Not Your Typical Teen Sensation Tani Lynn Fujimoto
Tani Lynn Fujimoto is both an atypical and typical teenager — atypical because she’s a budding entertainment star, one potentially of the first magnitude; typical because she often describes herself as being “a dork,” “weird” or just plain “strange.”
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Del.icio.usWhen MidWeek sat down with the recording artist recently, she was in the middle of arguably the most hectic period of her life. Aside from weekly jaunts to Maui to lay down tracks for Gate 76, she’s also been splitting time between school at Sacred Hearts Academy, the upcoming musical production of Aida, and the TV series 29 Down, in which she is cast as one of several teenagers stranded on a deserted island in Micronesia. The series is expected to air on NBC and Discovery Kids this fall.
“I still get enough sleep,” insists Tani Lynn, who will appear in six of the show’s nine episodes. “So my schedule hasn’t been too bad.”
Speaking of bad, MidWeek decided to have some fun with the affable teenager during the interview. Given the fact that she’s a seasoned vet of musicals (Aida is just her latest venture. Last year, for example, she starred in Chicago at Mamiya Theater.), MidWeek took a few lines from a classic song from The Sound of Music (Incidentally, when Tani Lynn was 7, she auditioned for a part in Les Miserables by singing Do, Re, Mi from the 1965 movie) and asked her to list a few of her favorite — and one not-so-favorite — things. Here’s how she responded:
“Crisp apple strudels …”
Mention food and the stomach of the girl with the uber-thin physique growls something fierce. “Food is my friend,” confesses Tani Lynn, a perfect blend of German, Scottish, Polish, French, English, Native American and Japanese ancestry. Her favorite restaurant is La Bamba’s on Kapahulu Avenue because “they have the best Mexican food on the island,” while the item she can never get enough of isn’t crisp apple strudels, but potato chips — specifically, Cape Cod Jalapeno and Aged Cheddar. “I’m craving those potato chips about right now,” she confesses barely 30 minutes into the interview.
“Girls in white dresses with blue-satin sashes …”
Dubbed “the hippie” by her closest friends, Tani Lynn is very fashion conscious, with a preference for vintage clothes — especially jeans, leather belts, paisley-printed halter-tops and antique jewelry. “I like anything unique; anything other people wouldn’t wear.” One other thing she absolutely loves to feel against her skin: Cardigan sweaters.
“Cream-colored ponies …”
Well, she doesn’t own any horses. But she does love animals, namely three dogs named Moto, Lulu Bell and Petey. Another canine, Fuji, died recently. “He was my brother,” sobs Tani Lynn, whose home in Aiea includes one bird and two fish.
“Whiskers on kittens …”
Cats and Tani Lynn? Eh, forget about it. “It’s not that I hate cats,” she injects, hoping not to offend feline lovers. But ever the outspoken one, she can’t resist. “See, cats are like scorned women; dogs are like little kids,” she explains with a kolohe twinkle in her eyes. “I prefer dogs.”
“I simply remember my favorite things and then I don’t feel so bad.”
In truth, Tani Lynn resorts to the typical teenage cure-all whenever she’s feeling down — shopping, shopping and more shopping. “I’ll sometimes be reading the magazine Teen Vogue when I want to be self-indulgent and make myself feel bad. And then I’ll simply go out and buy something.” Like a Cardigan sweater, which once pulled over her head and shoulders makes her feel oh-so-good.
The precocious young woman with the surprisingly big voice is really an old soul at heart. Her favorite recording artists, such as Joni Mitchell and Rickie Lee Jones, are old enough to be contemporaries of her grandparents. Other favorites like Judy Garland, Eva Cassidy, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan were dead long before she was either born or made it to puberty.
But whereas Garland represents her point of departure (“She was my idol. When I was young, all I would do was sing her songs,” she says.), Mitchell seems to be her destiny. Like the composer of such classics as Big Yellow Taxi and Woodstock, Tani Lynn abhors the idea of being defined solely by her amazing pipes. Rather, the ambitious artist wants people to realize that she has so much more to offer — as a songwriter, a poet, a magazine writer and even a book author.
“Performing has sort of lost its luster with me. I’ve basically sung covers all my life and it kind of gets to the point where you lose the purpose of performing. I mean, it’s fun to entertain and to make people smile and enjoy themselves. But I want to do something more,” explains Tani Lynn, who adds that if she had her druthers, she’d perform a la the folk artists of yesterday — on stage with just an acoustic guitar and, of course, her own material.
“I guess once I started writing my own music, I stopped thinking, ‘Wow, that person is such a great singer,’ and started thinking about the whole package,” continues the young artist, whose taste buds have also discovered a liking for such classic rock bands as Lynard Skynard, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and Queen. “It stopped being about if someone sounded good and started being about what they were saying. For me, it’s about speaking and using my voice as a person. The message is much more important.”
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