “They are not bruised anymore, but I just have to stay very disciplined. I can’t really have alcohol. I can’t really go out. I can’t smoke. And, I have to be quiet during the day to just kind of get through but it’s all worth it.’
After hitting the road with R. Kelly earlier this year, she embarked on her very own Love and War Tour. “Stay focused and definitely stay organized getting your life because if you are all over the place, you’d never get anything accomplished, so that’s my number 1 ‘Get Your Life’ rule,” affirms Braxton.
The 37-year-old R&B vocal powerhouse kicked off her career when she founded R&B group The Braxtons in 1989 with her sisters Toni, Traci, Towanda and Trina. In 1991, Toni left the group to pursue a solo career, and the remaining Braxton sisters became backup singers for Toni. But, it was none other than Whitney Houston, who quickly recognized the infallible sign of talent in then 14-year-old Tamar.
“I remember seeing her in the audience, and she kept pointing at me, but I didn’t know what she was pointing at. After the show backstage, she was like, ‘Good! Go girl!You can sing! You are going to be a star one day!” I just remembered that when she passed away – those words she said to me, and it’s really encouraged me thus far,” she looks back on the encounter with Houston.
To complement her astonishing achievements as an artist, she’s also been an accomplished reality TV star on WE tv’s Braxton Family Values and Tamar & Vince as well as a brilliant talk show host on The Real on FOX (also in a second window on BET). Additionally, Braxton released a relationship book Love and War (co-written by her “husbanger Vince Herbert, of course) last November and has had her own fashion line, Get Your Lite (“the clothing that would make you feel confident and dope”), since 2012.
“I love every single job that 1 have, and they all appear in different roles. On Braxton Family Values. I play a sister, and that’s the role that you see me in. And, on Tamar & Vince, you see me as a wife, and now a mom and an entrepreneur trying to do my things as a woman,” she adds. “And, on The Real, you see me as Tamar, your homegirl, your girlfriend, the person you’d go out and have a Martini with to talk about things you care about like entertainment, fashion, relationships, and fun things like that.”
As the aforementioned Love and War success has certainly cemented Tamar Braxton as one of the strong forces in the current R&B scene (the album and its title single garnered her three Grammy nominations), here’s her response to Whitney Houston right now: “You are an amazing singer, and thank you so much for sharing your gift with the world. I love you so much. And, I hear you in my head every single day, especially the wonderful kind words that you gave me when
was younger.”
Follow Tamar Braxton
Photo: Robert Ector
Article: Eiko Watanabe
