Tameka Harris

Background

Tameka Harris, an American singer-songwriter and television personality, rose to popularity during the 1990s as she entered the music industry. She was born on July 14, 1975, in College Park, Georgia. Harris was exposed to music from a young age. Her father, Charles Pope, and uncle, Joseph Pope, formed an R&B group called The Tams and made music from the early 1930s until 1996. While attending Tri-Cities Performing Arts High School in 1992, the 17-year-old joined the Xscape R&B group. The group signed with So So Def Recordings soon after being discovered by the record label’s founder, Jermaine Dupri, when they performed at his birthday celebration.

Her music career as a member of Xscape flourished as she won two Soul Train Music Awards for Best New R&B Artist and Best R&B Album. The group also won an A-Town Music award for Best Duo/Group. Harris was the lead singer of six of Xscape’s hit singles and has also recorded soundtracks outside of the group for various movies such as the 1995 drama film “Panther” and action comedy “Bad Boys,” and in 1997 for the comedy-drama film “Soul Food” and romantic drama “Love Jones.” The girl group parted ways after the release of their third album “Traces of My Lipstick” in 1998. Although the group parted ways, they kept in close contact. In 2000, Harris and Kandi Burruss from Xscape collaborated with girl group T.L.C. and wrote their hit single ‘No Scrubs’ which the duo won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song. In addition to the Grammy, she received an American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Award for the same song. Five years later, Xscape group members LaTocha and Tamika Scott, and one other, Kiesha Miles, united with Harris to work on a new album called “Unchained” which was released in 2005.

Harris ventured into television and released her first reality show with Antonia Toya Wright called “Tiny and Toya” in 2009 on B.E.T. channel. Within the same year, she married rapper T.I., and a year later, the newlyweds premiered their reality series “T.I. & Tiny: The Family Hustle.” In 2014, the television star ventured back into music, establishing her own music label Pretty Hustle and released her first solo single called ‘What The F*ck You Gon’ Do?’ which successfully reached number five on iTunes R&B/Soul charts within hours of its release. A day later, it reached number one on the charts. Within the same year, she released another reality series with her best friend Shekinah Anderson, called “Tiny and Shekinah’s Weave Trip.” The American star has two sons and one daughter with T.I. and an older daughter from a previous relationship.