INTERVIEW BY IRVIN RIVERA

Tina Farris is a powerhouse woman who hit the road to tour manage some of the biggest and most notable acts in the world like Anderson Paak, Ella Mai, The Roots , Lil Wayne, Ms Lauryn Hill, Nikki Minaj, D’Angelo, Drake, Queen Latifah, Macy Gray, Dave Chappelle, The Black Eyed Peas and currently with clients Steve Lacy, Chris Rock, The Internet, and Solange. Tina Farris managed the highest grossing tour in the history of Hip Hop, Lil’ Wayne’s AMERICA’S MOST WANTED TOUR. The following year after that, she hit the road with The Black Eyed Peas, guiding the group through 15 countries, 76 cities and 99 sold out shows before 1.3 million attendees, grossing more than $86 million dollars along the way. In 2011, she rejoined Lil’ Wayne when he and Nicki Minaj headed out on the I AM STILL MUSIC TOUR. Following this success, she used her masterful skills to guide the elusive D’Angelo during his critically-acclaimed comeback run in Europe and the United States. She is also one of the co-producers for The Roots’ annual Jam Session during GRAMMY week which has amassed a cult-following, usher’s in a night of who’s who clamoring for a show ticket and is heralded as the “darling of awards season.” Farris is also recognized by Pollstar as a Top Tour Manager and one of the first recipients of the Live Nation Womens Fund. 

The veteran boss lady of the road welcomed us on a warm weekend in her Los Angeles house to talk about her life outside the road, her love for nature and flowers, the challenges of the job, being a woman, teaching, and upcoming exciting projects on the horizon. Throughout the interview, her infectious smile and her upbeat energy filled the room with life. It was such an honor to speak with Tina Farris whose work have shaped some of the biggest acts in the music industry’s history. Her warm and giving energy is so inspiring especially to young people who want to delve into the music business, especially in tor management. When asked where she gets her energy, she simply responded: “I like living.”  

How are you doing Tina?

I am good. Thank you.

Thank you for the time today. It’s a nice Saturday. What do you usually do whenever you have a downtime like this?

Usually going to the flower market downtown. I had to have surgery a few years ago and somebody sent me flowers. I was inspired by the flowers. They were pretty. You know what, I am in a black neighborhood and we don’t have a florist company. I wanted to start a florist company. And of course I couldn’t do it. (laughs) but I ended up getting a commercial license to shop. I just like to go and wander around flowers and make flower arrangements.

I’ll go to flower market, do flower arrangements, and I’d love to go to the old place in Agoura Hills. They have the biggest cuts of bacon that I have ever seen. I may also go hiking. Tomorrow I may go on a hike and then go to Agoura Hills for that bacon.

Would you say that’s your usual weekends?

Not my usual weekends. My usual weekends are generally filled with shows. So when I do get a weekend, I get excited because I can go to the flea market, go to brunch, or flowers shopping. I try to do something to be domesticated and normal.

Do you like the beach since you love LA so much?

I do. I love the water. I like it as a backdrop.

I can’t live landlocked. I’ve tried to say, I’m gonna move to Atlanta or move here. But I was born in Monterey, I was born by the ocean, and I was raised in Sacramento surrounded by 3 rivers and now I’m here so it’s hard for me to stay away from water.

It’s nice here, you get your nature and your water nearby. You’ve travelled the world and have seen so many different places. Do you seek that water as well?

Oh yeah. Touring can be boring so I try to find something to do. At a time, I used to surf on the road. So whenever we get to a place, I’ll be looking for the wave. I still do that. I’m not a good surfer though. I just like to try.

So these are the fun things you like to do in between tours. That’s amazing. How was it to be a woman on tour?

It’s cool (laughs). It has its challenges. Women have challenges. Black people have challenges. Short people have challenges. Tall people have challenges on flights. Everybody have a challenge that they have to deal with. Being a woman, the older I get, I the more I try to make my challenge not outweigh anybody else’s. So for me, at this stage, the challenge now is finding a group that I can work with because I have my own set of values and my own style. And sometimes people aren’t looking for a tour manager with their own style. Sometimes they just want somebody to be their own worker bee and I’m a little bit more of a creative.

And I’m a woman with a mouth so that has its own challenges. I don’t let a lot of things slide by.

I love touring cause I like to see the world. I like to mingle with other cultures. I’m at the point when I don’t wanna be on a tour bus anymore. There’s a lot of women that come to me who want to learn how to tour and I feel that I should teach them.

These are young women who want to be tour managers right?

Yes. And men. I teach a class at Berkeley College online. I had a couple of interns each semester. Teaching always helps me strengthen my own skills and the next phase that I wanna do. Now I want to create a booklet out of it to get the information faster. It’s cool. It’s cool as any industry can be. If you like to travel and if you like music, tour management is fine.

“The only thing you can control is yourself, and your reaction to certain situations. Shit will always be fucked up. There’s not one way to handle a situation.”

You’re still doing the mentoring group Decades, right?

Yes, I am kicking it up in 2020. I do Decades in my daily life. It’s another platform to do something in and I do it in a daily basis. I have several women in different industries and brands that call me for advice for help, or access or introduction and do that. And that’s what Decades is about. Passing the torch of information, connecting people, so we all have a better access to our calls.

Knowledge is power.

It is true. And sometimes there are people who are up there who don’t wanna share it and it’s nice that you’re doing this.

You only have one life so you can’t really hold on to anything. You age out of things. I’m aging out of certain types of tour management because nothing’s that fun to me anymore unless I am on a plane to Dubai or Jordan or Seychelles. You gotta step it up because I’ve seen a lot of things. I don’t wanna be a Debbie Downer on anybody’s tour. You guys are going out to get drunk? Great. Well, I’m not going, I’ll see you at the airport. So I might be boring on tour cause of that. I like to sit on my own house and drink my good wine. I got a stereo.

At this point in your career, do you still seek artists or do they just come to you?

Both. I like to challenge myself as far as producing events now so I kind of move more into production and developing platforms. I love Black Women, so if there’s a young black girl and I like her and I’m like, I like how she sings, let me go and run up on her. I just ran up on Amber Mark last week cause I produced this event and I was all up in her business. But then there’s artists that come to me like Solange and was like Hey, can you just come and magic this up? And I love that too. It really depends. I only usually work on people that I like. You’re not gonna see me on something so far removed and be like, how did she get on that tour? Even though people asked, it’s just not fun for me. But if you say, you’re gonna do Venice Biennale and you say we can only use boats to get there? Yeah I’m in. I want something challenging that’s big and ambitious. I tend to gravitate towards that.

“Your A plan is what you go to school for. Your B plan is what makes you a real G. Your C plan will put you up there.”

What will be the next big thing in the horizon for you?

2020…  I can’t tell you everything (laughs). Production on an international scale. Which isn’t different from what I did last year Just on another part of the country. Expanding touring. I created an entity called Diaspora Touring. By the way, I’m the Womens Fund Winner for Live Nation. I won this grant, this investment from Livenation and they support my company (Tina Farris Tours). And one of my goals is to create an efficient and sustainable touring on the continent of Africa. Because it doesn’t get as much attention as everywhere else does. Since black people are doing all the music everywhere, we should be able to see all the music everywhere too in each different country. It can’t just be for one group.  So my biggest hurdle yet is to create and change the narrative of how we tour in the continent of Africa. And to get everybody to believe me. Africans, Americans, Australians.

Is that the biggest challenge so far?

Oh it’s a huge challenge. The narrative is that Africa is dangerous, and they don’t have anything and nobody can’t afford to go. And that’s on all sides. My goal is to change the narratives of the people that I work with, the talent that wants to go, the promoters that I work with, the masses of people, who, just from the internet know wants to see a live show. I wanna bring that. And I haven’t toured all of Africa. So I figured, I know a way how I can tour Africa. Create a tour.

What would you say are the biggest lessons that you’ve learned from your industry artists and friends that you can share with us?

The only thing you can control is yourself, and your reaction to certain situations. Shit will always be fucked up. There’s not one way to handle a situation. You’re going to fail in some situations. And your biggest learning curve is contingent upon how many failures you have, quite frankly.  If you do everything right, to me, you haven’t handled anything. You haven’t handled the situation. The world isn’t perfect, right? In music, since it’s freeform and natural, I find that as of late, the corporatizing of it is annoying to me; especially live music. Like, okay, corporatize the label but don’t corporatize the live. That’s what gets on my nerves the most. My biggest challenge has been working with the people around the artists. The management, the PRs, everybody. Everybody who is trying to commoditize this one artist. I find that I have to make sure that I fit with them or I just won’t touch the artist. Even though I love the artist. I always go with my heart.

I love this artist. I’m on love with them and I’ve learned that now I gotta work with all these people. Maybe I’m late to the game on learning that cause I came from a family that loves music. But now that it’s a game, it doesn’t even matter. And that’s probably why I choose who I work with because I can go and make a lot of money being a tour manager but I wanna work with the people I like. If you look at who I work with, if you look at my resume, it’s all the same kind of music. Even my comedians, we’re homies, we all listen to the same kind of music too. And I like that. Cause I got one life and I like that. I like that I went with my heart and my tastes and that makes sense.

Would say that it’s your personal mantra to go where your heart desires?

I mean I would but that’s so cliché and corny. I don’t have a mantra. I used to have one. I always try to write down things that I want to say. I don’t remember any of them (laughs). I used to say, I try to be graceful under pressure and I always say and make sure your B plan is tight. Your A plan is what you go to school for. Your B plan is what makes you a real G. Your C plan will put you up there. But I just feel like you should relish in your failures. Because I feel like the lesson or whatever you need to know, you’re gonna get, from the failure. There’s not a way to teach anything. You get some fundamentals but you got to live through it. It’s true. Otherwise, you don’t get anywhere. You don’t get anywhere with perfection. Maybe that’s my mantra.

If you’re life is too perfect then you haven’t done shit. (laughs) You haven’t done one thing.

What is one thing that you fear the most at this point?

Failure still (laughs). At this point I’m afraid of not having enough money to survive because this is freelance. Surviving into my older age and being able to live the way I live now, taking care of my momma. That’s my only fear. Everything else I feel like I can accomplish. I haven’t done it yet. But it’s just a “yet” at the end of that.

You mentioned your momma. Is she the biggest love of your life right now or is there another person?

I love my momma and my grand momma a lot. I ‘m a very family oriented person. I love my family. My cousins are like my siblings and we’re big. We’re huge. I have a little black family that married into a larger Filipino family so now their in laws are now my cousins so now we’re Guatemalans and Mexicans and we are just keep getting bigger and bigger.  We are lit. Holidays for us are lit. Cousin Christmas? Cousin Easter? I should invite you to it. It’s major. It’s collard greens and pancit and tamales. Shit goes down. I don’t have children but I have 13 godchildren. I have lots of nieces and nephews from my brothers and sisters who have babies. I have a partner that I have for 4 years. I gotta a lot of loving arms around me.

Such a good support system. Seems like from the beginning you always had it.

Women get socialized to wanna be married, get children and be in a white picket fence. My path wasn’t. I didn’t do it through proper planning. I didn’t produce that for my life. I kind of bailed on that part.

It’s been great for the past 4 years to have someone who understands how I move. Relationships, you have to work on all of them. I know a lot of women in the industry, women powerhouse etc who have a hard time finding a partner. I feel for that because I understand that path and all the hits and misses that come with it because you are trying to fit yourself in a societal structure that doesn’t fit for what you’re doing- white picket fence, husband all that stuff-it doesn’t work with how we roll. There’s gotta be a power structure, there’s gotta be that holy quality thing. That’s a good goal to work towards but you got to find somebody with enough qualities that can basically put up with you. And then now we’re going to work towards this white picket fence structure. You know sometimes you have an adobe fence, or a blue wall- you know what I mean. Whatever your version of a white picket fence is and your 2.5 children, your two dogs, and a garden. I got a garden. I take good care of my babies. But it’s a garden. And they fight back. Like him (points at a potted plant) He likes to be in the sun.

Do you plant them or buy them and just put them in the garden?

I plant them. Yeah.

That’s awesome. If you were a book, what book would you be and why?

I love Toni Morrison’s The Pieces I am. There’s a new documentary that came out this year. I just sat and cried through it. I think I missed Toni Morrison when was reading in college. Cause I was just being in college and being extra and figuring out things. But the more I read her now, the more applicable everything is. Damn she was just dropping Science and I was not mature enough or present enough to get it. But I love her. Her love is so deep and so great. It’s something to admire.  My book isn’t written yet.  But I hope I have a body of work like Toni Morrison have. I hope I can love that way she does and express it. I want to be seen that way. That’s a goal.

Oh, I know my book.

Auntie Mame. It’s a book and Rosalind Russell made the movie and starred in it. My mom showed me the movie when I was a kid. My partner always says he’s Beauregarding right now. There’s a guy named Beauregard in the book. He loves him some Auntie Mame. He loves her so much. He takes pictures, he supports her, he takes care of her. He’s like that. Auntie Mame, that book was totally me. I forgot that it was a book. That’s my book. She didn’t have kids, she took care of her nephew. She spread love and joy. She changed her house by season, she was extravagant. Watch that movie. Not the Lucille Ball version, the Rosalind Russell version. That’s the shit.