On Sunday, December 14, 1980 Amita Marie Young, was born to her American father, Tim Young and her Thai mother, Bunchorn Young. Amita has no literary meaning, but her mother defines ‘Amita’ as the most beautiful name. As for ‘Tata’, the nickname comes from The TATA Group (an Indian motor company) which impressed her parents when they were living in India.

Watching TV was a normal everyday occurrence in the Young household as it is with most families but on one special evening no one would have ever suspected that this night would change their lives forever. A young fidgety 10 year old girl focuses her attention and gets transfixed to the evening television program. . . what Tata was watching was a talent search singing contest. Tata laughs at herself, “I looked at my parents and for some reason I knew what I wanted to do in life and said to them, I CAN DO THAT!”.

Afterwards her parents started taking her to classes with ‘Maneenut Smerasut’ a well known Thai singing coach. In the registration form there was a question “Why she wanted to enter the singing school?” she wrote, ‘I want to be a superstar’. She attended the classes six days a week and after only three months of attending she entered ‘The Nissan Awards: Thailand Junior Singing Contest 1992’.

With support from her family, Tata was no longer at home watching TV this time, she was next in line to step on the stage. As a contestant and at the tender age of 11, Tata out performed 5,300 other young children to be crowned winner of the singing contest, she sang her convincing rendition of “One Night Only”, Tata recalls, “its funny when your that age and you go thru something like this. . . you never think how one thing like this could change your entire life” and indeed it had, not only in her personal life but through her music, it had affected and touched the lives of everyone around her In 1994, the 14-year-old caught the eye of an A&R executive from Grammy Entertainment, Thailand’s biggest entertainment conglomerate. Realizing her natural given gift, they signed her up with her first record recording contract.

When she signed the contract with Grammy music Tata almost lost the chance of being a solo artist as she was supposed to be a member of girl band called ‘T-SKIRT’. Fortunately, with her talent, the executives believed enough in her to let her go solo.

Tata made her debut on a Teenage Festival stage singing with the most famous male artist at that time, Mos. No one knew who Tata was and it had everyone starting to question “who is this young girl?”. . . soon they would all know.
‘Amita Tata Young’ would be Tata’s 1st album. Uncle ‘Ter’ (Rewat Buddhinan), who also produced ‘Thongchai McIntyre’ was the executive producer and Pond (Tana Lawasut) produced it.

‘Oh Oiy’ was the 1st single released, the video featured her funny dance move. At that time, Tata’s style with Pineapple head, Super Sonic Mouse T-shirt and baggy shorts became fashion.

The 2nd single was called ‘Proong Nee Mai Sai’ (Tomorrow it’s not too late) the track was a big hit. In the music video we could see her pet a guinea pig named ‘Fluke’.
Many singles were released afterwards: ‘Rob Guan Ma Ruk Gun’ (Beg You to Love Me) , ‘Kor Dai Mai’ (Can I ask?), ‘Mai Ruk Tua Aing’ (You don’t even love yourself).
For her first year in the business, she collected a string of awards and accolades, included "Entertainer of the Year" by the Bangkok Press, as well as "Best Recording Artist for 1995", an award for "Music Video of the Year", awards for #1 and #2 "Single of the Year", and "Album of the Year" for Amita Tata Young at the Radio Vote Awards in Thailand.
Following the success of her first live concert, her 1st album ‘AMITA TATA YOUNG’ sold more than one million copies! In Thailand, when passing the one million mark, it was common practice that the Label would launch a new special edition of the album, with a new song on it.

The result was ‘Tata 1 Million Copies Celebration’ with the new single ‘Chan Rak Ter’ (I Love You) on it. It repeated the success of its predecessor and sold more than 1 million units again! This success was an unusual occurrence, it was extraordinary… It was more than any 14 year-old-girl could have imagined.

Tata was the youngest singer in Thailand ever to earn this kind of fame and she started to be known as the ‘Wonder girl’.

In February 1996 she was chosen to represent Thailand for the Australian television program World Telly Broadcast, which was broadcast in February 1996. The program was seen by audiences in Australia and throughout Southeast Asia .
Only two months later, In April 1996, Tata held her "Tata Live in Hollywood Concert" at the Hollywood Palladium. It was a rare event for an Asian singer to be performing in front of an American audience. Nevertheless, the concert received outstanding reviews.

“6.2.12” was a special album from Grammy as a present for Thai music fans. The songs were from famous singers such as Christina Aguilar, J-Jetrin, Mos, UHT, Nat Meria and Tata Young. This album was sponsored by Coca Cola and the pictures of artists were even on the side of Coca Cola cans.
The Live concert for the “6.2.12” album took place in February 1996. There were 6 stages for 6 artists with a total of 50,000 in the audience.
Tata was also selected by the Chinese government to represent Thailand at a concert held on July 5, 1997 to mark the Hong Kong handover. She performed alongside such international acts such as Wet Wet Wet, Michael Learns to Rock, Lisa Stansfield, All 4 One and Brand New Heavies.

Later that year, Tata became the youngest entertainer ever to receive the coveted "Golden Pikkanes Gold Award" presented by the Musical Artist Association of Thailand under the patronage of the King of Thailand. Following her reception of the award, she performed a private concert for His Majesty at his summer palace in Chiang Mai.

The Tata Young Fan Club was also formed in 1997, to gather support from her fans to provide assistance to the Thai children's charity, the Human Development Foundation.

Tata continued her success by singing a duet with Mos in the album MOS & TATA, that was launched on January 23. This album made Tata to be the newest Teen Idol, the songs like ‘Malang’ (Bugs) was one of the songs in Thai music memories, even until now everyone can sing it!

On February 15, Tata featured in ‘Mos, Tata & Friends’. She sang along with many guest artists such as Beau Sunita, Fluke Clerkpon, Jason Young and Nana Cha.

She made her film debut in 1997 in the youth drama ‘The Red Bike Story’, which broke records for audience-attendance for the Thai film industry. Her debut earned her the "Best Actress Award (Thailand)" presented at the Fourth Annual Blockbuster Entertainment Awards 1997. She followed that up with two other hit films, O-Negative and Plai Tien.

Happy Birthday: Mini Album

On July 5, Tata was the only artist selected by Chinese government to join the ‘Hand Over Concert’, the celebration marked the occasion when the UK returns Hong Kong S.A.R to China.

In the same month. Grammy put out special project ‘Happy Birthday’ brought 3 singers; Mos, Nat Meria and Tata.

Amazing TATA: The 2nd album

Tata released her 2nd album ‘Amazing TATA’ on November 6, 1997. At this point she was able to develop her style more both musically and fashion wise. She even developed her unique style pants with with 11 pockets. The major hit song from this album was ‘Suk Ka Nid’ (Little Bit-ซักกะนิด).

True Wonder Girl

Tata received the Golden Ganesha Awards from the Thailand Musical Artist Association under Royal patronage.
ELLE magazine named her one of Thailand's "10 Most Influential People".
ASIA WEEK Magazine also selected her as one of 25 Most Influential Trend-Maker in Asia, Tata was the youngest in the list and amongst other people it featured the Dalai Lama!

The Nation newspaper named her as one of Thailand’s 100 Most Influential Artist & Entertainers of the Country

After gaining blockbuster fame from her debut film career, her 2nd movie ‘O-Negative’ was out in theatres on October 30. The story’s about relationship between friends turned out a major a success and became a cult movie in Thailand that is still referenced for it’s accurate portrayal of the 90s.

The movie gained praises and compliments from many critics and won awards from Thai Film Association’s Royal Surasawadee the 9th Supannahong (Golden Swan). Tata also did the OST album for this movie.

"REACH FOR THE STARS"

Tata was chosen to sing "Reach for the Stars" in the opening ceremony for 1998 the Asian Games in Bangkok.

She said it was such an honour for her to sing at the 13th Asian Games theme song. That night His Majesty The King ‘Bhumibol’, altogether with the Royal Family was present.

“The proudest moment in my life was singing in the Asian Games. I was honored, and of course, Royal family was there right in front of me. It’s a once in a lifetime experience.” Tata said.

When her contract with Grammy ended, she headed back to school and earned her diploma from The University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She also spent time with her family and beloved dogs, her favorite pets.

Although there was no studio album released this year, she came out with the compilation ‘The Very Best of TATA’.

TV Commercials

In 1999 she also begun being featuring in several TV commercials:

1. Colgate Toothpaste
2. Yamaha Motorcycle
3. Panasonic Music Player
4. Smooth E facial cleanser

Modeling

This year Tata’s modeling took off on catwalks both in Thailand and abroad. She was also featured as a cover girl for prominent fashion magazines.

Part Of Your World : Disney On Ice

Tata signed a four year contract with BEC TERO Entertainment. Her 1st song with BEC was ‘Part of Your World’ a “Disney on Ice” song featuring “The Little Mermaid theme song” in Thai.

Time Magazine
In the summer of 2001, Tata was on the cover of TIME Magazine alongside with ‘Maggie Q’ and ‘Asha Gill’. The story focused on successful Eurasians

TATA YOUNG: The Beginning
Tata’s 3rd album called “Tata Young” (the first record under the BEC TERO label) was launched on September 27. The 1st single was ‘SHOT’, a dance song with groovy beat, followed by A-Bo-De-Be’, which was considered the most fun track on the album.

Live concert for this album was on November 29. TATA YOUNG’ went Platinum in Thailand and it was awarded the Channel [V] Thailand “The Chosen One” prize. Tata was also nominated for ‘Best Recording Artist-Thailand’ at the MTV Asia Music Awards (2002) in Singapore.

Although Tata already had starred in several feature films, this was her first time being the principal cast in a TV drama. She played ‘Kaolad’ in Plai Tien which was based on Prof. Winita Didhiyonta’s novel with the same name. The character ‘Kaolad’ was a confident girl with unique personality. Tata also ended up doing the soundtrack for two of the songs for the series.
In 2002 she also took part on the “Fifa World Cup” (Thailand) compilation featuring in ‘Cheer Yood Loak’ (Cheer Stop the World) together with other Thai artists.

2003
Real TT: When Tata became a co-producer

In 2003 Tata released her second album with BEC Tero Records called Real TT. She co-produced the album, co-wrote the songs and laid out the concepts. Hits included "Super Fan" and "Yak Keb Thoe Wai Thang Song Khon" (I need the both of you).

Tata wrote the lyrics herself, which was about the difficulties on who to choose between the one she loved and the one who loved her.

In 2004 the rumors about her chance to do an English album started spreading like wild fire. In February, Matichon newspaper printed ‘Sexy Naughty Bitchy’ lyrics with Tata photo shoot in yellow dress saying: ‘Keep a good eye on her’.
She released her English-language debut album, I Believe under Columbia Records. The album was launched on February 14 in Singapore. More than 100 members of the international press attended her press conference. The record hit 9x platinum in her home country; and achieved the amazing feat of selling more than one 1,000,000 copies across Asia, including over 400,000 units in Japan; This unprecedented feat earned her “Best International Artist of The Year 2005 award” by the Recording Industry Association Japan(RIAJ) and ‘Best International Artist 2005’ from Channel [V] Thailand.
The album title ‘I Believe’ was not related to the song ‘I Believe’ but it came from her parents words ‘Tata, I believe in you’. The album was recorded in Sweden and the producer of ‘I Believe’ is Martin Ankelius, who had previously worked with several top European acts.

“When I went to Whitney Houston live concert in Thailand, I had a chance to meet her and she said to me ‘Don’t sing a song if you don’t believe in it.’ ” Tata said.

The 1st single was ‘Sexy Naughty Bitchy’ and it was a sudden hit song on pretty much every chart across Asia. It was also controversial and stirred controversy at home in Thailand. In Malaysia, she even had to change the name of the tune to "Sexy, Naughty, Cheeky". Nonetheless, Tata was voted as one of the "50 sexiest women in the world" by Malaysian publications.

“I Believe”, the 2nd single, a cover version of Swedish pop Carola Haggkvist’s ‘I Believe In Love’ was an even bigger hit, and was selected as theme song for AFC Asian Cup 2007.

The 3rd single was Cinderella (originally from Play) and the album itself featured a variety of songs. Tata’s personal favorite was ‘Call Him Mine’.

She went on to many countries during her promo tour and performed at the Miss Singapore pageant, hosted the MTV Philippines Music Awards, sang a duet with the famous Korean singer ‘H’ and joined Taiwan’s Golden Melody Awards.

'I Believe’ propelled Tata into the international music scene. In India Tata sang the soundtrack for the Bollywood blockbuster ‘Dhoom Dhoom’ in English. The music video was smoking hot and attracted everyone’s attention. She was on the 1st page of every major Indian newspaper and ‘Dhoom Dhoom’ ended up being a hit over Asia.

A Great Loss

On November 6, while Tata was touring in Nepal, her mother who was suffering with cancer passed away. At the funeral, Tata chose trees as keepsakes for everyone as mother loved to see how a tree grows up.
“My mother had severe cancer, before she stopped talking, one thing she said to me was.. ‘Remember, no matter how worse my symptoms are, I don’t want you to stop working, because that’s not what I want.’ When she was unconscious everyone started to give parting instructions. I tried to say ‘If you can’t tolerate it anymore, then please let go.’ But that’s the hardest word… The day she went away I was Nepal, on a plane to see Mt.Everest. I believe she was at the top of the world, because I was there.” Tata said.

More Commercials

In Pepsi’s commercial for ‘Pepsi Fire & Pepsi Ice’, Tata Young was chosen to star together with Vanness Wu from Taiwan’s F4. This spectactular high budget effect loaded commercial was filmed in China and Tata and Vanness played Pepsi superpower heroes.

The same year, she also appeared on a uki motorcycle TV commercial, this time alongside Wang Lee Hom, another famous Taiwanese singer. She also recorded the Suzuki theme song called ‘Life is Action’ (in both the Thai & English)
She was presented a TV Commercial for ‘Colgate Maxfresh Toothpaste’ which was shot in South Korea. The theme for the TV commercial was the song ‘Mai Mee Tang’ (Give It Back To Me) from her 5th Thai album.

In 2005, MTV chose Thailand to host their MTV Asia Awards for the first time. The event took place at Impact Arena in Bangkok. Because of the recent tragic tsunami, the concept was changed to ‘MTV Asia Aid 2005’ to commemorate the victims and help the survivors, many of which lost everything they owned.
Leading up to the event, Tata was the host for MTV Documentary series called ‘The Road to BKK’ as a part of MTV’s Asia Aid campaign. The show featured Thailand’s culture, arts and traditions. On the night of the event Tata performed ‘I Believe’. The show was hosted by Alicia Keys and featured other prominent artists such as Kelly Clarkson, Hoobastank, Good Charlotte and Simple Plan

I Believe Japan Tour 2005

Although Japan is the 2nd largest music industry in the world it is not easy for artists from other countries to break through there. In Japan, Tata sold sales more than 400,000 copies…! Her singles quickly climbed up the major charts.

After the initial English success, Tata decided to release Sexy Naughty Bitchy, I Believe and I think of you in the Japanese language and filmed two new videos especially for her Japanese fans! She also performed live in six major cities with ‘Tata Young’s Japan Tour 2005’. The cities she played were Nagoya, Fukuoka, Osaka, Yokohama, Sendai and Tokyo.
Dhoom Dhoom Tour
After all her tours, Tata returned home and performed her biggest live show ever. ‘Tata Young Dhoom Dhoom Tour’ (Live in Bangkok) was held on July 16 and the tickets sold out within hours of becoming available. As a result, Sony had to prepare an additional day on July 17 that also sold out.

Highlights

The highlight of this concert was when she walked up on the piano and lay on it! Tata sang B5’s song ‘Eak Tee’ for her mother who had passed away and her nanny of 21 years who passed away 6 months later. She also sang ‘I Believe’ in Thai after an encore and ended the show with Dhoom Dhoom.
Special guests at the concert were also Thaitanium (The biggest Thai Hip-Hop band) and both B5 (a Thai soul band), along with B5 they were featured on the album ‘Dangerous TATA’.

Dangerous TATA : An Album of Change

Her 5th Thai studio album launched under Sony BMG. The tune varied from pop-dance to R&B to easy-listening slow tracks. She also made her hip-hop debut with the 1st single “Dangerous” feat. Thaitanium’ while the 2nd single “Shining” was more of an easy listening song.

At the end of the year SonyBMG went on to release ‘Dangerous TATA Special Edition’ with one new song ‘Song Kon Nueng Kuen’ (One Night Stand), a slow track.
MTV Asia Awards chose Thailand again to be hosts and this time the event took place at Paragon Hall at Siam Paragon. Hosts of the show were Kelly Rowland (from Destiny’s Child) and Wang Lee Hom, a Taiwanese pop star.

Tata appeared on the red carpet in her gorgeous new style ‘tanned skin’ and wore a yellow crystal dress. That night she sang a duet with Lee Ryan (A former “Blue” member that had gone solo). Together they sang ‘Endless Love’ by ToR+ on piano.
Tata won ‘Favorite Artist Thailand’ that night against other the Thai artists: Forgotten, Bodyslam (rockband), Lydia (R&B girl) and Thaitanium (Hip-Hop band). Tata also announced the ‘Inspiration Award’ which went to Bird (Thongchai McIntyre).
I Temperature Rising: Turing up the heat

In August 2006, Tata launched her 2nd English album (her 7th studio album).
‘Temperature Rising’ an R&B and pop-dance style record.

The 1st hot single was ‘El Nin-Yo!’ that featured a sexy video. This fast upbeat song instantly topped every chart and stayed number one for months!

Her 2nd single ‘Zoom’ was produced by Adam and Nikki Anders (Backstreet Boys). They wrote the lyrics from Tata’s personality and filmed the video on a beach in the south of Thailand.
The 3rd single was the cover version of Sir Paul McCartney’s Come Rain Come Shine. It was only one disco track on the album. The video premiered at her live concert ‘Tata Young Temperature Rising Live In BKK’.

11 songs in this record were English but the last track ‘Mila Mila’ was a Hindi/English song.

Most of the album were fast tracks, there’re only 2 slow ballad songs.
One was ‘For You I Will’ written by ‘Diane Warren’ and ‘I Guess I Never Knew My Baby’

Temperature Rising Live In Bangkok

Her first live concert for this album was held on December 15 at Impact Arena, just one day after her birthday. It featured many outfits; from Indian style with ornaments, a ruby red dress and one where Tata disguised herself as a sexy cop while singing ‘Uh Oh’. The concert also featured the transgender group “Venus Flytrap” who performed ‘I will survive’ with Tata.

Anywhere We Can Go
Later that year Tata was a presenter for i-Mobile 611 and performed the song for their TV commercial ‘Anywhere We Can Go’.
StStarting December 2006, Tata Young was featured singing her third single from 'Temperature Rising' "Come Rain, Come Shine" as the station identification vignette for the Asian English-language television channel STAR. The Star Network has more than 300 million viewers across Asia and the Middle East.ar World Image Girl
Pattaya Music Festival
Tata put on a hot show at the Pattaya Summer Music Festival, Thailand’s biggest music festival. Here she shared the stage with international artists from many countries such as Babywalk, Reef, Dr. Octopus, T-Bone, Ampol Lampoon, Seal, Ponglang Sa-on, Girli-Berri and Ai Nahm.

MTV Exit: ‘Campaign against human trafficking’ and Father Joe Maier
In collaboration with MTV and USAID (United States Agency for International Development) Tata Young, Angelina Jolie and Rain Bi helped highlight the problem of human trafficking. As a part of her efforts she helped host shows and documentaries that raised awareness of modern day slavery.
Tata talks about the MTV Exit Campaign: http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/lisnaree/2007/08/27/entry-3
Tata has also been helping Father Joe's ‘Human Development Centre’ with its Aids programme. ‘It's truly wonderful to be helping humans and our rights.’ Tata said.
Tata released the single 'One Love' as a Valentine's Day present for her fans. The song was later featured as leading track on her 2008 Thai album with the same name.
Tata put on a hot show at the Pattaya Summer Music Festival, Thailand’s biggest music festival. Here she shared the stage with international artists from many countries such as Babywalk, Reef, Dr. Octopus, T-Bone, Ampol Lampoon, Seal, Ponglang Sa-on, Girli-Berri and Ai Nahm.

One Love, Tata's 8th studio album, was released on March 6, 2008. It contains the following ten songs in Thai language: One Love, Boom Bam, Cause of Sadness, Good Time, Please, Teasing (Kidding), A Living Creature Without A Heart, I'll Be Your First, Your Last, Your Everything, Unwind Wind and Home.

In This album, Tata got back to her roots with her familiar pop style. Most the songs are mix between slow ballads and pop. ‘One Love’ was the first time that she released a mid-tempo song as a lead single. The song talks about no matter how far everyone is in this world, everyone can be connected to each other with love. It went straight to number one on the local chart as soon as it was released. The second single: 'Cause of Sadness', a sad love song, also managed to stay on the local charts for months.

“I'll be Your First, Your Last, Your Everything”, performed in her pop-dance signature style was later released as the 3rd single.

The touching acoustic track: “The Unwind Wind” was dedicated to her passed away mother.
The last track on this album "Home" was not a song intended for sale, but Tata wanted to send a message of unity during the political crisis in her country.
After that, she flew to Berlin, German to record songs for her 3rd English album ‘Ready for Love’. While recording Tata wrote her diaries to tell her fans about the process on FORD Thailand’s Official website.
In 2008 she also revived her film career starring in in Jeff Hare’s drama “Bitter Sweet” that won best film at the Houston World Film Festival.

Tata also contributed on the “One Love One Leaf Program” in which she planted trees in Chang Mai. Tata also held book recycling programs at her performances in Chang Mai, Phuket, Udon Thani, Bangkok, donating the books collected to schools and libraries across Thailand.
Tata performed Live in Concert on April 12th at the Venetian in Macau for the Thai New Year celebrations. The show was a success and the tickets sold out.

On May 20th Tata held a press conference at the Foreign Correspondent Club of Thailand to announce her participation as the Ambassador for the United Nation’s “My Ozone wish”. The campaign aims to increase knowledge on how everyone can prevent emissions of gases that damage the Earth’s protective Ozone layer.

Her third international album “Ready for Love” is out August 2009 and is to be released in every Asian market. Having her sights on increasing her fan base and with the record labels support. . . all eyes are on her to be the first mainstream Asia artist to cross over into the major European markets with this album.