Jennings sold and distributed his four-song demo album at his performances and later recorded additional tracks to form a full EP called What Is Love?, which he distributed at his concerts in New York and back home in Toledo.Īfter Showtime in Harlem Jennings began touring, and he received offers for recording contracts from a number of prominent studios. Jennings eventually won the audience over, and he won the Showtime in Harlem talent competition after five rounds, gaining confidence and fans with every performance. In 2005 Jennings told Corey Moore in an interview on NPR that the Showtime audience seemed skeptical when he walked on stage, unsure how to respond to an artist who looked and dressed like a rapper but was carrying an acoustic guitar. Two days after his release he recorded a four-song demo album, and a little more than three weeks later he performed before an audience of millions on Showtime in Harlem. Jennings chose the stage name "Lyfe," to reference the trials of life and to his tendency to ask the question "why" in his compositions, he explained to Sewell. "You start your career when you start it," he told Barhite. At twenty-eight years old, Jennings thought that he had little time to waste, though he had learned to accept the limitations that prison had placed on his development. Two days before his release from prison, Jennings received word that his audition tape had been accepted. Jennings convinced prison administrators to allow him to film performances given to audiences of inmates and was allowed to send his audition tape to the show's producers. As his release drew near, Jennings decided on a new goal, to perform live on Showtime in Harlem, a televised musical variety competition produced at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Though Jennings was incarcerated until December of 2002, he found a receptive audience among his fellow inmates. "I set myself some goals and that translated to music." In 1997 Jennings received a copy of Erykah Badu's album Baduizm and, in listening to Badu's introspective compositions, began developing songs that explored the more philosophical side of romance, urban life, prison, and the African-American experience. "When I was in jail, I did a lot of soul searching," Jennings said to Brandi Barhite in the Toledo Free Press in 2008. He sang with a prison gospel choir and learned to play the acoustic guitar, the only instrument he was allowed to use. Jennings remained in prison for almost ten years, having failed his parole evaluations, but found ample time to work on his music. Jennings became involved in crime, and at age nineteen he was convicted of third-degree arson and sentenced to prison. Though successful in the local circuit, The Dotsons eventually disbanded as Jennings and his family members drifted apart. The Dotsons wrote and performed songs reminiscent of the popular R&B vocal groups of the time like Troop and New Edition and were popular at local talent competitions. In the 1980s Dotson's sons Tim and Chris formed a teen singing group, which they called The Dotsons, and asked Jennings, then ten years old, and his brother Jay to join the group. Jennings's uncle, Keith Dotson, was a working musician who sang with the Toledo Motown group KGB. "You need an outlet for the problems that you face, and I went through all the things associated with the streets." "I've been writing since I was little," Jennings said in an interview with Rhonda B. Before he was in high school, Jennings was already writing his own songs. Jennings's interest in writing and playing music began when he was in elementary school, and he performed with the choir at Cavalry Baptist Church. Spent Ten Years in PrisonĬhester "Lyfe" Jennings was born on June 3, 1973, and raised in Toledo, Ohio, where he and his four siblings-sister Dawn and brothers Charles, Jay, and Paul-attended the city's public schools. Some critics have even credited Jennings as a pioneer of a new genre one that National Public Radio (NPR) host Corey Moore called "Folk Soul." Building on the success of his debut, Jennings released two additional albums, gaining fans and prestige with each release and helping to define a new generation of R&B music. Critics have called Jennings a throwback to the R&B singers of the 1960s, including such legendary artists as Sam Cooke and Al Green, while his use of hip-hop beats and collaborations with rappers connects his music to contemporary developments in R&B. The platinum-selling recording artist is also a multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, bass, and piano. Lyfe Jennings is a singer and songwriter, crafting emotional ballads with a unique sound that blurs the lines between R&B, hip-hop, and folk music.
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