Tamara Wellons is not your typical suburban mom.

At 6 a.m., she’s up readying her three kids for school. After dropping  off the four-year-old and taking the six- and eight-year old to the bus stop, she heads in early to her part-time job at a private Catholic school on Capitol Hill.  

Some days she’ll go back home to meditate, write, and rehearse songs while taking a three-mile walk around her neighborhood. But if you happen upon Wellons' Facebook page, you may see comments  begging  her to “please come back to South Africa" or asking where her music can be found in London.

Notice the countless videos on YouTube featuring DJs remixing and spinning her songs. And over the holidays, you may have seen Wellons  flawlessly covering a Nancy Wilson tune during her live acoustic set at Starbucks in Largo Town Center.

Wellons has lived in the Ramblewood section of Upper Marlboro for six years. She's been a global soul music artist for about seven years, and her music is played in nightclubs all over the world.

If you’ve dined at Red Lobster or shopped at AJ Wright recently, there’s a good chance you’ve probably heard Wellons' music. Her first album Life Is.. is licensed to Muzak, which is responsible for distributing background music to retail stores and other companies.

“I noticed a Muzak van in D.C. on my way to Union Station," Wellons said. "I followed it to a stop light, rolled down my window, grabbed a couple of cds and yelled to the driver."

"I asked him to pass the two cds to the person who could make that happen," she added. "This seems crazy, but this is how I operate."

Like women all over the country, Wellons is constantly balancing  family, work and her passion.

“I don’t force it," Wellons said. "I just pray and let God do the rest. That sounds cliche but it’s true. I can't do this thing without that foundation.”

Wellons, raised in the small town of  Ivor, Va., was known in church as "the little girl with the big voice." "Growing up in the South, you get used to one way of life,” she said, although living in Upper Marlboro has introduced her to other lifestyles. 

“There are more things to do here that help deepen my level of creativity.” she said.

Teaching at Joe’s Movement Emporium in Mt Ranier has connected her with the county’s arts community. In 2006, Wellons recieved an individual arts grant for vocal performance from the Maryland State Arts Council, although there aren’t many grants being distributed.

Wellons, who advocates for arts integration in classrooms, thinks the county shouldn’t focus so much on testing. “They need to provide more creative outlets for students."

Wellons is a certified teacher who has taught at Mt Ranier Elementary School for three years and at Thomas Stone Elementary School for four years.

“I  loved the classroom, but never had the time or energy to be creative.” That's when Wellons joined the R & B group Taboo as its lead singer. But after three demos and a few performances, the group broke up. Taboo performed one showcase for Hollywood Records in New York City.

The group’s manager was sentenced to jail for fraud, Wellons said. However, the group's producer Dave Lindsay became instrumental in helping to launch Tamara’s solo career.

“Working with Dave was my first real experience with a music producer and it was when I first started composing songs," Wellons said. Her most popular and original dance single “Oh Well” was written during sessions with Lindsay.  

International house Dj/Producer Osunlade of Yoruba Records heard “Oh Well” on a mixtape Wellons handed him at the  2005 winter music conference in Miami. She signed with Ocha Records as its first artist. Ocha is a joint venture between Osunlade and DJ/Producer Carlos Mena.

“Oh Well” was voted Best of 2007’s top 100 single on Traxsource.com and quickly  become a cult classic on the house music scene.

“Tamara is a pro to work with and gets it done quickly” Mena said. He said her material stands out among other vocalists due to her jazz sensibility and phrasing. Wellons is known for writing songs on subjects, otherwise not heard in dance music.

During her seven-year career, Wellons has released eight singles, two EPs, one mixtape and an album. She’ll mention that some of her best songs were created while driving on those long country roads. Her most recent single  “In My Lifetime,” produced by Dominican artist Ezel, was rated one of the best soulful house songs of 2010, according to Traxsource.com.

“Many of us are proud to have a local singer doing her thing," said host Kimberely Washington of "Soul Conversations," a music show that airs on 89.3 WPFW-FM.. She’s one of our favorite artists on the show. Wellons has a pretty organic quality to her music."

In October, Wellons launched a kickstarter campaign to raise funds for her new album Songs for Janie, which is inspired by a character in the book “Their Eyes Are Watching God” by Zore Neale Hurston. The album is scheduled for an April release.

“Songs for Janie is a testiment to the experience of dreams, reality, love and pain, finding one's self through relationships like marriage," Wellons said. "The foundation for the album is a dialogue between me and Janie, almost like I give my take [through song] on Janie’s experience as I see it happening to me.”

Wellons reached out to local producers Nathan Jolley and Will Smith to work on the project.  

“We have similar ideas [on] how music should sound," Smith said. “She has an intelligent sense of her role as a vocalist and relates very well to the story of Janie. And she can sing too.”

Wellons considers herself a full-time artist, with her balance coming from church, meditation and yoga.

“I guess there’s something to standing on my head and stuff,” Wellons said.