The youngest of fourteen children, Tamela 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."
