CL EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: TATYANA ALI SPEAKS ON HER NEW SHOW, MUSIC & MORE!

Concreteloop recently had an opportunity to chat it up with actress, singer and activist, Tatyana Ali. The 31 year-old is best known for her role as the young Ashley Banks in the 90′s television sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Since leaving the popular show, the singer has gone to college (Harvard University), started her own production company, (HazraH Entertainment) and given back to the community. After nearly a decade and a half, the Harvard graduate is making her return to television, starring in a new sitcom Love That Girl!. Check out what Ms. Ali had to say about her life after Fresh Prince as well her upcoming show:

Concreteloop:
Ms. Tatyana Ali! How are you?

Tatyana:
I’m doing great, excited, how are you?

Concreteloop:
Good, good. Happy New Year!

Tatyana:
Happy New year to you, too.

Concreteloop:
Can I just say that I cannot get your song ‘Day Dreamin’ out of my head? I’ve been humming and singing ‘All day long I think of you…’ for the past to days! It’s gotten pretty bad…but yeah, I love that song!

Tatyana:
[laughs] Oh my goodness, thank you. I love that song, too. I really do. Thank you.

Concreteloop:
Yeah, of course, but anyway before we even talk about your music career and of course, your new show Love That Girl!…Let’s take a step back to your Fresh Prince days, shall we, ‘Miss Ashley Banks’?

Tatyana:
Yes, let’s do it!

Concreteloop:
Alright. First of all, what was it like working on that show (Fresh Prince of Bel-Air) at such a young age?

Tatyana:
Umm, it was amazing. It changed my whole life. It changed my family’s life. It moved us from New York to California and I went from, you know, being a normal kid. I’d been acting since I was four, so I always had this strange schedule, you know? Sometimes people knew me from commercials or whatever, or from Sesame Street. I remember me and my Mom being in NYC during one of the summers after the show had come out and there was this school bus of kids that had just kind of pulled up and we were just walking down the street and they started kind of yelling and screaming.

Concreteloop:
Why were they yelling?

Tatyana:
Because they recognized me from the show! [laughs] We started running down the street, but terrified cause we didn’t know what was really going on. We didn’t know if there was a rally happening, if…and then when we realized it, oh my gosh, that it was because of the show and that they had recognized me. It was amazing. I went from no one knowing who I was, from being anonymous to even now, all these years later, I guess I kind of look the same, still knowing who I am or knowing my face. It changed my life totally.

Concreteloop:
Now I can see Will Smith being very funny on set, what would you say was the funniest experience you had while working with him?

Tatyana:
It would be hard to name the funniest experience because we honestly, we laughed until we cried almost every single day. I mean tears. We were in tears constantly. Will is..he likes to play pranks on people. And they had this game, I don’t know if this game had a name. I used to call it The Food Game. Basically what they would do is, him and Alfonso, they would, you know, if you were to get a sandwich or whatever food you were eating. They would watch you and wait until you got to that last really, you know that last really good bite of something that you really enjoyed eating, and then they’d smack it right out of your hand, right as you’re about to put it in your mouth. So this went on for a while, at least a whole season, half a season to a whole season of the show.
And stupid me, I decided it would be cute to get in on the game. Now the problem is once you smack a sandwich out of somebody else’s hand, you are automatically in the game and you cannot eat, in safety unless your door is closed and your door is locked. So I got in on the game, that was the last time I played pranks with them. I couldn’t keep up with them.

Concreteloop:
Haha I’m sure you definitely had a lot of good times. Do you still keep in touch with Will and Alfonso or anyone else from the show?

Tatyana:
Yeah I keep in touch with almost everybody from the show. We really loved each other. We really had a lot of fun and we became a family. And Will has been an incredible mentor to me. When my sister and I started our own production company four years ago, he was right there to give us advice and to sort of nurture us. Even now with the show with Love That Girl!, I’ve talked to him about his experiences with Fresh Prince, just if he had any advice or if there was anything I should know that he’s learned. He’s just always been there for me for that kind of stuff always.

Concreteloop:
Well that’s good that he still has that big brother role in real life.

Tatyana:
Oh yeah, he’s a really caring person.

Concreteloop:
So the Fresh Prince ended and you earn an (NAACP) award, then you take an even more traditional route and go to college and not just any college, but Harvard? Now my question is why did you feel it was important to take time off and get a degree, let alone one from Harvard?

Tatyana:
I didn’t think I was done after high school. I felt like there was more. I had a lot more to learn. I felt like I had more growing up to do. I also come from a family, umm, my parents are immigrants and my sisters and I and all my cousins were raised to believe that our parents did as well as they could do and we have to do better and our children will do better and on and on. So I never really considered not going to college. I was raised with this belief and I still believe it now, that education is the one thing that no one can take from you. No matter, you know, whether you have good luck, you have bad luck, you’re employed, you lose your job, if you’re educated, you can make a way for yourself.

Concreteloop:
Very very true…

Tatyana:
Yeah and I found that to be true, so I’m really glad I took the time to do that. I definitely had moments when I was nervous. Oh my goodness, when I decided to come back to California and to pursue my career as an actor, you know, I thought, ‘Oh gosh, I’m going to have to knock on these doors and re-introduce myself to these people’ and I did a little bit, but I feel like I came back with more to offer.

Concreteloop:
Well props to you for being a positive example for our young black women because there are girls that look up to you.

Tatyana:
Awww…

Concreteloop:
Now I heard you’ve also done a bit in the community as well. You’re a spokesperson of a non-profit and you did a tour across HBCUs. Can you tell us more about that?

Tatyana:
Yeah, you’re talking about the Empowerment Tour, which is the United Negros College Fund’s yearly tour that we do at HBCUs across the country. And we talk about everything from self-esteem to how we look at ourselves, health, internships, how to decide the career that you want. We talk about fears, peer pressure, everything, basically. And every year there’s an amazing panel that they put together. I did it last year as a panelist and this year I’m hosting it.

Concreteloop:
Beautiful. I love it. Now what about your music career? I know back in the late 90s you had a pretty good run with your single, “Day Dreaming”, which is still in my head, by the way. [Tatyana laughs] Do you think you’ll ever go back to singing again?

Tatyana:
Yeah, I definitely want to. I just started, I’m back in the studio right now recording and working it out basically. It’s a passion of mine, it’s a love of mine. Actually because I grew up in New York and started performing in New York, I was singing and acting at the same time. And yeah, it’s a part of me, whether I’m doing a musical in theater or recording, I’ll always do that, but I am working on a second album right now.

Concreteloop:
Nice, nice. So as far as producers, who would you want to collaborate with?

Tatyana:
Hmm, umm, lets see…There is, well I’m actually working with somebody right now who I was sort of was dreaming about working with, and it’s coming out really great, but I don’t want to say who it is yet until it goes down..[begins to giggle]

Concreteloop:
I mean, can we get a clue? Can we get a hint?

Tatyana:
Oh my goodness! Well I mean if I gave you a clue, you would know. But it’s somebody that I have really really admired for a long time. And I kind of, well what I wanted to do with my first album, I worked with a different producer for every song pretty much.

Concreteloop:
Okay…

Tatyana:
But this time around, I really wanted to work with one producer, just kind of have that, I don’t know, even that kind of relationship that Janet Jackson used to have with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis or where somebody is really defining a sound. And umm, hopefully I”m on the right track, so that’s what I’m looking to do for this one.

Concreteloop:
Good! So that means it’s going to be a pretty well put together album for the most part. Sometimes I feel like with album that have different producers, everything just seems so scattered. There’s no flow. Like there’s not even a story. People don’t even have stories in their albums or some kind of plot where has that feel of you listening to a story, you know what I mean?

Tatyana:
Yes, which is definitely, I mean it’s been so long since my last album, and so much has happened in my life. Stories are key. It’s so important. That’s the kind of music I love are the storytellers.

Concreteloop:
Oh yeah and of course the albums that actually have the lyrics in the album cover so you can read along to your favorite song…

Tatyana:
Oh my gosh!

Concreteloop:
[laughs] You remember that?

Tatyana:
Yes, I do!

Concreteloop:
I miss that. I really miss that..okay so as far as artists who would you want to collaborate with?

Tatyana:
Umm let’s see, umm I love Jill Scott…I’ll do what’s in rotation right now…Jill Scott. Robyn. She’s an artist from Sweden…

Concreteloop:
Of course! She’s dope…

Tatyana:
Yeah, her new stuff is just awesome! Umm who else do I really like…Oh! Well this is a throwback but I’ve been listening to the D’Angelo’s Voodoo album a lot over the last two weeks. It makes me happy.

Concreteloop:
Dope. So you’ve won a national award, released an album, went to Harvard, got to work with a box-office actor, but now that you’ve matured and you’ve come back into the scene, would you say there is difficulty in being a black woman in Hollywood, especially after leaving such a big show?

Tatyana:
Umm I think that, sure, I think there’s difficulty. I think that there, the parts that are really out there are very few and far between. And getting a really, you know finding projects and roles that are really interesting in meaning and multi-dimensional are hard to come by. And that’s part part of the reason why I started a production company a few years ago. Not just for myself, but also for all of the writers I know that are writing incredible work and it’s not getting out there for some reason or umm, directors that I know, other actors that I know…And actually that’s what really attracted me to Love That Girl! It’s because Tyana Jones, she’s unlike any character that I’ve ever played in her wholeness. She’s a complete person. She’s not just somebody’s girlfriend or somebody’s kid sister, she’s many many things at the same time.

Concreteloop:
Speaking of your show and you talking about the unfortunate part of being a black woman in Hollywood, you’ve basically made it work for yourself. It’s the beginning of a new year, you have a new show, Love That Girl!, finally making it’s debut on TVOne. This will be your first sitcom since Fresh Prince, right?

Tatyana:
Yeah, yeah..

Concreteloop:
How does that feel?

Tatyana:
It feels amazing, I mean in so many ways…Love That Girl! is coming out, The Game is coming out, there’s sort of this whole resurgence of black shows on television and it’s really fantastic to be a part of that. It’s feels, it’s totally different from when Fresh Prince started. I was so young that I didn’t really understand a lot of what was happening. Everything was so new for me. This time around I think I have more experience under my belt and what’s coming with that also is greater responsibility because I’m the lead of the show. So there’s more nervousness, there’s a little bit more anxiety, but I think the rewards will be greater also. I’m just excited and proud of it in a different way also.

Concreteloop:
How was it working with Martin Lawrence?

Tatyana:
He’s really great. As an executive producer, he really gives everyone a lot of freedom to do their thing and the creator of the show, Bentley Kyle Evans, he was actually the executive producer of Martin for many years, and so they know each other. They’ve known each other for over 10 years, so there’s a lot of trust. It very much feels like family, like old friends, like people getting together and just doing what we love to do. There are actually a lot of families involved, there’s Bentley Evans, his sister, Stacy Evans, she was a writer on The Parkers for a long time…My sister and I are both on the show, so it’s a lot of…it’s really good vibes. It feels kind of the way Fresh Prince did. Everyone really likes each other and is having a really good time doing it.

Concreteloop:
Nice. What about your character? Could you tell us more about her and what she stands for and a bit about the show?

Tatyana:
Tyana Jones, she is unapologetic about fighting for what she wants, whatever it is, whether it’s getting the tightest pair of shoes or finding love or getting respect from her brother…she’ll really will go at any lengths to get what she wants. She really courageous. What’s funny about her is that she’s also really neurotic. She makes a lot of mistakes, but she has a family and her friends to back her up, even when she falls, and that’s what the show’s about. I think it has, because she’s a young woman who’s on her own for the first time, it’s got sort of a sexy vibe to it. There’s dating and love and romance, but then there’s also a real family aspect to the show as well. Even though she wants to be independent, her little brother Letrell ends up sleeping on her couch and never leaves and she ends up working for her father played by Phil Morris, at his real estate firm. So she thinks she’s independent, but she’s still very much a part of a family. So it’s got that edginess and also that warm feeling also.

Concreteloop:
Nice. Well just by watching the preview I could tell it’s going to be a pretty good show. So the show airs on Monday, right?

Tatyana:
Yes, Monday at 9 o’clock. 9 o’clock Eastern.

Concreteloop:
Dope. Well we all look forward to seeing you back on television, doing what you initially started off doing and doing what you do best.

Tatyana:
Aww thank you.

Concreteloop:
Is there anything else you that you want our readers to know about the show?

Tatyana:
Actually, my website is launching in a couple of days. it’s TatyanaAliOnline.com and yes I’d like people to see that.

Concreteloop:
Alright! Well on behalf of ConcreteLoop.com and our readers, thank you for stopping by. It was great having you!

Tatyana:
Oh it’s so good to talk to you! Thank you for having me.

Be sure to check your local listings for more details.