RESPECT. Interview: Teenear Discusses "Need Your Love" and more

Teenear’s 90 R&B Feel WIll Have Satisfied While Wishing For More

Often times children have the wildest of dreams. Some want to be astronauts, others would love to be athletes, and there are some cases where they even want to be teachers, and God bless them. Yet a select few children, even at that young age, are already preparing for who they’re going to be without even knowing. That brings us to the story of Miami’s own Teenear, a recording artist from the legendary Slip-N-Slide Records who since the age of 5 had already been preparing for her moment.

Teenear “Need Your Love”

Before the video release of her latest single “Need Your Love” we were able to catch up with Teenear and discuss “Need Your Love”, what inspired her to become an artist, why she believed singing became her passion, and what her future holds.

Did you always believe you wanted to become an artist?

“Growing up during junior high I always thought what do I want to do…I was just figuring myself out and I said okay I think I want to sing again,” said Teenear I got back into it and it was something I loved.”

Was there any specific artist or song that sparked that inspiration again to sing?

“It was everyone getting into their own thing but there’s this other story that I never really get to tell. It’s crazy! To be honest, Justin Bieber just liked popped! He was just popping and everyone started talking about him and I decided let me look up this. I said first off his name is Bieber, I swear on the Bible it’s Bieber but whatever. So I look his song up and just seeing everything he was doing like he was so young! I thought to myself this is amazing. I started looking at him and saw he was doing this contest for writing to one of his instrumentals. At that moment I decided let me try doing this. So I pulled up GarageBand and was in my room for hours recording to it and I went downstairs and was like mom, listen to this! They liked it and I thought this so much fun. That was the moment that made me really want to continue to do music. Before I was just messing around and that was it.”

What did you love most about doing this video?

“I loved doing this video because it shows a fun, yet vulnerable side of me portraying a young college student daydreaming about being happily in love with a guy I literally bumped into on campus. With this video, I stepped out of my comfort zone and incorporated more acting to visually depict that new “in love” feeling. I had so much fun working again with director Damian Fyffe who really helped to make the vision of the song come to life. I believe a lot of people can relate to wanting love like this and I hope everyone enjoys it.”

Who are some of the artists you looked up to growing up and why?

“Honestly, I loved, like loved loved Brittney Spears, Mariah Carey, and Whitney Houston but I would have to say the biggest influences are definitely Michael Jackson and Beyonce. I say that because they grew up in music and they’ve created something so great out of it. That’s my ultimate goal at the end of the day to become a brand bigger than just my music. I really want to start different businesses not when I’m done with this but when I’ve grown in this and they’ve just done an amazing job of that. I look at them a lot.”

Make sure to keep checking back to RESPECT.Mag for more Teenear.

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Posted By

Melvin Taylor II

Melvin Taylor II is a writer, producer, host, actor, and Chicago native living the New York City dream. He studied education and journalism at Knox College and writing at the Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) New York and The Magnet Theater. His writing is grounded in the experiences of being from the south side of Chicago while also juggling careers there and in the Big Apple for multiple years. He currently hosts his radio show #TheAltWithMel on WHCR 90.3FM-NY every Monday night at 11:55pm EST. Additionally, his weekly YouTube videos have garnered over 2 million views. You can find him monthly at The Magnet Theater and UCB-NY performing improv and sketch comedy or writing for RESPECT Magazine. Find him everywhere: @MelvinTaylorii