TALK about diva love.

Tata Young’s Ready For Love, her third English release, boasts danceable, R&B-skewed pop tunes and it’s got one big thing going for it – Britain’s X Factor winner Leona Lewis contributed to the album.

Lewis, 24, the singer of the mega-hit Bleeding Love, penned and provided vocal guides – which often has the writer of a track singing the melody – for the song Perfection, Young revealed over the phone from Bangkok.

It was intimidating, she said, to have Lewis working on a track for her and she wanted to do the song justice. “It was a challenge for me because she’s got such a great voice and is one of the best singers in the world,”

Young, 28, enthused when asked about the collaboration. Young and Lewis did not meet during the writing process, and Young did not explain how the sale of the song from Lewis’ catalogue was initiated.

Still, Young hopes that she’s done Lewis proud.

“I don’t think I’m as good as her, but I tried my best (on her song),” she added humbly.

Young added that she hopes to break into the European market with Ready For Love.

“It’s fun and energetic, and it’s honestly the best album I’ve recorded in my life,” she said of the album.

Young, with a penchant for being provocative and for stirring up controversy, broke into the Asian mainstream in 2004 with the sultry hit song, Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy off her album, I Believe.

That track had Thailand’s Ministry of Culture up in arms over its suggestive content and even had to be renamed Sexy, Naughty, Cheeky for Malaysian audiences.

Two years later, another song, El Nin-Yo! (off Temperature Rising), came with a music video so sizzling – it showed Young prancing around in the sort of lingerie one is more used to seeing on Jeffrey Chung models – it set tongues wagging once again.

But the diva – born Amita Marie Young to an American father and Thai mother – makes no apologies for her provocative tendencies.

“It didn’t matter to me what anyone thought back then, because I did believe in what I was doing and I still do,” she said.

These days, though, the girl – who found fame in Thailand at 15 and has also dabbled in acting and modelling – seems to have calmed down somewhat.

“Singing is what I love doing and I hope that people appreciate me doing it,” she said evenly.

And to those wondering whether the album title is a hint as to her love life, Young ventured slyly: “Let’s put it this way – I’m still looking.”

vbarker@sph.com.sg

For more my paper stories click here.