Tamara Savage

Tamara Savage is an American songwriter born in 1979 in California, who started writing songs in 1998 at the age of 19. She has written for Tamia, Monica, Faith Evans, Mary Mary, Heather Headley, Shanice, Whitney Houston, Mýa and Tracie Spencer, among others.

Savage and her three younger siblings were attending a private Christian school in Texas ran by their mother when she realized she enjoyed creative writing.^[1] She began writing songs to Aaliyah instrumentals while in her early teens.^[1]

By the mid-1990s, Savage, then a USC student and musical performer, began shopping a demo of hers around in hopes of receiving a record deal, when it was heard by Big Jon Platt.^[1] Platt would later sign her to a development deal with EMI while still in college.^[2][3] In 1997, her new mentor Platt, then Senior Vice President of Creative at EMI Music Publishing, started setting up collaborations between her and EMI writers such as Soulshock & Karlin and Jermaine Dupri.^[2] EMI flew Savage to Atlanta to co-write a song with Dupri for the South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut soundtrack, which was expected to be recorded by singer Janet Jackson, but when Savage began working with Dupri, they decided to focus first on writing a song for Monica, which resulted in Savages' first placement: Billboard number one single "The First Night".^[2]

Credits are courtesy of Discogs, Tidal, Apple Music, and AllMusic.