Tanya Stephens

I don’t wanna be no guy, just wanna be respected by the I

This simple line taken from the single I Am Woman, one of the offerings on her latest album, Gangsta Blues, defines Tanya Stephens philosophy, lyrics and main life desire.

“Some women who want to get equality take it overboard. I like it when men open doors and pull chairs for me. I don’t want to be a man, I want the attention women get,” explains Tanya, who eludes the feminist, dike or man-hater labels.

“No glossed over, nicely packaged empty lies, simply to make a buck,” proclaimed Tanya at her late March, Gangsta Blues album launch and this in some ways describes her. Although she does look nicely packaged in her white outfit and well coiffered hair, she doesn’t come with a bag of pretty clichés and perfect interview answers. She is as real as they get. And during the hour and a half interview, parenting, ‘jackets’ (Jamaican term for passing off another man’s child as someone else’s), oral sex, gender, love, poverty, race and her academic endeavours were discussed.

Born Vivienne Tanya Stephens, July 2, 1973, she spent her childhood between St Mary and St Ann where going to the river, playing dolly house and doing cover versions of 80s pop songs competed for her time at Zion Hill and Ocho Rios primaries and St Mary High. At that time however, the singing was secondary to her academics, so instead of public appearances, young Tanya engaged the books and completed her CXCs. This academic determination, in some ways gives us an insight into Tanya’s probing mind.

And with the evolution of Tanya’s mind, comes the evolution of her lyrics. For example, Tanya Stephens in the late 90s extolled the virtues of male-performed oral sex in her street hit Freaky Type which she says set the pace for other similar songs such as Cecille’s Do it to Me, but for Tanya now, oral sex is a non-issue.

“You do or you don’t, who cares. For me, it is now a non-issue, and at the time I was just poking fun,” explains Tanya, explaining that she often uses her lyrics in this manner. “People pay too much attention to certain things so I try to get them to laugh at it, whilst changing their attitudes.”

Tanya’s probing and engaging mind has attracted the interest of academics, such as social scientist Clinton Hutton ,who excitedly discusses her lyrics. “She is very intuitively intelligent and deftly tackles relevant social issues,” says Hutton.

Although Tanya does not think that all truths are found in the academic realm, she does not disregard academia. “In Think it Over from the late 1998 Rough Rider album, I tell the teenage girls to pursue their education before getting trapped in early pregnancy and even now I am taking private tutoring for my A’ levels in West Indian History, Literature and General Paper, in order to get matriculated to do the social sciences at UWI,” says Tanya.

“I get peeved when I discuss things with people and they act surprised that I can have such conversations and this is mainly why I am going the academia route – to get my papers and show them that I’m no flake, although I know this is not really necessary.”

This self-pride and determination to improve herself goes a long way in defining Tanya, who whilst moving beyond racial issues still sings of social ones affecting her country. And as she delves into social issues, Tanya doesn’t shy away from the most juicy of them all-male/female relationships. Her very candid and dead on depiction of all areas of the romantic relationship has bits and pieces of the wife, mistress, jealous ex-girlfriend, bragging bitch and remorseful man stealer who upon realizing that her trophy doesn’t shine anymore, begs the wife to ‘tek him back.’

“Respect each other’s space, don’t try to change your personality or the other’s, but accept each other without competing. Women are sometimes nagging and especially when they are PMSing we pursue a point over and over and stockpile things,” says Tanya when asked advice for relationships. She, however, warns that she is not an expert and is still learning.

And her lyrics whilst sometimes brutally honest never seem condemnatory, in fact at times they seem to celebrate the socially accepted villain -the other woman. “The other woman is a person, too, and all of us are sometimes the other woman. All these condescending names are just born out of others’ insecurities, but I’m not offended by them”, says Tanya.

According to Tanya, she deliberately tries to balance things with her music and therefore lyrics that may seem to objectify men are purposely chosen. “Objectifying people is not a male thing, we all do it. So when I say ‘wuk dat’ in reference to a man, It is purposely done. Even my slackness is done consciously. In fact, I don’t think anything is slackness, it may be poorly timed,” she says.

Repeating the point that some play the ‘female thing as a handicap’, Tanya refuses the label feminist because she ‘does not think that gender should play such a heavy role in our lives”. She doesn’t totally buy into the concept of gender either. “Society influences much of the gender roles, but I don’t think a gender should have a particular role since they are not inborn. I don’t think humans are born with much instinct, except the mothering one,” says the singer. Continuing her post modern thought, Tanya says she believes that neither sex is smarter than the other, but tries to display the female’s ingenuity in her songs, mainly because she believes that “the lyrics and music for the most part favours the Jamaican man.”

In this respect, Tanya does not join those who curse the woman who passes off someone else’s child to the wrong father and explains the reasoning behind her song Little White Lie. “If a woman has a child and names someone else as the father, it is her hell. What needs to be considered is the well being of the child. I don’t know any woman who deliberately punishes the child, herself or the man. Men will rape, steal and kill, but yet feel they have the right to condemn a woman who gives jacket.”

Whilst Tanya seems to understand the reasoning behind a woman who gives ‘jacket’, she refuses to defend the terms ‘baby mother’ and ‘baby father’. “Baby mother and father is not the same as parent. The latter nurture and raise the child, providing a good environment for the child whilst the former only procreates.”

Tanya honestly admits that she has not spent enough time as she would have liked raising her 10 year-old daughter, since her career mostly has her on the road, but she insists that she doesn’t shelter her. ” I try to expose her to life and make sure she stays on her toes both academically and otherwise,” says Tanya of her fourth grader whom she says matured her. And partially because of her determination to expose her daughter to life, Tanya doesn’t censor her lyrics because of her daughter. “She was there during all the stages,” says Tanya.

This dedication to integrity led Tanya back to Jamaica after her brief stay in Sweden following her Rough Rider album release. “I was signed to Warner Music there but I came back because the arrangements were more pop than anything else,” says Tanya.