All Grown Up With Nowhere To Go?

Tanita Tikaram's fairy godmother wasted no time with charity balls, she made sure the Basingstoke bard-ette went straight into showbiz at the age of maturity. But now Tanita's 21. And the spell might be fading... so Vox's Prince Charming, Max Bell, entreats the minstrel songstress to let down her hair.

Tanita Tikaram doesn't think she is famous and can't bear to call herself a celebrity. "A celebrity? Oh yeah, me!? I'm not exactly the big star. I don't think I was ever very famous," she insists, with a strange use of the past tense for a 21 year-old. But the walls of the romper room at Asgard's record company offices in North London - where Tanita interviews take place - tell their own story.

The walls are covered in gold and silver discs which are, as they say in the trade, the bottom line of success. There are hundreds of the buggers: 25,000 sales for 'Ancient Heart' in Finland; 250,000 for 'Sweet Keeper' in Germany; a gross of mixed in Luxembourg; and millions for both in America. Nice going for a kid who only got a recording contract in 1988 when, as a mere slip of a girl at 18, she strummed her first batch of songs in the acoustic room at The Mean Fiddler.

Now, with her third album 'Everbody's Angel' hitting the racks, Tikaram is verily the dusky jewel in the crown at Asgard, and Warner/East West's biggest homegrown artist to boot. She's already been around the world more times than Magellan and Sir Francis Chichester put together and she "does very well in Turkey, for some reason."

Sitting in front of a framed film poster for Help!, Tanita offers me some cake (I did say cake), but I'm too busy admiring her new hairjob. The big hair of yore is long gone, replaced by a New York bb, then a Paris-cut Jean Seberg crop. The moment our interview is finished Tanita has an appointment with Keith ar Smile ("have you heard of Keith? He's quite famous"). So: been anywhere nice lately, Tanita?

"Bearsville Studios, a breath of fresh air sort of place. Woodstock's just down the road. It'd a bit like Greenwich Village, except it's not," she giggles, pleasantly, setting the tone for her interview mode. Just in case she should let her guard slip, a chaperone has been posted discretely on the sofa beside us.

Tikaram is young but she is hardly foolish, having been well schooled by manager Paul Charles to keep pleanty back in reserve. Not that Tanita needs protecting from herself: "While we were recording from Bearsville there was a big heavy rock band called Crazy Mama in the room next door. One of the guys introduced himself by saying 'Hi, I don't do cocaine and I don't drink'," she chuckles, shyly pulling a packet of Marlboro and a packet of Swans from somewhere behind her bottom. "I thought that was a funny way to become acquainted. They had all the gear so I was a bit scared of them to begin with. Nice boys underneath, though I did read some of their lyrics and they were all about terrible things to do to women which I'm sure most women wouldn't want to have done to them."

By her own admission Tanita Tikaram is an old fashioned girl an dglad of it. Slightly prim and proper, perhaps, I doubt she listens too much to Ice Cube and the Geto Boys. People say she had a sheltered upbringing: Tikaram went from the comfort of family life as an army brat in the West German towns of Dortmund and Bliefeld (where her Fijian father was posted), to the new town of Basingstoke, Hampshire, in 1982. Significantly, her Maylaysian mother remains the calming influence on her life. "I co-produced my new album because I got a kick of seeing that next to my name. I wanted my mother to be proud of me," she jokes.

"But my life hasn't as rootless as people imagine. The army community is very strong. You know exactly what's going on in camp, you hear all the gossip and learn about everyone's business very quickly. Because we only had German TV, my brother Ramon and I were always playing outside. I had a very nice childhood."

Culture shock for Tikaram wasn't found in the billet but in Basingstoke. "I didn't feel so Engl... I don't want to say that, but I did find it hard to fit in. I was not a hip kid and the other girls thought I was odd. I wore an A-plan skirt when they all had short skirts and tights, and in a new place you're supposed to do everything properly, aren't you? You have to get your school uniform in the stuffiest shop. I said things they thought were peculiar and they looked at me as if I was a bit funny."

It's easy to see why Tikaram stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb in Basingstoke. Being not quite white, well spoken and - gasp! - not at all interested in Duran Duran, lads and the like, she must have appeared very homely to our sophisticated Hampshire cousins. By a strange irony she still managed to put the place on the rock'n'roll map, even elevating the local hot night spot Martine's to some sort of legend in her song 'Poor Cow', where she got her own back in grand style. "I had to go there once for the experience. It really was people dancing round their handbags."

Tikaram does have something to thank Basingstoke for, though: "People forget that the boring side of a place gives you the energy to escape; you have to be driven out to do something." And now, as the final coup de grâce, the Iyrics of Tanita's biggest UK hit 'Good Tradition' are studied by teenagers sitting their GCSE English language examination.

Whether or not you take Tikaram as ingenue, at face value she has certainly used it to her advantage. Now, three years into a flawlessly-managed career, she expresses the artist's dread of repeating herself, voicing a mature resolution on 'Everybody's Angel', a more soulful artefact than its predecessors.

The previously well-rehearsed "jolly hockey sticks, isn't this pop lark terrific fun?!" image is being naturally eased out. Having once insisted that all this was just a job, and having laughed in the face of precious showbiz buzz words like 'pressure', Tanita has discovered she's got a lot of living to do after all.

I have to have my good karma. I've yet to learn about the other side of it and have to avoid it... I've seen the jaded aspect in people I admire, and it's depressing. I am beginning to realise there is a bad attitude to women in the music business - I was very naive and unaware. I may have done two hundred photo sessions but I've only ever worked with three female photographers. How many female video directors do you know? Maybe I should shut up," she pauses, anxious to close the lid on this particular can of worms. "I could say the wrong thing."

Tikaram has been the subject of some male-inspired media ridicule, much of it along the 'sixth form poetess' lines. There have been strange comments about her appearance, too; many of them in supposedly liberal publications whose own male staff wouldn't exactly fill the National Gallery's portrait rooms. "Well, I can deal with that because it washes over me. And it's not like pop is a piece of art, is it; I try to contain myself from saying 'God, that's a piece of....' Sit me in the Golden Grill cafe up the road - where they do a very nice vegetable pie and play Radio 1 - and I can't help hearing and hating things. So I go to the Salt & Pepper instead, where they play Melody FM and I won't be offended by what I hear."

No fan of dance music, Tikaram admits she has heard Betty Boo - "She's half Malaysian so my mother was interested in her, but she wasn't convinced" - and says chart music "... goes right over my head." She definitely wouldn't release a dance mix of anything. "No! Absolutely not! I can safely say I'd stop them doing that immediately!"

In common with all of the artists on Asgard's roster, Tikaram puts craftsmanship before showmanship. "I like the idea that people sing or dance or act and that's all they do. What they say isn't interesting to anyone else, with a few exceptions, like John Lennon, who was so eager to give himself away. The famous people I've met have been disappointingly ordinary. Is that an unusual viewpoint? Is it interesting to present your personality as part of your art? I suppose if you say nothing and stay mysterious, people get curious. Me and Marlon Brando," she smiles.

For all her self deprecation and apparent dislike for glamour, Tikaram craves the acclaim of an audience. "I'm at home on stage. It's the only thing I know I find it very hard to come off that and go about one's daily business. Touring gives your day a point - the performance itself - and most days in your life just don't let you give of yourself. I miss people reassuring me that they like my music - it's so exciting."

After shows Tikaram will sit around for a while and chat - "because you're expected to" - but she's determined not to indulge herself "I'm scared of that side of my personality because it's very seductive. I'm scared of all that partying in case I say something wrong. When I do it haunts me. I don't ever forget. Anyway, it's all very false, as if you just did the most wonderful thing in the world when all you did was go on stage. I hate that."

This modesty is consistent and genuine. The Tikaram head refused to turn even when Liza Minnelli covered her 'Twist In My Sobriety'. "I thought it was very odd that she should choose it, though I suppose it was the Pet Shop Boys' idea. I don't know them, so it was a compliment. I did see Liza Minnelli at a concert but I didn't say hello to her. I'm not very good at things like that. I got some extraordinary covers of 'Twist' - lots of Latvians. I haven't had any other covers yet, goddamn'! I'd like Jennifer Warnes to sing one of my songs. One day I think she will."

Tanita's chaperone calls a halt and she departs to put herself in Keith's capable hands, leaving me with a plate of cakes, a cold cup of coffee and all the gold discs that say the good karma girl is onto something. Her and Marlon Brando.