Tulisa - The Biography Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘rock-bottom’ for her. If her story were a movie script, at this stage Tulisa would have reached a full epiphany. She would immediately have embarked on a positive life, with all her negative behaviour consigned to the past. However, the rough and tumble of real life is rarely so neatly plotted. Instead, she embarked on 12 months of trying to make up for her bad experience with a succession of guys. She still craved real love from a man and was therefore easy prey for guys whose smooth talking was less than sincere. Tulisa was so keen for her buttons to be pressed and there was never any shortage of men happy to press them. They would say the right things about commitment and love, get what they wanted from her and disappear into the night. To paraphrase a song she would later sing with N-Dubz, it did not take much for her to believe every word of their sweet stories.
    It was not as if she even always enjoyed the sexual experiences themselves. She admits she would often cry afterwards. More than anything, Tulisa just wanted a cuddle and some kind words. For a while, the sex and subsequent desertion was a price worth paying for those moments of tenderness. Ultimately, the cycle became too painful and she was forced to take a clear-eyed look at what was happening. Soon, she would find a man who treated her more as she deserved to be treated. It would be a major turning point in her life. However, by this stage she had a new love in her life that any man would have to learn to share her attention and affection with. One that would bring her much excitement, joy and hope. A lover that would take her round the world and make her famous. Like many of her ancestors, Tulisa had fallen in love with music. She had also developed a taste for fame that she would spend the years ahead trying to quench. There were plenty more twists and turns to come in her life, but at this stage, Tulisa was finally on the up.

CHAPTER THREE
     
     
    I n a sense, the band we now know as N-Dubz first got together in 1999, the fateful day when Dappy and Fazer approached Tulisa – who was then just 11 years of age – and asked her to come to a recording studio with them to put together a track. They had gained access to a recording studio thanks to the generous support of Dappy’s father Byron – who would become the very heartbeat of the band’s early years. He had bought a small recording studio in Dollis Hill, north-west London, acquiring it with the proceeds from his various musical ventures. He became keen to encourage his son Dappy and his friend Fazer to get involved with music. This was, initially, as much as anything to keep them out of trouble. Cynics might say that in Dappy’s case at least this was a failed mission. However, one cannot know how he might have strayed without music and the fame that eventually came with it. Indeed, in the light of some of his childhood experiences, the ever-controversial Dappy has risen to become little short of a shining beacon.
    Back in the day, Dappy and Fazer had already messed around in the studio and in their bedrooms at home by the time they approached Tulisa with their big idea. They were enjoying the sounds that were coming together but they had increasingly realised they needed something extra – proper vocals. Tulisa’s love of music and performance in general had been growing steadily for years. When she was 11 she appeared in a school production of Bugsy Malone . She had being given the role of the female lead, Tallulah, and duly sang the song ‘My Name Is Tallulah’. (In later years she would attempt an on-stage gag about this, by singing the ‘2011 version’ called ‘My Name Is Tulisa’. The young audiences did not always appreciate the joke.)
    Securing that part after her audition and then performing in the production itself gave her enormous confidence as a singer. She clashed with the singing teacher she was given at secondary school. ‘I remember hating those lessons because she