It’s Taz time

Having just graduated from high school this born and bred Georgetown resident has decided that the time is right for her to pursue her dream of becoming a successful artiste.

The energetic upcoming diva was christened Tazmein Coates but employs the name ‘Taz’ when appearing as an artiste on disc or stage. Taz who is 18 years old describes herself as an R&B artiste since this is the genre she prefers to use when opening up before an audience.

However as fate would have it her first recorded track turned out to be a soca collaboration with none other than the irrepressible Clinton Adolphus popularly known as ‘Passion’. Her partner on the track is himself a dynamo in the local industry who began making a name for himself using the Carib Soca Monarch competition as a vehicle. Several times a finalist at the annual event Passion has several popular tracks behind his name including the popular “Macoying”.

The track “Get Your Groove” was recorded at the Platinum Studio and was produced by GT’s own Fojo. The beautiful songstress says they may be using the song at the 2007 Carib Soca Monarch in an effort to put her name in the annuls among those present when the local cultural scene began to once again take on a life of its own.

So how did the two come together to get their groove on? Says Taz, it all started with a chance meeting at the Ministry of Health’s jingle competition at Le Meridien Pegasus. There as a finalist Passion saw Taz perform and thought she had a good enough sound as a finalist in that competition for them to do a song together. The result was “Get Your Groove”. The song done some two months ago has been running on the radio, Taz said, and a video is in the works for release later in January.

Taz told the Scene she writes her own material and has been performing for the last ten years at concerts and parties among other special events.

The catch with Taz, a graduate of North Ruimveldt High School, is her realistic outlook that recognizes how steep the entertainment biz is in Guyana. “I don’t want to make it [being a professional artiste] a fulltime career here because it can’t pay,” said Taz who aims to eventually become a lawyer. She revealed that during her work-study period while still at school she did a stint at the Chronicle newspaper where she fell in love with journalism while covering the court beat.

basstone@lycos.com