TYRESE GIBSON

'Tyrese Darnell Gibson' (born December 30, 1978), often known simply as 'Tyrese' or 'Black-Ty', is an American R&B and hip hop singer, songwriter, rapper, actor, and former fashion model and MTV VJ. After releasing several successful albums, he made the transition into films, with lead roles in several Hollywood films, including ''Baby Boy'', ''2 Fast 2 Furious'', ''Flight of the Phoenix'', ''Four Brothers'', ''Annapolis'' and his latest, ''Waist Deep'', and ''Transformers''.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Career

TGT

Fear of owls

Filmography

Discography

Albums

Singles

Awards/nominations

References

External links

Biography

Early life

Gibson was born in the Watts district in Los Angeles, California, where he attended Locke High School. His mother, Priscilla Murray Gibson (née Durham), raised him and his three older siblings as a single parent after Gibson's father left in 1983.^[1] Gibson's career began when he won a talent show at the age of fourteen. An appearance in a 1997 Coca-Cola advertisement, singing the phrase "Always Coca-Cola",^[2] led to wider fame, and at the age of seventeen his chiseled looks paved the way for him to model for Tommy Hilfiger. In regards to beefing up, he told CraveOnline that he does "just a few push ups here and there... I’m doing push ups and eating Ding Dongs. That’s it, man. Twinkies, got to keep it right."^[3]

Career

Initially an MC, Gibson rapped under the alias of ''Black-Ty'' and was a member of an underground group known as ''Triple Impact'', but didn't hesitate to follow another career route as an opportunity to launch his R&B career came up first. He released his self-titled debut music album, which went platinum, in 1998;¹ his second album, ''2000 Watts'', shares the name of the organization he founded to help inner city children. Tyrese also co-write with Teddy Riley e Michael Jackson the song "2000 watts", included in Michael Jackson's 2001 album "Invincible".Gibson was given the role originally intended for Tupac Shakur in the 2001 film ''Baby Boy''; the movie was a critical success and performed fairly at the box office. Gibson subsequently appeared in the 2003 box office success ''2 Fast 2 Furious'' (opposite Paul Walker), as well as ''Flight of the Phoenix'' (2004), ''Four Brothers'' (2005) and ''Annapolis'' (2006), co-starring James Franco. Gibson was picked as one of People Magazine's ''Sexiest Men of the Year'' in 2000.
In 2006, Gibson starred in ''Waist Deep'', in which he played a man fighting to rescue his son from kidnappers; his co-stars in the film, Meagan Good and Larenz Tate, are personal friends of Gibson's in real life.² Like several of his previous roles, the film is set in an urban environment, but Gibson has said that he does not view the role as a "step back", rather seeing the film as taking "another direction" due to some of its themes and action sequences.²
Gibson prefers his music career to acting,¹ but will focus on both areas. His rap persona was finally revitalized on December 12,2006, with the release of his newest album, titled ''Alter Ego'', with one disc featuring R&B (as Tyrese) and one disc featuring hip hop (as Black-Ty).² His most recent role was in the big-budget action movie, ''Transformers'', which was released in July 2007; the film's director, Michael Bay, had Gibson in mind for the role before he was cast, and thus Gibson did not have to audition for the part.^[4] Gibson may also star in a film version of the superhero Luke Cage; as of 2006, the script was being re-formatted.⁴

TGT

Gibson has been attached to a new R&B supergroup entitled TGT with Ginuwine and Tank. He is quoted in saying "With all the support our fans have given us individually over the years for our distinct signature styles, collectively we felt our fans deserved to hear great music in a way that they could never have imagined. I've known these guys for years and they truly are like brothers, so it only felt right to come together as a trio to make history". The group is first featured on Tank's remix to the song "Please Don't Go". They also plan an international tour entitled "The Shirts Off Tour". 'TGT' stands for "'T'yrese, 'G'inuwine, 'T'ank".^[5]

Fear of owls

During a 2003 appearance on the New Tom Green Show it was revealed that Tyrese has an immense fear of owls. On the show Tyrese confessed that he has such a fear of owls that looking at a picture would make him freak out. Knowing this, Tom Green began to draw a picture of an owl causing Tyrese to go into a panic and threaten to leave the stage.^[6]

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2001	''Baby Boy''	Jody
2003	''2 Fast 2 Furious''	Roman Pearce
2004	''Flight of the Phoenix''	A.J.
2005	''Four Brothers''	Angel Mercer
2006	''Waist Deep''	O.2.
	''Annapolis''	Cole
2007	''Transformers''	Epps

Discography

Albums

Year	Title	US certification	Chart	Sales
1998	''Tyrese''	Platinum	#17 US
2001	''2000 Watts''	Gold	#10 US	91,593 (1st week)[7]
2002	''I Wanna Go There''	Platinum	#16 US	877,000[8]
2006	''Alter Ego''		#23 US	362,488
2007	''Black Rose''

Singles

Year	Title	Charts
1998	"Nobody Else"	#36 US
1998	"Lately"	#56 US
1999	"Sweet Lady"	#12 US
2001	"I Like Them Girls"	#48 US
2001	"What Am I Gonna Do"	#71 US
2001	"Just a Baby Boy" (featuring Snoop Dogg and Mr. Tan)	#90 US
2002	"How You Gonna Act Like That"	#7 US
2002	"Signs of Love Makin'"	#57 US
2006	"Pulling Me Back" (Chingy featuring Tyrese)	#9 US
2006	"One"	#124 US
2007	"Turn Ya Out" (featuring Lil Jon)
2007	"Please Don't Go" [Remix] (featuring TGT)
2007	"Nobody Do It Better" (Keith Murray featuring Tyrese & Junior)

Awards/nominations

★ American Music Awards

★
★ '2000, Favorite New R&B/Soul Artist: (Winner)'

★ Black Movie Awards

★
★ 2006, Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role: Waist Deep (Nominated)

★ Black Reel Awards

★
★ 2006, Best Ensemble: Four Brothers (Nominated)

★
★ 2002, Best Song: "Just a Baby Boy" from Baby Boy w/ Mr. Tan & Snoop Dogg (Nominated)

★
★ 2002, Best Actor: Baby Boy (Nominated)

★ Grammy Awards

★
★ 2004, Best R&B Male Vocal Performance: "How U Gonna Act Like That" (Nominated)

★
★ 2000, Best R&B Male Vocal Performance: "Sweet Lady" (Nominated)

★ Image Awards

★
★ 2002, Outstanding Hip-Hop Artist: ''2000 Watts'' (Nominated)

★
★ 2002, Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture: Baby Boy (Nominated)

★
★ 2002, Outstanding Performance in a Variety Show: The Tonight Show w/ Jay Leno (Nominated)

References

1. Scripps Howard News Service
2. BallerStatus
3. Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson on Transformers
4. MovieWeb
5. http://hiphop.popcrunch.com/tyrese-ginuwine-tank-form-rb-group-tgt/
6. IMDb
7. http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5931889/staind_break_in_at_no_one
8. http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002612016

External links

★ Tyrese.com (official)

★ Tyrese's Official MySpace

★ Tyrese on Loud Music Magazine Cover

★ Tyrese Gibson PR.com Interview with John Singleton (December 9, 2006)

★ Inside Bay Area interview (January 27, 2006)

★ Zap2It interview (January 26, 2006

★ Tyrese interview by Rashmi Shastri