Tikaram started singing in nightclubs while she was still a teenager and came to the attention of WEA Records. Her debut album, Ancient Heart, produced by Rod Argent and Peter Van Hooke,[1] was released in September 1988 when she was 19 years old.[4] The album's first two singles, "Good Tradition" and "Twist in My Sobriety", became top 10 hits around Europe and the album sold around four million copies worldwide. Both the single "Twist In My Sobriety" and Tikaram herself were nominated at the 1989 Brit Awards for Best British Single and Female Artist categories respectively.
A quick succession of albums for WEA – The Sweet Keeper (1990), Everybody's Angel (1991), and Eleven Kinds of Loneliness (1992) – did not achieve the same commercial success,[1] with each album selling fewer than the previous one.[citation needed] Her 1992 album Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, which was the first Tikaram fully produced herself, did not chart at all.
Taking a break from the music industry and moving to San Francisco, Tikaram returned in 1995 with the album Lovers in the City,[1] which received better reviews than her previous albums and achieved better sales. Still, it was her last studio album for WEA and her contract was finished in 1996 with the release of the compilation album The Best of Tanita Tikaram.
Signed to Mother Records, Tikaram released The Cappuccino Songs in 1998, and then retired for several years from the music industry, reappearing in 2005 with the album Sentimental, which was released on a French label. In 2012, she released Can't Go Back, her first album in seven years. After 2013, she continued touring the UK and Europe.
Closer to the People was released on 11 March 2016. In December 2015, Tikaram released a videoclip for the song "Food On My Table", although she stated this was not the first single of the album. The first single, "Glass Love Train", was released on 22 January 2016.
She performed as a special guest at Glastonbury Festival's Abbey Extravaganza in September 2021.[7]
Tikaram moved from Basingstoke to the Primrose Hill area of north London when she became successful and, as of 2016, still lived there.[8]
In an interview with lesbian magazine Diva, published in 2017, Tikaram said that she had been in a relationship with multimedia artist Natacha Horn for the past five years,[9] who had produced several of her videos.[10]
Guest vocals on the single『Je Te Voudrai Quand Même』from Pierre Schott's album Le Nouveau Monde, from 1992.
"Poor Wandering One", a song from Gilbert & Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance" recorded for a Disney soundtrack and produced by Mark Isham, but unreleased – then intended to be used on the soundtrack of "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle", where another version appears instead – then mentioned to appear as B-side, which hasn't happened.
Writer of three tracks on the Brontë Brothers 1993 album The Way Through The Woods: "Live A Little More", "Beneath The August Moon" (with Mark Creswell) and "A Winner Too" (with Mark Creswell).
Writer (with Mark Creswell) of the B-side "Need This Lover Growing" of Brontë Brothers 1993 single "Live A Little More".
Writer of the re-recorded version of "Live A Little More" by Brontë Brothers, 1994 single.
Vocals on "Redemption Song (Oh Happy Day)" (Marley/Hawkins) on the 1997 Moodswings album Psychedelicatessen.
Guest vocals on "I'm Looking Up To You" (also a single in Ireland) on Christie Hennessy's 1995 album Lord of Your Eyes.
"My Love Tonight" commissioned for the Abitare Il Tempo exhibition in Milan, Italy, and appeared on Tikaram's 1995 album "Lovers in the City".
Tikaram has played cameo roles on two films, first on the 1994 lesbian film Erotique, on a segment directed by Monika Treut. She plays a secretary interrupting a sex scene of her boss. She plays a restaurant singer in the 2012 French film Goodbye Morocco. In her scene, she sings the jazz standard "Blue Gardenia".
Producer of the Jared Katsiane documentary drama Solace, also known as Everyday Is New (similar to a track on her album Sentimental), released 2005.
"Twist in my Sobriety" features in the 2001 film Bandits, and in and Miami Vice Season 5, Episode 14, "The Lost Madonna".
