BIO

("Who the hell is Terik King and WHY should anybody care?")

The journey toward what made Terik King who he is today began in a fourth floor apartment in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, in New York City, sometime in the early 1980s. “I was there with my three best childhood friends,” he mused, “And we were fooling around listening to music. Then an early Michael Jackson song came on – I think it was ‘I’ll Be There,’ and I already knew the words because of Motown 25. I don’t really know what came over me, but I suddenly I just found myself singing my heart out! The fellas joined in on the backgrounds, and it was one of those moments of discovery when the goosebumps happen and you realize, ‘Oooh, this must be what I was meant to do!’”

From that day forward, Terik has been doing what he was "meant to do" ever since. After the childhood group disbanded due to “creative differences” Terik was accepted into the world-famous Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art & Performing Arts (the legacy of the “Fame school”) where he began his studies as a vocalist. “I was scared to death to sing in LaGuardia, though,” he admits today, “there were wall-shaking gospel singers there and glass-shattering opera singers, and here I am, little ‘Michael Jackson boy’ with the big glasses and long sweaters. Imagine! (Laughs) There were people who went through all four years with me and never heard me sing a note!”

At LaGuardia, however, he discovered he had a natural instinct to produce. “Somehow I got it into my head that I could fashion myself into an impresario. There was a Guinness Record for ‘Youngest Broadway Producer,’ and I spent about a year and a half obsessively trying to beat it before I turned 16. Didn’t happen, but I did enjoy putting the elements of entertainment experiences together. So that became my second passion.” Among his successes: sharing the stage with Natalie Cole and producing the first album recording by the LaGuardia Contemporary Gospel Chorus in his senior year.

LaGuardia also coincided with unexpected upheaval in Terik’s home life when, at age 15, he was removed from his family home and ended up in the New York City foster care system. “I lived in a group home – several group homes, actually,” he recalls with a faraway look in his eye. “It was a mixed blessing. It taught me to be independent and self-sufficient in a way most adolescents aren’t, but it also affected the way I came to see people and the world. My perspective hardened somewhat and I became this loner.”

His escape from the group home came when he left New York to attend Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music to study Music Business & Management and, of course, continue studying voice. “In Boston I continued learning about the world -- probably more than I learned about music. I was a little young and emotionally unprepared for some of the complexities of being by myself in Boston, and unfortunately ended up imploding and leaving after about a year and a half. I still think about maybe going back to finish.” A highlight was when Terik single-handedly booked a Berklee show and sang backup for one of his favorite vocalists, Oleta Adams. “I floated on and off that stage, baby! It was the first time I was able to combine my show-‘business’ skills with the role of singer. I was right in that 'sweet spot' -- my comfort zone, and it was a phenomenal show that contributed greatly to Oleta’s receiving the honorary doctorate from Berklee after I left.”

During the Berklee years, he also shared the stage with Tony Bennett and came to know song stylist Nancy Wilson as a mentor of sorts. “She’s one of the most generous and wonderful LEGENDS I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. One of my great heroes.

Terik would spend the next several years juggling his performing career in musical theatre with various “day jobs” in and out of entertainment.  (Click HERE for the theatrical-era website containing for more info.) These experiences took him to stages all over the U.S. and beyond (“I even found myself performing in Guatemala – didn’t see THAT coming!”) ”

After a period of working steadfastly as “talent,” (“although I hated auditions”), Terik decided to follow the impulse he’d always had.

 

“That ‘producer urge’ never left me,” he says, the faraway look in his eye returning with a big smile. “There’s something uniquely ...magical and energizing about conceiving of an experience...and it began in the lave arena but has since spread to different media...but conceiving of an experience, going about the works of seeing that the elements of the experience are all in place, and then watching your conception bloom...when it all works out, there’s nothing like it in the world.”

2008 finds Terik in a period of renewal and refocus. He has shed the showbiz persona long enough to actualize his full potential as a multimedia impresario by completing The New School’s M.A. in Media Studies program. “When I’m done, the intention is to roll all of those different creative energies I have into something beautiful, important, thoughtful and meaningful that can reach people everywhere via various forms of media.There are exciting things happening for me with film and radio...more media forms than I initially believed I'd work in. That's a good thing in this day and age."

Terik continued, "I don’t know if I’ll ever stop performing...it’s a weird psychological habit that you can’t shake if you’ve been doing it since you were 8. I’ve even grabbed a guitar and started sneaking out of the city to play anonymously in open mice where I can polish up a new dimension of the act. But I’m feeling like this hurdle I’m trying to clear right now will bring me the options, hard skills, insight and wisdom to be able to finally do everything that I feel called upon to do. It hasn't been an easy road, by any stretch of the imagination, but it's becoming more and more apparent that I'm just about there.”

-Bio by W.R. Miner