british singer-songwriter record producer and designer jacob tayo cruz was born in the early 80s
to a nigerian father and a brazilian mother in london england even though he's known to the world
as tayo cruz he was actually born with a much more nigerian sounding name him and his older brother
were raised in a beautiful five-bedroom house in northwest london and attended boarding schools
as a child he looked up to his father and briefly considered following in his footsteps to become a
lawyer he soon realized that his heart wasn't in it what he was very much into was music he
recorded his first demos as a teenager and began taking his musical goals more seriously during
his post-secondary years his professional music career started with a pen and paper before he
ever touched a microphone he began writing songs as part of american songwriter producer and record
executive tricky stewart's writing collective his writing was so good that it would give him
his first accolade a brit award for best single in 2005 for co-writing will young said song your game
the very next year taiyo's debut single i just want to know was released under his
own label rockstar music london his undeniable multifaceted talent led to an unprecedented
joint venture record deal with two universal music companies across the uk and the us the success he
experienced in the uk was no small feat but making it across the pond is the ultimate dream for
many ambitious pop stars taiyo was unable to fully enjoy the moment since he found himself
another victim of the rise of illegal downloading no doubt compounded by the fact that fans weren't
able to purchase his songs until about six weeks after they were first heard on the radio
since songwriting and production is known to typically be the more profitable endeavor in the
music industry tayo was asked in a 2008 interview with popjustice.com why he decided to venture out
from the shadows and take center stage i think every producer grew up dreaming of being an artist
it's the first dream you have as a kid to be a pop star when you're watching michael jackson dancing
around on stage you want to be that every time i recorded a demo for someone else people would
ask me why i wasn't recording it for myself so i thought it was worth a try if only to show people
what i'm about and see how well it was received his second single called moving on dropped the
following year and several months after that he achieved his highest chart ranking with his
third single come on girl featuring luciana it peaked at number five on the uk singles chart
a little known fact about taiyo was that at this time he was on the verge of releasing a
different track for his third single a song called umbrella that would go on to become a huge hit
for a certain beijing pop star the original plan was for the track to go to britney spears
but after it was decided that it really wasn't her style rihanna jumped on it in 2008 taiyo released
his debut album title departure which he wrote arranged and produced the album achieves certified
goal status in the uk and earned him a mobo nomination the album release wasn't all positive
though fellow british singer and songwriter corinne bailey ray tried to sue tyle in relation
to one of the tracks on his project called she's like a star claiming that it was a rip-off of her
song called like a star she threatened to have his myspace page deleted and a lawsuit would ensue if
he didn't remove the song from the platform luckily taiyo had great lawyers who elicited
the services of a musicologist to compare the songs and he agreed that they were nothing alike
the following year he released his second album rockstar the album includes his
smash hit break your heart the song shot all the way to number one in the uk and the us
the success of the song made him an international superstar and attracted the attention of
mercury island def jam who were excited about releasing break your heart in the united states
his label mate rapper ludacris even jumped on the remix version another major hit of the album was
the track dynamite it went to number one in the uk and just missed the top spot in the us settling at
number two in subsequent interviews taio explained that he woke up in the middle of the night
with the lyrics to the song in his head raced downstairs in his underpants and started riding
also at this time taiyo launched his brand named rockstar a fashion and accessories company which
had a focus on sunglasses in interviews he said that the motivation behind starting the brand
had to do with the importance of diversifying in order to keep yourself in business the focus on
sunglasses was born out of his personal love of the eyewear 2011 was a particularly great year
for tayo he received his first u.s billboard award released a collaborative single called little bad
girl with french dj david guetta and ludicrous that became a worldwide smash and released his
third album title tayo which also included several heads on twitter taiyo revealed that he made the
decision to name the album tayo after he expressed his annoyance at people constantly pronouncing
his name wrong he then turned his attention back to his brand rockstar which attempted to revamp
itself with a name change to rxtr a bacronym for riots and 12 rebels new products such as watches
were also launched however several years later the brand's website would be found to redirect
to tayo's personal website and its social media platforms would no longer pose regular
updates moving on taiyo announced the release of a new app he created called kiwi in august 2013. he
described it as instagram and snapchat meeting spotify and soundcloud he wanted a place where
people could come to keep tabs on what he was up to in his everyday life and he could also drop a
single and monetize it right away unfortunately it failed to attract the level of investment
needed to compete with other popular social media platforms and ultimately shut down over the years
and in between his own projects he continued to write songs and work on productions for other
artists such as cheryl cole david guetta brandy usher and jennifer lopez by late 2013 taiyo had
announced on social media that his fourth album was on the way he did release a single however
no album has yet to be released taiyo continued to drop the odd single here and there over the next
several years after the release of the track row the body featuring rapper french montana in 2017
he spoke about the difficulties artists face in the current pop landscape trying to be the best
i suppose it's more difficult to engineer a number one you need to have more pop cultural relevance
in the sense that it's not just your music that makes you big it's a lot of social media a lot of
viral things influencers it's not just the song it's who else is listening to the song the dawn
of a new decade prompted tayo to finally venture onto the video focused social media app tick tock
sadly just days after he opened his account he deleted everything and logged off for good
at the beginning he uploaded what he thought were some fun videos then out of nowhere was hit with
a barrage of hateful and abusive comments he expressed his feelings in one of his last pose
saying never in my life have i had a more negative experience than the past few days on here
take care of your mental health and be kind to each other to those that have love for me
thank you this community is not for me after deleting everything on tick tock he posted
a goodbye message on his instagram thanks to everyone sending me supportive messages here
and on twitter i'm definitely not going back to tiktok anytime soon my body was shaking and i had
s******l thoughts i pride myself on being mentally resilient so the fact that i felt that way
shocked even me some users posted hateful mocking videos which spurred a feedback loop of negativity
where more and more people began to join in on the mockery and hate my intention was to make
some fun videos and interact with my fans but some whom i won't mention were averse to that
for my own mental health i would rather be where i'm welcomed for now tick-tock is not that place
social media shouldn't be like this sadly it is he then went on to delete all of his social media
posts on instagram and twitter tayo forged ahead and just a few weeks after the tick tock fiasco
he released his latest work a trap called 2020 a diss track of sorts aimed at the abysmal year
everyone experienced worldwide since late 2020 tayo has been mia on all social media so
it's hard to know what he's currently been up to hopefully he's enjoying his social
media sabbatical and will return soon with not only new music but a whole new outlook as well
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