Tanika Charles

Retro-soul singer gives emotional performance at Base31

Tanika Charles’s latest album, Reasons to Stay, is one that comes out of feelings that she’s been holding close to her heart for a long time. It looks at the deep love she has for her family and close friends and the heartache that can often accompany those feelings when things are left unsaid or unresolved. “My first few albums were written about love and heartbreak, and then I got a little tired of singing about that. So this new album is deeper and is more ‘within’ and dealing with family situations and trying to survive them,” she said. Last Friday night, for at least one song in the Sergeants Mess Hall at Base31, the emotion was too raw and close to the heart for her to continue. She wrote the song Here When You’re Ready about the strained but now healing relationship with her younger brother. She made it about three-quarters of the way through before the tears began to flow and she had to stop singing. A gallant gentleman in the front row offered a tissue to dry her tears, and there was a round of sympathetic applause from the audience—an acknowledgement of the universality of family dynamics.

Ms. Charles was born in Toronto and grew up in Edmonton, before again returning to Toronto. She was always interested in music, and said that her father and older brother had a strong musical influence on her when she was growing up. “We would listen to music in the house all the time. My dad loved George Benson, Bob James, Quincy Jones, Spyro Gyra. After dinner we would sit down and listen to these albums and he would say listen to the instrumentation of it all, listen to the vocalist and just really pay attention. I was, like, ‘Okay Dad, whatever.’ But I’ve come to find out it’s actually stayed with me, and here we are today,” she said. Ms. Charles was a backup singer for a number of bands, including Bedouin Soundclash, and a friend encouraged her to start her own band, which she did in 2015, resulting in a Juno nomination. “I didn’t take it seriously. I worked on my music and I had my day job. Then a label in Italy heard my album and wanted to sign me. It was at that point, in 2017, when I started taking it seriously.”

She said that she is still surprised that she became a singer. “I’m really not that confident, and I really feel that I could use a lot of lessons in singing.” She has a different songwriting process from many other musicians. She reaches out to music producers that she knows and asks them whether they have any new music. She will listen to the music and then write a song based on how the music makes her feel. She often collaborates with other musicians. “We brainstorm over the music, and then we can add to the production if we feel like we need to,” she said. Her new album is a little bit of a departure. “I’ve experienced a lot of life and this album is quite personal. There are songs about my relationships with my mother, my brother, my dad, my friends within this industry. I had to be very careful writing it because I didn’t want my family to think I was attacking them. I wanted it to be a release for me. It has everything to do with the way I grew up within our family situation,” she said. On Friday evening, she sang several songs from the album. She sang about her father’s lack of involvement for long periods of time, and about her resentment at being left to care for her younger brother while in her teens. It was a frank display of her inner emotions. However, it was not all sombre reflection. She promised that the second half would be “rowdy” and she opened with a question to her band: “Alright boys, are you ready to jam it up a bit?” The band responded with an up-tempo rendering of Different Morning, and then Ms. Charles encouraged everyone to dance to Endless Chain, before finishing with her breakout hit, Soul Run.

Ms. Charles has taken a short break from her gruelling tour schedule. For the past year or so, she’s been doing about one or two shows a month, compared with three or four a week. While she relished the break, she is anxious to get back to singing more often. Her next appearance is at Hugh’s Room on Friday. For more information, please visit tanikacharles.com.