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Daring To Dream
05/23/2001 4:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Sibylla Nash
The sun is sinking, throwing shadows across L.A.'s tree-lined Wilshire Boulevard, when Tyrese enters the room on the sixth floor of the BMG building. Ruggedly handsome and casually dressed in blue sweats and a white sleeveless T-shirt that shows off his sculpted arms, he seems much older than his 22 years. Perhaps it's in the way he carries himself: smooth and quiet, like a panther. Watching and waiting.
Tyrese's sophomore effort, 2000 Watts, delivers a mature mix of high-energy R&B and sultry ballads, courtesy of a dream team of producers including Jermaine Dupri, Babyface, Diane Warren, and Rodney Jerkins. Tyrese, who co-wrote many of the songs, describes the album as "love, compassion, and my truth.
"I really do feel like there's no comparison between the first album and the second because that's the way I felt at that time," he continues. "My new album is a current listening biography. My next album...if I've grown as a person, then you won't hear the same type of songs on my second or first album."
As a child growing up in L.A.'s Watts neighborhood, Tyrese's career goal was to be a garbage man. But that all changed eight years ago, when at age 14 he got his first taste of showbiz. "My neighbor heard me sing, got hyper, and I went and did a talent show. I won first place, and I knew that was my calling," he recalls. By age 16, he was singing the about virtues of Coke in a national TV commercial. "Two years of singing and I get a major break--and it's been on, cracking, ever since then."
He's certainly come a long way: In addition to his musical endeavors, Tyrese has been quite busy appearing in a Guess ad campaign and starring in John Singleton's new movie Baby Boy, and he also just signed with MTV for another two years. "A lot of people don't know this, but I'm not living a dream. This is not something that I went to sleep and dreamed about--this is a lifestyle that I live," says Tyrese.
However, Tyrese has not forgotten his roots: He is still actively involved in the Watts community where he was born and bred. "The theme behind my foundation work is I don't want to allow the kids of Watts's mind states to be as small as the houses that they live in," he explains. "If you can think outside of your four corners, I feel like I've done God's work. A portion of the proceeds from every single album sale is going to the 2000 Watts Foundation. I'm raising money to build the first-ever 2000 Watts Boys And Girls Youth Center Of Watts. I just look forward to the day that that happens. Now that's a dream!"
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