For the last seven years, Tamela Mann has been a hilarious mainstay in a string of Tyler Perry stage comedies such as Madea’s Family Reunion, Madea’s Class Reunion, I Can Do Bad All By Myself and his latest smash hit Meet the Browns. She’s also the featured voice on Kirk Franklin gospel classics such as “Lean on Me” and “Behold the Lamb.” In recent years, she’s caught the attention of Hollywood with roles in the #1 box office smash Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Kingdom Come. Mann’s sweet smile, never-met-a-stranger-personality and powerhouse vocals belie the fact that Mann has weathered many personal storms on her way to the top of the entertainment world.
The youngest of fourteen children, Mann was born in Fort Worth, Texas. By the time, she was born, her father wasn’t around, so her mother made ends meet by cleaning houses. Church was at the center of Mann’s home life. “We had to go to church,” she recalls. “So I started going to rehearsals with my brothers and sisters who were in the choir. I’d be standing on the side of the choir stand and they would be learning parts and before I knew it, I was singing the same parts that they were.” By the time she was 12 years old, Tamela was electrifying the Holy Tabernacle Church of God in Christ’s (C.O.G.I.C.) adult choir as a soloist and she later joined a local vocal group, the Living Lights.
Mann and her best friend, Cassandra, had their own little group too. They would stand in front of the console at home with fake microphones and mimic the Clark Sisters’ songs. Cassandra’s mother, Sister Robinson was a singer and would take Mann and Cassandra with her on her singing engagements and occasionally Mann would get to sing as well. On one of those occasions, Mann got to sing with the legendary Mattie Moss Clark. “I was so shy I’d sing with my eyes closed,” she recalls. “My recent stage work has helped me be able to open up and look at the audience. Back then, I didn’t know how it was going to happen but I had the desire to sing. My hobby was singing and I wanted to travel.”
Mann moved in with her sister, Pat and got a full-time job as a nurse’s aide at Euless Bedford Convalescent Center. Balancing school and work was rough and Mann began to miss school because she was fatigued. “My sisters were partiers. There was drinking, drugs and a lot of men,” she recalls. “I was in the midst of that.” Mann returned to her mother’s home so that she could finish high school. She would go straight home, stay in her room and close the door. She’s the only one out of 14 siblings to graduate from high school.
After finishing high school in 1984, Mann had a number of jobs. She worked at Captain D’s Fish House, Jack in the Box and continued to work as a nurse’s aide. Then, David Mann entered Mann’s life. Tamela’s friend Nicole knew David and his singing partner Daryl who were in a group called the Humble Hearts. Nicole told them she had a friend who could sing very well, so she brought Mann to see the guys sing. "They were doing `The Question Is’ by the Winans," she recalls. "I said, 'these boys are great.' Then, they came to see me sing.” Soon, Mann and the guys became fast friends and they asked her to join the group – a gig that lasted for two years.
After a while, David and Mann became an item and married in 1988. David had gone to O.D. Wyatt High School with Kirk Franklin, so when Franklin formed his Family choir, he asked David and Daryl to become members. Eventually, Tamela joined too and Kirk Franklin & the Family hit the gospel world with the crossover hit “The Reason Why We Sing” in 1993. Over the years, Mann led such Kirk Franklin & the Family classics as “Behold the Lamb” and “Lean on Me” which also featured Bono and R. Kelly. Even during that period, the Manns had their share of problems. “We were living off of potatoes,” she says. “Mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, baked potatoes because that’s all we could afford.” They were so broke at one point that they attached wire hangers to their car windshield wipers and pulled on them manually during a rainstorm because they could not afford to get them fixed.
When they weren’t performing with the Family, Mann worked in the optics field and David was a hairdresser at the Fantastic Beauty & Barber Shop in Ft. Worth, Texas. In 1996, Mann joined the David E. Talbert gospel stage play, He Say…She Say…But What Does God Say? And got the acting bug. She and David left the Family in 1999 and a few weeks later were recruited for Tyler Perry’s first stage play, I Can Do Bad By Myself where she played the character of Cora—Madea’s spiritual but giggly daughter and the lovable daughter of Mr. Brown in the production. Afterwards, Manna played in Perry’s musical comedy Diary of a Mad Black Woman in 2001. She played the character of Myrtle—a bit of a feisty, preachy woman who was never short on words. In a relatively short period of time, Mann’s exemplary performances paved the way for Cora to become a principal character in Perry’s other successful stage comedies Madea’s Family Reunion and Madea’s Class Reunion.
In January 2005, Tyler Perry launched Meet the Browns with the Manns as the star of the sold-out show, which ran for six months around the country. Around the same time, the couple opened their own recording label, Tillymann Music. Their first project is Mann’s debut CD Gotta Keep Movin’ which sold 7,000 copies in the first week and has since sold over 60,000 copies. The single “Speak Lord” has spent a dozen weeks in the Top Ten on Billboard magazine’s gospel singles chart. Tamela’s career ontinues to build momentum as she tours the country in support of the project. It’s all part of the next chapter of the Mann’s career in which they plan to speak at marriage seminars and continue making music.
Many of Mann’s dreams have now come true. She and David have built a 7,000-foot dream house with a commercial stove (Mann is an excellent cook) and other luxury amenities in Cedar Hill, Texas. But, amid her material blessings, Mann’s heart is broken. Her mother, Mary Thompson, has Alzheimer’s disease and lives in a nursing home. “She was really a good woman,” Mann says as she holds back the tears. “I know God has his reasons for all things. My mother didn’t deserve this. She doesn’t know about any of these things that have happened to us. She’s 79 years old and when I go to visit her, she doesn’t know who I am. I wish my kids could know her the same woman I knew growing up. She would have been so proud of me and I just want to share this with her. She’s alive but she’s just here. I want her to be a part of this because she is a part of this. Without her, I would not have made it this far.”