At home with Teddy Riley - music producer, songwriter, and singer

Ebony, August, 1997 by Muriel L. Whetstone Sims

Innovative, talented, imaginative and daring--these are only a few of the accolades given to the King of New Jack Swing, producer, composer and singer Teddy (Street) Riley, whose unique blend of old-school soul and streetwise hip-hop took R&B up a creative road of no return. Now, after spending most of his 30 years in Harlem, Riley has taken his music and his life to another level, leaving New York for a lavish estate in Virginia.

"I left New York because of all the tragedy and things that are happening there that are tearing it down," he explains. "I still love New York to the fullest because if it weren't for New York, I wouldn't be here. I couldn't grow up anywhere else doing what I'm doing today--I don't think I would have had the same edge. I understand and appreciate music more because I'm from New York."

Riley's rise to his current level of musical maturity began in Harlem Hospital, where he was born, and continued in the 'hood's St. Nicholas Projects where he grew up. A self-acknowledged street urchin, Riley admits that he orchestrated his fair share of hustles. But his love of music and his mother's prayers helped him rise to the top of the music world.

Riley and his family--fiancee Donna Roberts, their daughters, Dejanee, Taja and Tiara Riley, and their adopted son, Dante Horne--are now living "the life of Riley" on an opulent estate in tranquil Virginia Beach, Va. He relocated them, his mother, Mildred Riley, Donna's mother, Bobbie Roberts, and his production staff to the area in 1990. His brother and business partner, Markell Riley, and his sister, Nese Riley, also live nearby.

Reluctant to discuss either his material possessions or his family in the press, the self-described "inside guy" guards his privacy as fiercely as his three Rottweilers protect his property. "When you get in this business, everybody wants to know your business," he says. "But I try to stay as close to my family as I can, and I try to keep them away from the public's eyes and ears."

Just 10 minutes from his home is Riley's customized state-of-the-art recording studio. Future Recording Studio is where he spends a lot of late nights writing and producing songs for himself and a host of celebrated notables, including Michael Jackson, Patti LaBelle and Whitney Houston.

Riley hasn't always rubbed elbows with the heavy hitters. A child prodigy, he was playing the drums at the tender age of 3. By the time he turned 5, he was also playing the guitar and trumpet, and at 8, the piano for the Little Flower Baptist Church in Harlem. In time, he became a regular on the New York amateur circuit, where he played with bands that included Johnny Kemp and Keith Sweat, artists he would later work with professionally. He credits Royal Bayyan, an associate of the group Kool & the Gang, with introducing him to the craft of record production and teaching him the nuances of sound engineering and writing. "After that experience," says Riley, "I really started growing and focused my mind on the production side of business."

On the production side of the business, Riley has produced 10 platinum albums and at least 22 platinum and 11 gold singles. "Producers come and they go, but I'm here to stay," he says. "I'm not a one-recold-wonder."

If that wasn't immediately apparent to music industry honchos, they got the message in 1986 and 1987 when Riley produced a succession of platinum hits, including "My Prerogative" for Bobby Brown and "Just Got Paid" for Johnny Kemp. In '87 he also produced the self-titled debut CD for the now-disbanded group Guy, a three-man crew he launched with brothers Aaron and Damion Hall.

By the end of the decade, the success of these and other compositions had earned Riley the distinction of being named the architect of New Jack Swing--a hybrid of R&B that blends jazz, gospel and funk with enough rap to keep young streetwise music lovers interested. "I don't really consider myself the best producer in the world," says Riley, "but I know I'm very prolific when it comes to music, and that's what people need in the music industry today--[producers] who can take music to another level."

In the early '90s, Riley and his best friend, Chauncey (Black) Hannibal, organized the group BLACKstreet, which included David Hollister and Levi Little, and Riley masterminded the production of its self-titled debut CD, BLACKstreet. When Hollister and Little left the group to pursue solo careers, they were replaced by baritone Eric Williams and tenor Mark L. Middleton. And last September, to the enthusiastic applause of music critics and fans, the reconstructed quartet released its second CD, Another Level --an exuberant speaker-blaster that successfully combines rap, hip-hop funk and hand-clapping gospel without sacrificing the essence of traditional R&B.

No doubt, the party tune "No Diggity," a million-plus seller in its own right, has helped propel Another Level to its phenomenal heights. "We're trying to take R&B back to its greatest form," says Riley, who produced or coproduced each of the 18 tracks on the CD, which has sold more than 3 million copies.