Soul singer Tanika Charles opens up about her new album, Reasons to Stay
In a new interview on The Block, the Juno-nominated musician looks back on how her family shaped the record
Singer-songwriter Tanika Charles recently released Reasons to Stay, a new album tackling her complex family history.
In a new interview with The Block, Charles discussed the new project while also looking back on her past albums, including 2019's The Gumption, which was was longlisted for the Polaris Music Prize.
Charles joined host Angeline Tetteh-Wayoe to talk about her formative musical years, being inspired by her brother and more.
You can hear the full interview above and read an excerpt below.
Welcome Tanika Charles to The Block, baby. Full disclosure, Tanika and I go way back.
So far back.
So far back.
Back when you used to spit.
I know. And I would tell people, "Tanika Charles, she's so great. She could stack like 25 harmonies."
And you too, come on!
No, I couldn't do harmonies. I would get distracted by the other notes. I'm so bad at it. Anyway, before we get into it and off track completely, that track that we just heard, Different Morning, kind of strayed from your usual style of soul revival. What attracted you to that particular sound for that song?
I'm going to kind of take it back a little bit. So, and I really hope that I don't get in trouble for saying this, but I'd received a grant and I had a deadline and I honestly think the songs weren't as cohesive as maybe Reasons to Stay, this upcoming album. So I just collected a bunch of songs and I was working with different producers and I heard this beat and I'm like, "This is dope. It is not gonna match any of the music that I've done before. And none of the music that's going on the album now." And it just had a nice feel to it.
And I thought, "You know what, I could use a feature," and DijahSB is an artist that I find so engaging [and] hilarious online, but also just skilled, like prolific, [and] I really wanted to work with them. And I sent a message and I was like, "I've got this track, would you be interested?" [I] sent the track over, it was back in a day and it was fire. And that's basically how that came to be. But it was just a sound that I was attracted to.
[It] had a little bit of dancey vibes, like that four-on-the-floor [beat].
Yes.
I'm not mad at it. I want to take it back even further to the young Tanika Charles. I have had the opportunity to work with your brother, so I know that your family is talented musically. Your brother played a bunch of instruments. Your other brother sings. Your mom sang in church. So what was the house like?
Not as musical as you would think. It was my dad coming home from working out of town, so he worked in Fort McMurray, and he would only come home on the weekends. So the three days that he'd come home, [we would] clean the house, my mom would make his favourite food, and after dinner he would sit down, have a rum and coke and play music. And it was jazz mostly. George Benson, George Duke, Spyro Gyra, Quincy Jones, Bob James. These are the musicians that I would listen to when I was growing up and my dad would say, "Listen to the instrumentation and listen to the lyrics of songs and if you were to sing, make sure you pronounce the words." And I would always just harmonize because harmonies are fun. And I would come around the house and sing along. Some of the songs wouldn't have lyrics and I just [came] up with some nonsense. So the family would sit down after dinner and listen to music and Rudy, my older brother—
Yeah, Rudy.
He would always play [music]. He had the Triton, which was a massive keyboard and the most popular one at the time.
Yeah.
So he'd have a Triton at home. He'd have his sax. He would have all of these instruments and he was always creating. When I got into music, I'm going to give the credit to my older brother.
Rudy?
Yes, 100 per cent. Even though we had and we have a tumultuous relationship, he is so incredibly skilled at what he does, and he was the one that kind of encouraged me to take up singing, I guess. I like to sing.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length. To hear the full interview, listen to The Block on CBC Music.
