Kidsday talks to Natasha Bedingfield
Singer Natasha Bedingfield (center) with Kidsday reporters (l) Madeline McCabe, Maggie White, Nicole Tek and Jillian Minda, all students from St. Joseph's School in Garden City, at MTV's TRL studios in Manhattan. (Oct. 20, 2011) Credit: Newsday/Pat Mullooly
We interviewed singer Natasha Bedingfield before a recent performance in Manhattan.
It's hard to decide on a favorite. But I like "Unwritten," even though I've sung it thousands of times. I like it because everyone sings it with me in the crowd, and it gives me a big buzz.
I do. Yeah, actually most of my songs are about something relational. Things that happen around me. It's not always just around me, but a lot of times it's real life. I like songs that mean things to me. Significant.
When I was younger, it was definitely my mom. And she still is now. But we've always been just more like buddies, more like friends.
I sometimes get nervous, but not when I'm singing. It's more like when I'm talking because I think I feel quite comfortable with singing. Speaking can be quite nerve- wracking. I did get nervous when I sang at the White House because [Barack] Obama was sitting there, and I was singing here. But the way I stopped feeling nervous was I just told myself that I wasn't nervous, and it seemed to work. And I also just imagined that instead of with him, it was someone I knew. Instead of the president -- it made it not such a big thing. I imagined someone that I actually was a friend of. And it was great. There's one point that I thought my line was whatever. I just sang this really crazy ad-lib at the end, and I closed my eyes, and I just did a hair flick, and when I opened my eyes, everyone stood up and clapped. So I was like, OK, that went well.
Well, I try not to spend too much time thinking about where I am most popular, and that's because it makes me start thinking about like the people who don't like me. And I feel like it's the wrong focus for me. Like I can't be creative if I worry too much what people think. At the moment, I've been doing a lot of work in America.
I love looking through iTunes at just like artists coming from the past. I love like Diana Ross, I love Annie Lennox, and people now; I love Alicia Keys and Adele and a lot of male artists, like John Mayer, Eminem.
It did involve a lot of sacrifice, but a lot of fun as well. There were quite a few years where I felt that it was my friends who sacrificed a lot because I wasn't there for their birthdays, I didn't remember their birthday presents because I was out on the road all the time. So in some ways, there were definitely moments of sacrifice. Just not always being there with people.
