May 31, 2007 @ 3:13 pm

Take Me As I Am

by: Julianne Shepherd

R&B singer Teedra Moses on her forthcoming album - and why she made it for no one but herself.

It's been nearly three years since sweet-voiced Teedra Moses' debut album, Complex Simplicity, produced modest but indelible hits - the Jadakiss collabo "You'll Never Find (A Better Woman)," the starry-eyed "Be Your Girl," the parking-lot fight joint "Betta Tell Her." After dropping that album and embarking on a few small tours, Moses seemed to lay low. But even if you didn't see her face, you definitely heard her songs - she spent 2004-2007 writing tracks like "Dip It Low" (Christina Milian), "So Lady" (Mary J. Blige) and "Finally Made Me Happy" (Macy Gray). These days, however, the NOLA-born, LA-dwelling singer is ready to get back to business. Moses' second album, The Young Lioness (TVT), is due this August, and features production by Cool & Dre, Raphael Saadiq, Shaundrae "Bossy" Crawford aka Bangladesh, and 9th Wonder, along with features by Raheem DeVaughan and Big Boi. After her first NYC show in two years, The Young Lioness told vibe.com about figuring out who she is, the most important boys in her life (hint: they're twins) and how myspace resurrected her faith in her singing career. Your last album, Complex Simplicity, came out in 2004. Where have you been?
I wasn't working on a new album for a whole year and a half - I was just working on records and writing for other artists. And I'm not the kind of person who's just gonna put together an album in two months or two weeks. I like to present myself over a period of time. There are songs on my new album that I wrote maybe two, three years ago - I like to compile a lot of different emotions over a period of time so you get a better idea of who I am. For any artist, three years out is a long time. Why did you want to present yourself like that?
I love music. I love how it's changed my life. Music came to me after my mom died, so it's really been a huge crutch for me. I'm just trying to respect it. The people on the business side might say, "Where's the record?" and I might come back and say, "Hey, it's not ready. I want to present it a certain way." I think if you go hard at it and make it your focus to be what you want it to be, at the end of the day, if people don't like it, to hell with them. That's the main thing to me: to believe in myself. To be able to ride down the street and listen to my music and feel like I'm happy with it and it ain't about nobody else. That's really where I'm at in my life and that's why I call myself "The Young Lioness," and that's why I perform the way I do, because It's so about me right now. I spent so much of my life concerned with what was outside of myself and it really brought me down. So now I'm just so on me. Where did the confidence, the idea of Young Lioness come from?
I can't pinpoint it. It's just like, you go through relationships that bring you down. You go through situations in your life that bring you down. And you get so low, you get to a point like - pardon my French, but - "Fuck this shit!" [laughs] I really don't wanna live like this. Both of my parents are dead. I feel like life is too short. When my mother died, I was supposed to learn something, and I learned something. But then when my father died, the message was so clear: You ain't got a long time on this bitch, you know what I mean? So you might as well live it, go hard, do it how you want it. Don't hurt nobody, be respectful, but make it about you, you know? Make it about yours. So why did you spend so much time writing for other people?
Because at the time, the songwriting was more lucrative than being an artist. I'm with a label that, that was the first time they put out R&B, and it was my first time putting out an album. I was a stylist - an assistant, at that - who turned into a songwriter. My passion for it didn't come from anything but love. Hoppin on stage and people are just staring at you, or going to radio stations and people are fumbling with their mail while they interview you - it's just like, you know what? You all can bite it. [laughs] Songwriting, you're dealing with more people who respect that you do. It was way more simple and less dealing with people which is always easier for me, because I'm not a person to curb myself too much. I'm very nice, but I don't really like to deal with those personalities that we have in this industry. [laughs] But when I realized through myspace that people wanted to hear me do me, I was like, okay, cool, I can rock with y'all then. Your last album was all over the map in terms of topics - a lot of love, a lot of your mom, a couple fight songs. What are you talking about in this record?
Complex Simplicity dealt with serious issues that I was dealing with, from being a little kid, to being a grown up in relationships and stuff like that. [The Young Lioness] is more the stuff I've been dealing with since. I think I'm an intelligent woman in a time when it's not really about that, so I try to show my strength on this record - not in really a humble way, but in a way that's still sweet. It's not as heavy, because it's not from a little kid to now, but it's what I'm dealing with as a woman. Is that why you think your fanbase is so fierce? Cause you don't pull punches.
I think that has a lot to do with it. It's harder for me to just suppress myself, than to just be open and out there. I go on myspace and talk to people, I'll climb up on a table to hug somebody cause it's just like, I'm honored. In the same sentence I could say "I'm the baddest bitch, the Young Lioness, can't nobody fuck with it, I'm fire," I can say I'm so honored that people wanna hear me sing or something that I wrote touched somebody, I'm truly honored. I walk on patent turner, that's what my daddy used to call my feet - I walk on patent turner. I keep my feet on the ground. I don't ever in any way wanna allow things outside of me to bring me higher, or bring me lower. I don't want anything outside of me to predict what my life is gonna be. So let's talk about your record. When, what, where? What's the single?
You know what, the label has not solidified a decision on the single. I feel like the one I want is the one I performed that night, called "Love's Gonna Be," it's got an old Marvin Gaye/ Tammi Terrell sample, "Ain't No Mountain High," no valley low. It's very classic and I think it's something that it's 8-80. I would love to give dates, but I really can't make em up and lie. We're pushing for the album to come out August 2007. I just wanna get it out there. People say, oh Teedra, this time you're gonna blow up. Man, I blew up already to me. People have different expectations of their lives. For me, to make money and be able to live this lifestyle, taking care of my kids, making music, doing what I love? I might not be at the top of the game, but I'm IN the game, so I'm happy. It's a growth. My last album, it was Paul Poli, myself, and Shaffer - you know, I mean, Ne-Yo [who arranged the vocals] - in the studio every day. It was great; it was like bootcamp. I learned so much in so little time. I had never recorded a song before I went in there with them. It taught me how to go in and do it by myself, so this time you just have TEEDRA. I wrote everything, arrangements. It was just me in the studio - me and my engineer Donnie. And you know, a couple little things to enhance my thought pattern. Um, I don't know what you're talking about.
[laughs] It's all good, it's all good. [Laughs] Is it easier for you that way, making music by yourself?
Yeah. Child, I could open my head up. And let people see what's goin on. Y'all be like, 'Yo. Somebody gotta lock her up. Cause she's crazy.' That's why I called my album Complex Simplicity, because I think things are so simple to me, but in my head it's just a lot of confusion going on. I can't think with too many people around and second of all, if I don't trust you, then I don't trust to let my ideas out. When you by yourself, you just get free. Is that how you feel on your myspace blog? You're really open on there. Oh yeah. I don't give a shit on the blog. I say whatever I feel at the time. I really want people to know who I am so they're not liking me for any reason other than who I am. I find a little comfort in the fact that I wasn't put together. No one said, 'Wear your hair like this, this is the style you're gonna rock.' I just really did me, and I want to continue it to the fullest because I wanna honor people liking me for that. And any day they decide 'We don't like you no more,' fuck it, I'm cool with it, but it's gotta be me. I gotta be able to express myself at any given time the way I want to cause that's kinda what I'm sellin. In a sense, I'm selling to other people, 'Just be your damn self. And if people don't fool with it, then fuck them. Be yourself.' Because we have to deal with us. We choose to deal with other people but I don't care, you can't choose yourself. The only thing you can do to get rid of yourself is die. I don't know what happens after that. I was taught that you go to heaven or hell, so you still gotta deal with it. You have to deal with yourself, so make yourself what you love. I deal with a lot of that on my album. A lot of "Take Me as I Am," just that kinda strength. I look around and a lot of women I see will try to chase and revamp and adjust themselves to get a man. Or get in a relationship and just become whatever it is he looking for. But at the end of the day, he may be there or he may not. But what have you become: do you love that? Some of your best songs have dealt with that. And songs you've written for other people, like Teairra Mari's 'Get Up on Your Gangsta.'
I think it's important. I see a lot of really intelligent girls goin like, 'Fuck it, I'm just gonna be like the dumb bitches. I just want a man.' And I'm just so not willin to be that. Some people think havin' a man is like the whole world. Don't get me wrong, I would love to have somebody to snuggle up to and blah blah blah, but I gotta deal with myself so I'm so strong that when that person comes along, I don't lose myself. Or I won't lose myself trying to get that person. I'm not saying this just for the 'Happily Ever After' situation, it could be just the dude right now, but he gotta get into you for you. I can't even be turned on by a nigga that's into me for something else! That's another thing. Dudes want an R&B chick. Dudes will be really off into this idea of having this R&B chick. Athletes always wanna come at you on some R&B chick shit and it's like boo-boo, uh-uh. I'm a mother, okay? I curse people out on a daily. You look at one thing and you're seeing another. There's so many different sides to a person, how can you even be turned on by one side of a person? Going back to the music, that's how I feel about an album. You shouldn't have an album that keeps you in one emotion the whole time. An album should be well rounded like your day. That's what I really tried to do with The Young Lioness: give you every emotion in my day, in my life. Do you think the way people deal with you has to do with the idea, the myth, of the R&B chick that's sold to us?
That's the part that twists me. If you want Teedra, the R&B chick, you got it. I feel like I approach it different from the "R&B Chick," even when I'm onstage. I'm not choreographed, you don't know what I'm going to say, I don't know what I'm going to say, I don't know what riff I'm gonna sing. What I am onstage IS who I am, but I don't feel like I'm the typical R&B chick. It's not about a bunch of choreographed moves or rehearsed singing. I think if they lookin it in a sense of "Teedra Moses, the R&B Chick," cause I feel like I'm different from every other R&B girl out there. If you want that, we can rock! But if you lookin for an R&B girl who's gonna cry if she break a nail? Man, come on. Last year I sanded the cabinets down in my new kitchen. I'm a well-rounded woman. Teedra gets up on her gangsta at a show in NYC, 5/07.

Article tags: Take, Me, Am 

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