Member Since: 3/10/2006
Band Members: TROY TAYLOR, TREY SONGZ, BEI MAEJOR, JOSHUA, VERSITYLE BEETZ, E.MILES, MIKE SNODDY, STERLING BRIM, FRANK NITTY
Influences: HERE'S MY STORY: I'm from New Haven, Conn. I started as an artist. I made an album on an independent label but then I met a guy name Timmy Regisford. He was someone who's name I would follow while working at record stores. I would read the credits to know who's doin what and he seemed to be on almost everything i was loving at the time. When I met him, it was like a dream come true. Anyway, he got me bought off of the indie and signed me to Motown. I did another album. By the way these albums never came out. By this time, I was 21. He hooked me up with a young group name BOYZ II MEN and 2 of the songs that I did for my album ended up on their album ("Your Love" & "Little Things") 1 song on the BOYZ II MEN "II" album "Jezzabel" After they came out and blew up, I decided I didn't want to be an artist, just be in the back produce/write and do my backgrounds/arrangements for others and I would be good with that. For example, If you listen to "SWEET LADY" (TYRESE) along with producing/co-writing and arranging the song, that's all me on the background vocals. I started my first company Character Music Corp In 1990. While I was known as The Characters, I produced/wrote for artists like TODAY, COLOR ME BADD, SWV, 702, BROWNSTONE, BRIAN MCKNIGHT, TYRESE, JOHNNY GILL, TAKE 6, FAITH EVANS, and many others. CARL THOMAS and I met at a very early age and we kept in touch til he turned 19, left Chicago and moved to Brooklyn to live 5 years with me. He was my first "TREY SONGZ" so to speak. When CARL fell out with my ex-partner he moved on to BADBOY you know the rest. I met TREY SONGZ when he was 15 the summer of 2001. He sang a song he wrote and when I heard it, I put music to it to see if he had any recording skills. Even though he had never recorded professionally, he did very well. He spent the next 2 summers with me and then after graduating highschool, he came to NJ to live and pursue his dream. He would go with me to almost every session to watch and learn. Soon after, he became my vocal producer assistant. He worked along side me on the KEVIN LYTTLE project to help finish the album. Since Kevin's single "Turn Me On"(which I did not produce) was huge, he had to hurry and finish the album. So CRAIG KALLMAN OF ATLANTIC RECORDS asked me to help finish it and I brought along young TREY. We wrote, produced, arranged, re-arranged, sang, anything that was needed to finish it. It went on to be a platinum selling album. TREY also co-wrote a song for PATTI LABELLE with me "GOOD LOVIN" off her DEF SOUL ALBUM "TIMELESS JOURNEY" He was feat. along with the legendary EDDIE LEVERT on a GERALD LEVERT song I produced. TREY "THE PERFORMER" SONGZ has worked really hard with his classic mixtapes and features to get where he is and I am very proud of him. He was and still is a very good student. LAMONT FLEMMING A.K.A HIT.LA I met him when he was 12 through a very talented writer name NANETTE MAXINE BROWN. I taught and mentored him and he went on to pass the teachings to CHRIS BROWN. I also mentored another talented & Grammy award winning writer and co-writer of TYRESE's hit "SWEET LADY" my lil bro & 2 time GRAMMY AWARD WINNER JOHNTA AUSTIN (Mariah, Mary J. Aaliyah, Chris Brown, Ginuwine, Bow Wow, Toni Braxton etc) I try my best to allow THE LORD to bring the talented people to me so that I don't look for or at the wrong things to decide whether I should be working with them. I realized that everyone talented aint for me to teach and mentor. Now after 12 years God told me to leave my company. He told me to leave before, but i was calling myself "tryna be loyal" But when I left, I went on to start my new production company SONGBOOK and I produced artists like, ARETHA FRANKLIN, PATTI LABELLE, WHITNEY HOUSTON, LIONEL RICHIE, B2k, PRETTY RICKY, GINUWINE, KEVIN LYTTLE, YOLANDA ADAMS, GERALD LEVERT, DONALD LAWERENCE, THE O'JAYS, THE ISLEY BROTHERS, signed my very first artist "THE PERFORMER" TREY SONGZ, MARY J. BLIGE (on her latest album song ..13 look closely at the credits) just to name a few. So now here I am. One of my next artists will be JOSHUA (Fatty Koo) He's currently taking his courses at T.T.U. (TROY TAYLOR UNIVERSITY) lol!!! Bringing the innocence back to music. We did some amazing songs and he sounds great!!! I am currently working on "THE PERFORMER" TREY SONGZ next album "TREY DAY" SONGBOOK has some very talented up & coming producers as well. BRANDON GREEN A.K.A BEI MAEJOR is a kid i met through a friend of a friend over a year ago. BOBBY FISHER (D2 MUSIC MGMT) told me about him and sent me 3 of his trax. When I heard the trax, I was very impressed. So I called him only to find that he was a very talented, well spoken, smart young man attending THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN making trax in his dorm room. He got his very first placement on TREY SONGZ "I GOTTA MAKE IT" He did "UR BEHIND" He scored his 2nd placement on BUN B'S latest album he produced the song "HOLD U DOWN" that feat. BUN B , MIKE JONES, BABY, AND TREY "THE PERFORMER" SONGZ. He's produced a summer 2006 classic smash song for the TREY DAY album "ARE YOU A PERFORMA" BEI MAEJOR is soon to be that next hit making kid. My cousin HOWARD TOLIVER A.K.A. VERSITYLE BEATS who is very talented and working very hard on getting placements. E. MILES is a new edition to SONGBOOK, he is also working hard on his placements. MIKE SNODDY a very talented dude who lives in the ATL, co-produced some heaters with me for TREY DAY. There are a few potential producers but I'm working with them to see if they will be for SONGBOOK. Moving on with my story, A talented grammy award winning writer and good friend of mine GORDON CHAMBERS (ANITA BAKER, BRANDY,BROWNSTONE, ARETHA, WHITNEY) just to name a few, asked me in 2004 to help him with his solo project. He decided to go hard and put it out himself. Since he and I collabbed on so many legends including the ISLEY BROTHERS latest single "JUST CAME HERE TO CHILL" and many others, there was no way I could let him go at it alone. I encourage all to check out his album "INTRODUCING GORDON CHAMBERS. I'm working on PATTI LABELLE'S up coming gospel project. So far, I along with my friend GORDON CHAMBERS, we have already written and produced a classic song "WHERE LOVE BEGINS" featuring YOLANDA ADAMS and another classic song "WALKING AWAY" ft. CEE CEE WINANS. I'm working on an extremely talented up & coming artist on DEF JAM her name is KARINA. I've recorded 6 songs on her so far including the soon to be classic "CAN'T BRING ME DOWN" which is unfinished. She still has to put her piano solo on it. People let me tell you, this young lady is INCREDIBLE!!!!! We are also working once again with THE QUEEN OF SOUL ARETHA FRANKLIN. I WON MY VERY FIRST GRAMMY FOR BEST TRADITIONAL VOCAL PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ON ARETHA"S "WONDERFUL" ON THE "SO DAMN HAPPY" ALBUM IN WHICH I PRODUCED 3 SONGS. SONGBOOK HAS JUST LANDED IT'S FIRST COMMERCIAL MUSIC PLACEMENT "FORD CARS, BOLD MOVES" LOOK FOR THE GIRL GOIN IN THE CLUB AND THE DJ (FLEX) READS HER LICENSE PLATE THAT SHE IS GETTING A TICKET ONLY TO FIND OUT THAT IT'S A DUDE WHO LEFT A MESSAGE ON HER CAR ASKING HER TO DANCE. WHEN THEY DANCE, THAT MUSIC IS DONE BY YA BOY TROY TAYLOR. PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU HEAR IT I AM VERY EXCITED! Now people ask me all the time "who's your next artist and do you work with unsigned acts" Well, let me tell you about my new artist BRANDON HINES. I met him while on the HSBCU Cingular Wireless Tour with TREY SONGZ at HOWARD UNIVERSITY. I was singing back up for TREY SONGZ and noticed a kid singing all the words to one of Trey's song. The album had not been out long so i was very impressed with the fact that he knew all the words. Long story short, i gave him my number. I didn't hear from him til months later on myspace and since i don't give out my number a lot, when he said I gave him my number, I had to inquire. Come to find out it was the kid from Howard. I was then in ATL working on TREY DAY. He sent me his cd that he did in college "LOVE MUSIC" and when i heard the first thing that comes on which was the acapella intro song, I heard his tone and that was it for me. I called him back and we talked and got to know each other a lil more. I started praying and asked The Lord about him. I told him to pray as well. Now the funny thing about this is, a friend of mine CLAY WEST from HAMPTON UNIVERSITY told me about him before I met him and then he ironically went to highschool with my producer BEI MAEJOR. It was like 6 degrees of seperation. Not long after, he was in Dallas starting his courses at T.T.U. He did very well in a short time and the results were so hot that I felt it was time for BRANDON HINES to morph into a new mentality, take on a new identity. So BRANDON HINES was now being taken to the next level. I played it for TREY and he gave me his stamp of approval. So ladies and gentlemen, chicks & dudes INTRODUCING NEW SONGBOOK ARTIST BRANDON HINES!!!! IF you noticed since i last updated this story, there has been 2 major songs done by BRANDON HINES FT. TREY SONGZ. Trey came to Dallas so that we could finish working on TREY DAY, BRANDON is here attending T.T.U. They got together and really hit it off. TREY made no hesitation to pass on what was taught to him. We are family so we promote the "EACH ONE, TEACH ONE" program. Check out the songs "BACK BOUNCE" & "DIFFERENT" both featuring THE PERFORMA, TREY SONGZ. SONGBOOK IS A TEAM THAT ALLOWS GOD TO PUT IT TOGETHER. I will keep you posted on all I'm doin. Feel free to tune in daily as this may change. I WAS JUST NOMINATED FOR BEST TRADITIONAL VOCAL PERFORMANCE BY FEMALE FOR MARY J. BLIGE'S "I FOUND MY EVERYTHING" ON "THE BREAK THROUGH ALBUM" I VOCALLY PRODUCED HER TO HAVE THAT CLASSIC SOUL SOUND. GOD HAS BLESSED ME BEYOND MY IMAGINATION AND NOW I'M
"HELPING LEGENDS STAY LEGENDS & CREATING NEW ONES"
IT'S SONGBOOK BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!STAY TUNED AS I SHOWCASE SOME OF MY OLD RNB SONGS SANG BY MYSELF TO LET YOU HEAR WHAT REAL SONGS ARE ABOUT. JUST TRYNA UP THE VALUE OF TRUE SONG WRITING AGAIN.
Sounds Like:
Record Label: Songbook
Type of Label: Major