Tamara Dey

Tamara Dey
Tamara Dey

Tamara Nathalie Dey is the most popular SA singer who was born on the 23rd September 1979. She was born to an Italian father and South African mother in Knokke Heist, Belgium and grew up in Centurion, Pretoria.

She did her primary schooling at Irene Primary School and went to Lyttelton Manor High School and then she completed a 3 year Musical Theatre Diploma at Pretoria Tech.

Tamara's musical talent is genetic, looking at her family background. Her biological father is an outclass musician in Europe, her aunt a singer, her great grandmother an opera singer and her great uncle being an established Jazz musician. Tamara also grew up and become exposed to all musical genres in the home.

Tamara has also done dancing lessons as a child, appeared in school musicals, plays, she did a lot of training and performing whilst growing up. These collective skills shaped her and she emerged as a fully skilled vocalist and at the age of 22 she was fully equipped to take on the crowds. Cited: Powerzone, 2009.

Tamara was discovered by DJ Pepsi in 2000 and he introduced her to Bruce Sebitlo and Oscar Mdlongwa of Brothers of Peace and then from there she made her musical debut.

They collaborated together and produced the track Thathi 'Mphahlayakho which officially launched Tamara's career. In 2001 Tamara launched her debut album entitled The First Lady which featured collaborations with musicians such as Thembi, Lebo Mathosa & Tandiswa Mazwai. In 2002 she received 3 South African Music Award nominations for the album in the categories of Best Pop Album, Best Dance Album and Best Newcomer.

In 2004 her second single from The First Lady And The Boys reached No 1 on South African radio and the album was nominated for a Best Dance Album SAMA. In the same year she was the opening act for Latin singer Enrique Iglesias's South African tour. Cited: TVSA, 2009.

Tamara is also known as South Africa's "First Lady of Kwaito". This is due to her ability to cross all cultural, age, race & language barriers.

Tamara's life has become busy of TV appearances, radio and press interviews and live performances. Above all she still maintains her good-natured composure; she is soft-spoken, charming and gorgeous.

She says, I am very open-minded and I have a massive love and passion for fashion and clothes, and expressing myself through the clothes that I wear. I have great fun doing that on stage, but even on a day to day basis, whatever I'm wearing is a direct reflection of what mood I'm in, or what space I'm in, or what music I am listening to on the radio. I have so much fun with it. Cited: Gsport, 2009.

Sources: