Tyra Banks: creator of TV's 'America's next top model' tells why singing is her next move

Jet, March 1, 2004 by Margena A. Christian

The success of TV's "America's Next Top Model" has its creator singing with glee.

Literally. Tyra Banks is so elated about the show's second season and the news that "America's Next Top Model" has been renewed for two additional seasons that she's ready for the world to witness something different from her. This supermodel also sings.

"America's Next Top Model" airs on Tuesday nights. On February 24, the top-rated UPN reality show will air the behind-the-scenes making of the video for Banks's debut song, Shake Ya Body. The world premiere of the music video for the dance song will immediately follow.

"I've been singing for six years," Banks tells JET. "I've been in and out of the studios with top producers, but it wasn't something I was ready to express to the public or to the press. I wasn't ready to come out. I wanted to perfect my voice and be 100 percent positive that I could come out right."

She has a steady vocal coach and has enlisted help from the best in the industry. Prolific songwriter Diane Warren and superproducer Rodney Jerkins are among the names. Jerkins produced Shake Ya Body.

"People will be shocked. She can really sing," Jerkins tells JET. "She's like between soprano and high alto. I challenged her vocally. I pushed her, but not too far. I pushed her where vocally it fit the track."

Singing is not a passing fad, Banks attests. "This isn't a fluke for me. It's not like, 'Oh, I want to sing now.' This is something I grew up with. My mom has a beautiful voice. I heard that every day. You only get one chance when it comes to the music world. You might do a movie. It flops. You get another chance. With music, this song has to be hot and I have to be tight."

A CD, says Banks, is also in the works. "I would love an album in the fall or sometime early next year. It's something I've been working on for a while. I have five songs that I really love. I've done tons of them, but I think five are album-ready right now."

She describes her sound as "cool, laid back and mellow." A song called Beautiful, co-written with Robert "Big Bert" Smith, is one of her favorites.

"It's perfectly in my range," she says. "Hopefully I can release this song next. Some people say that it reminds them of Sade."

Jerkins calls Banks a "natural star" who has to transfer her star quality to music. "This is a whole different industry," he says. "It's different from modeling. She has to go alter this hard."

Artists like Destiny's Child, Brandy, Toni Braxton, Monica, Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige, Michael Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, and Britney Spears have worked with Jerkins. Jerkins, known as Darkchild, has three Grammys; he knows real singing.

"She has what it takes to pull it off," he says. "She had a hungriness to want to be in the studio all the time. Some people want to be divas in the studio and work for three or four hours. You had to tell Tyra to stop or she will keep you going. She's a consummate professional."

Banks's singing career will not detract from her work on "America's Next Top Model." The ratings for the series have been so high that rebroadcasts air on the following night, Wednesday, producing even greater ratings for UPN. The show has already been picked up for a third and fourth season.

This season 12 ladies are vying for the coveted title of "America's Next Top Model." The competitors live together and endure a series of tasks in a highly accelerated modeling" boot camp. Any model who does not make the judges' weekly review is eliminated. So far five models have headed home. This week the remaining models will be featured in Banks's new music video.

Banks is the leading judge on the show. She works alongside former supermodel Janice Dickinson, Jane senior fashion editor Eric Nicholson and noted photographer Nigel Barker.

A pioneering model herself, Banks has broken numerous barriers in the lofty world of high fashion. As the first Black woman to grace the covers of GQ Magazine, Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue and the Victoria's Secret catalog, she knows no limits. Banks was quite adamant about having an ethnically diverse show.

"I'm an executive producer and my other executive producer, Ken Mok, is Asian," she explains. "There are women of African-American descent. You see an Asian girl, a Persian girl and one was half-Philippino. Another is half-Mexican. It's extremely important to have that representation for girls to look at and see themselves."

Earning the title of America's Next Top Model doesn't solely depend upon drop-dead looks, she says. Personality is a plus. In most instances, odd quirks even work to your advantage in the fashion industry. For Banks, it was her "big ass forehead," she laughs.

"When I was a model, it was the one thing that made me more exotic-looking, more interesting. I've always been told by the fashion industry that if my forehead was an inch smaller, I would have been a little too plain-looking. Too pretty girl-next-door-looking for them. The high forehead set me apart."