CREATIVE DIRECTION EMILIE LOUIZIDES - PHOTOGRAPHY INDIA HASNIP - MAKEUP KAYLA FEENEY
With a mission to make dance music more fun, queer and rebellious, Liverpool-born and London-living TAMAN is a trans artist, DJ, model, and student of music creating for the misunderstood divas on the dance floor. As an offering to her queer ancestors, TAMAN releases her debut EP 'Save TAMAN' today. The body of work has been described by the artist herself as a battle of belonging, mental anguish, and pouring with passion that burns. It is the story she needed to hear when she was seventeen. Creating with purpose and intentionality at the forefront, TAMAN takes a raw, theatrical and elaborate approach. Her music, made for the club, is a collage of staccato organs and pianos, soul shaking 909 kick drums, and relics of past records of cultural commentary. Simultaneously referencing and adapting iconic sounds, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Honey Dijon, and Grace Jones are among the list of pop-culture icons that make up the fabric of TAMAN's armour. TAMAN aims to grow to soundtrack gay clubs worldwide, starting with this EP that she gave us the inside info on.
F Word: How would you describe TAMAN?
Taman: Fearless, powerful and determined - what I want to be.
FW: If you had to assign a temperature, a colour and a taste to this EP, what would they be?
T: Temperature - sweaty wet club. Colour - black. Taste - salt and skin.
FW: Why do you create?
T: To make sense of what I can’t make sense of.
FW: What are you hoping people will take from this EP?
T: That gay dance music saves lives.
FW: What’s your favourite memory from the whole process?
T: When my absolutely unbelievably talented collaborator Ryna sent me the final [master] for WHO AM I TO SAVE MYSELF on my 21st birthday.
FW: What genre could you see yourself experimenting with for a future project?
T: Hyperpop and disco, naturally.
FW: If you had to choose one component for a great EP, what would it be?
T: A STORY. A FANTASY. Give me a character to become, and a world to experience.
FW: If you had to choose a new career completely outside of anything having to do with music, what would it be?
T: Going stealth and becoming a WAG, nursing or writing.
FW: What’s bringing the most joy to your days lately?
T: Mike - my cat, food, my lesbian flatmate, real housewives of NYC, my student loan, and music, always
FW:What’s motivating you the most lately?
T: What I needed to hear/feel/express/relate to when I was a trans teen, I live now by giving myself what I didn’t have.
FW: What advice do you have for yourself for tomorrow?
T: Go to sleep earlier.
FW: The world would be better without _______? The world would be worse without _______?
T: Better without train delays, worse without those gay folk.
FW: Do you believe in manifestation?
T: Look at my diary when I was 17.
FW: What are you scared of?
T: What straight people think of me and when Uber has no available drivers.
FW: Where are you happiest?
T: When the Uber lets me on the speaker.
FW: What is your favourite F-word?
T: Fierce.
