Talia Mar is a Singer, Twitch streamer, and YouTube personality. It all started in 2016 when a tweet she made went viral – a make-up meme of a glam look with a caption alluding to the instance of getting carried away when you intend to only do something minimal. This catapulted her from around 200 followers to nearly 10,000 in a week which prompted her to be asked to start posting makeup tutorials on her YouTube channel – something she had not used since she quit due to her school peers being mean about it.
Fast forward to now, Talia has grown a successful fanbase for herself after branching into music, lifestyle videos, and streaming popular games on Twitch whilst also having success lending her voice to dance tracks ‘Sweet Lies’ with Nathan Dawe and ‘Stay The Night’ with Sigala. The world really is at her feet having now just released the solo single ‘Self-Portrait’ – a heartfelt ode to self-love, and in her own words, “Being a bad bitch”. “It was created by the producer Lostboy and writer Cleo Tighe. I got sent the track and I immediately related to it and fell in love. I then went in and wrote some extra bits as I feel like I have needed a song like this for a long while – when you don’t feel yourself and you need that moment of realisation to finally come back into your own – this was that moment for me and I needed it. Hearing what they had done inspired me further.”
The song is sure to relate to Talia’s legions of fans – who lovingly refer to themselves as ‘Martians’ – it’s an anthem with a heartfelt message and the video, directed by Kassandra Powell, shows the artist reflecting on herself through a series of mirrors, glass, and TV screens. It’s a strong metaphor for how a toxic relationship can make you lose sight of whom you’ve become.
Looking back at Talia’s previous releases, her debut EP ‘Tough Decisions’ was created completely solo seeing her write, sing, produce, and master the whole thing. She even took it one step further for the EP showcase doing everything from arranging all the performance vocal parts to hiring the venue and working out logistics. Talia is proof if you want something, you can make it happen. I was interested to know if the plan was to continue doing as much as she could when it comes to areas like production. “I definitely love being heavily involved. The reason I did the first EP completely solo was that I wanted to understand who I was as an artist and not be led or directed by people who knew more than me because if you don’t really know, it can be quite hard to navigate. I do take on a massive role but at the moment I really love having a producer who knows what they are doing. It’s so nice being able to write with such talented writers as you really get the best out of a song when there are multiple brains contributing to it.”
Taking it back to the beginning, Talia grew up around music. When she was really young, her dad used to sing her to sleep while she would sing back. After being given a karaoke machine when she was six, she carried on singing throughout her childhood and built such a passion for it, by the time she was sixteen she wanted to attend the iconic BRIT school in London. Knowing music was what she wanted to pursue, Talia enrolled and had the best time there, where better to hone your craft than the leading performing and creative arts school in the UK? “It was so nice to be solely focused on music and not have to do anything else. It equipped me with so much to be able to understand the industry. We had lessons in music law and there are very few places that teach you what is essentially the ‘boring bits of music’. People think you go there and sing all day but I didn’t actually sing much at all. It has definitely played a massive part in how I’ve been able to express myself in the business side of music.”
At home, Talia’s family listened to a lot of R&B, Motown, and Hip-hop which were, of course, huge influences on her. “I was literally one of those kids who was like ‘I only listen to R&B and Hip-hop, I refuse to listen to anything else’. One of my biggest musical influences was Craig David. I loved his rhythms and the way he told stories. I loved the whole garage scene but when I was fifteen, or maybe a little younger, I discovered Taylor Swift and thought ‘wait, I kind of love pop too’. Listening to that sort of music massively shaped the way I write now.”
Aged eighteen, Talia left the BRIT school for an opportunity with a record label that quickly went sour. Being able to recognise a bad situation and have the maturity to get herself out of there so young is something to be commended. ‘Self-Portrait’ marks Mar’s first release via her current label, Sony’s RCA. Now in much better place circumstances, I asked how she thinks the experience shaped her. “I’m so glad it happened because it occurred without being tied to a contract. We got to learn a lesson which was horrible and not fun but ultimately, it didn’t cost me that much. It was more an emotional cost rather than anything else. Having been through that experience, I then knew what to look for. You can spot a mile off if someone has horrible intentions for you and the more I get deeper into this industry, the clearer I see it. I’m still grateful it all happened because it stopped me from signing so many of the contracts put in front of me because I was like ‘absolutely not, I’m not making that mistake again’. It took a long time to actually get to this point of feeling confident enough with a company and record label to do what’s best for me.”
When her makeup meme tweet went viral, Talia found herself suddenly gaining a following and having a platform. First posting makeup tutorials on YouTube, she then branched into music, lifestyle and gaming videos. With music always being what she truly wanted to pursue, I asked if she always had the idea to build a platform for music when creating different kinds of content. “That was 100% the plan. My channel was called ‘Talia Mar Music’ all while I was posting makeup tutorials so it was definitely the idea. I thought, ’I’ve got an opportunity from this tweet so I’m just going to run with it and see what happens’. I actually released a single in 2016 and then started my channel properly a few months later so it has run in parallel pretty much the whole time.”
Building a fanbase across multiple different platforms has allowed Talia to bypass some of the first stages of becoming an artist. “From an audience perspective, they already know me so they’re probably a lot more willing to listen to what I have to say and are more interested in my music. From an industry perspective though, I do think a lot of people are sceptical and don’t realise that I studied music. I was doing music before I did makeup. I’m sure people sometimes say ‘Oh, she came from YouTube, probably going to release a couple of singles and then be gone’. I feel as if I have skipped the queue, almost in a bad way. When I was at Capital FM’s Summertime Ball last year, I kept saying to my team, ‘Why am I here? I’m at Wembley Stadium, the last show I did was a YouTube event three years ago to 200 people and this is the next show I’m doing?’ I felt like I have missed some really important steps and wasn’t equipped for it [laughs].”
Last year saw Talia perform at Capital FM’s Jingle Bell Ball and Summertime Ball performing tracks ‘Sweet Lies’ with Nathan Dawe and ‘Stay The Night’ with Sigala. The two tracks propelled her music career seeing her achieve chart success with both. As she mentioned, before those two performances her biggest audience had been a few thousand at the most, so being able to take on Wembley Stadium and The O2 gave her a taste of what she aspires to do with her solo releases. “As much as it felt bizarre, it was so exciting and I was very grateful to have that opportunity. Because I didn’t write either of the songs, I would love to experience all of that one day with things I have written which mean something really specific to me. I would love to have the opportunity to go back at some point. Obviously, everyone says the O2 and Wembley Stadium are iconic but I used to go to The O2 all the time growing up. Pretty much every concert I ever went to was there so I always thought ‘one day, I want to play the O2’. When I was backstage at the Jingle Bell Ball I really felt that feeling, I was like ‘Oh my god, little Talia would be screaming right now!’”.
Speaking of live performances, I wanted to know if there were any shows planned to look forward to this year. “We definitely have plans for some sort of shows, I don’t have the exact details but getting back out and performing is top of my list. When I was younger I was in pubs every week lying about my age to be able to sing in them. I was so desperate to perform, that never really went away but obviously, with COVID, I had to take such a massive break from it all.”
Another passion Talia has is gaming, she regularly goes live on the streaming platform Twitch to play different types of games people can watch. Beginning on her second YouTube channel, ‘Talia Mar Games’, she then found Twitch through one of her best friends who was a streamer on there. “Growing up, I always said music was my passion and gaming was my hobby. My dad used to play games and I would sit and watch him. Before Twitch was a thing, I enjoyed watching other people play games. I hate to feel unproductive and even though it can be so good to have those moments, as an early 20-year-old, I didn’t like the feeling. When I started my makeup channel, I thought if I made a gaming channel too, even though it wouldn’t make any money, at least I would feel as if I am being somewhat productive and things just went from there. I always loved going live on other platforms as well so when one of my best friends – an avid Twitch streamer – suggested I should give it a go, I thought, why not? I used to play with her when she would stream anyway.”
“My favourite games to play tend to be competitive shooters. I like any game where I can scream, shout, and be annoyed but also really happy when I win. I think the Twitch community are used to me just getting obsessed with a game and grinding it. I get far too much into a game then can’t do anything but play it until I get bored”
It’s safe to say Talia’s fans know a lot about her, with thousands of hours worth of content online, there is absolutely nowhere for her to hide, so to speak. When asked if there was anything we may not yet know about the YouTube star, she replied she feels there isn’t anything left to know. “I’m sure there’s a story I haven’t told yet but I’ve been doing this for six or seven years, going live for hours – especially during lockdown when I would be live for sometimes twelve hours a day – so no stone has been left unturned.”
There must be a somewhat negative side to displaying so much of your life online and I wondered if she manages to keep her personal and professional lives separate. “It’s definitely a bit of both. In my super personal life, Simon and I don’t share everything. People don’t know half the ins and outs. I think you have to find the right balance of showing people enough to feel they’re involved as they have played such a massive part in our successes so it’s nice for them to be in the loop. If you keep too much from people then they just want to know more and delve to try to find things. It’s about giving them enough, but not everything.”
Talia is engaged to Simon Minter – known online as Miniminter – a member of the popular YouTube creator group, the Sidemen. “It’s a bonus to see someone in the same sort of industry because with some of the things you deal with, you could talk to someone who hasn’t experienced it and it can sometimes sound like you’re complaining about something so minute but when you’re in it, It feels massive. Simon gets that because he feels the same. Something will happen and he can complain about it without me sitting there like ‘Ugh!’ because I will be like ‘Yeah, I did the exact same thing last week’ so you can start to get over it quickly and move on. It is nice having someone going through the same thing though.”
Looking ahead to the possibility of more musical collaborations, Talia says she has a million different artists on her list of people she wants to work with. “One of those I would love to work with most is Timberland. He’s responsible for half of my favourite songs. In the dance world, everyone wants to work with David Guetta. Joel Corry is also doing amazingly well at the moment too – there are so many people I would love to work with at some point.” Dance music is something Mar didn’t see herself doing initially so I was eager to ask if she wanted to continue in the future. “Never say never. It was never on my life plan but now I have experienced it, there really is nothing like performing a dance song live. Obviously, it’s a dance song so everyone is going to dance but it’s just such a lively experience performing it.
This year will be an exciting year for Talia, personally and professionally. “I’m getting married this year so that’s a big one. Music-wise, I just want to keep releasing stuff I am super proud of, really let people in and let them know exactly what I’m about. They know so much about me personally through YouTube but I’ve really only scratched the surface with music. I’m excited to show them and hopefully get everyone on board.”
