Perfect Is Boring

by Tyra Banks

  I had been nominated for a Teen Choice Award that year for best model, and while I was sitting in the audience, I got to talking with Kobe Bryant, who was sitting in the row behind me. “What you doing this summer?” he asked me.

  “Oh, nothing,” I said. “Just traveling a ton for modeling. What about you?”

  “I’m cutting an album.”

  I about jumped out my damn awards show chair. “Get me on it!” I said. “Let me sing on it! I can sing, and I’ll even do it for free!”

  “For free?” he said.

  “Oh yeah, for free, for free!”

  Cut to a few days later, and I’m all up in the studio singing the hook on Kobe’s first single, which is called “K.O.B.E.” My chorus goes a little something like this: “K-O-B-E I L-O-V-E you, and I think you are very fine. If you give me one chance, I promise to love you. And be with you forever more.” His A&R guy was freaking out about how good it was. We had a hit on our hands!

  The single turned into more than I imagined. We even shot a fancy music video with superdirector Hype Williams and were scheduled to perform the song live at the NBA All-Star Weekend. I wore this little H2T denim outfit, and I sang my heart out, telling K.O.B.E. how much I L-O-V-Ed him, but I could feel myself getting more and more nervous as the song went on. This was my chance to show the world I could sing, but the camera was barely on me. Whenever it would turn my way, it just stayed on me for a few seconds. “What the hell?” I thought. “Am I blowing it?”

  At the end of the performance, I found out why. It wasn’t my singing that the camera hated. It was the busted zipper on my Canadian tuxedo that split wide open. They were just trying to do me a favor and not put my panties on display on live TV. Whoops.

  Regardless of my bikini bottom problems, my boy Kobe’s rap debut didn’t go over too well, and the single kinda got panned. In hindsight, we probably should have seen that coming: a superathlete and a supermodel? Well, those two supers cancel each other out, and all you’re left with is a serious lack of music cred. Sorry, Kobe. I wish I would have been seated at a different part of the theater at Teen Choice cuz I would have not had the opportunity to screw up your dream. Where was Lil’ Kim when you needed her? Well, at least you didn’t have to pay me, right?

  Carolyn: Too many people stick to the path they know just because they’re scared of failing if they go in a different direction. As much as I didn’t think that Tyra’s singing career was the right different direction, I was proud of her for taking risks and being fearless about it.

  I’d been there before myself, and knew from experience that sometimes you just have to see for yourself whether or not something will work out.

  When I was working at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center as a medical photographer, I was in a restaurant and got to talking to a woman who ran a portrait photography business. It was kind of like Glamour Shots, and she was about to open up a new studio in Los Angeles. “You should come work for us!” she said. “You’re a photographer; you’ve done some fashion work! You could be a store manager! We’ll put you in charge.”

  I had some experience shooting fashion lookbooks and headshots for actors and models, so this portrait business seemed like a great way for me to try something new.

  I walked out of there thinking, “Hmmm, store manager?”

  I liked this idea, but no one else did.

  “Carolyn, are you sure?” my friend Jackie asked. “You’d have to work with people in the mall. It’d be a lot of customer service, and I don’t think you’d like that.”

  “What does Jackie know?” I thought, even though she and I had been best friends since we were fourteen and she always knew me better than I knew myself.

  So I quit my great job as director of the medical media department at the hospital and headed to the mall.

  Jackie was right—I did not like customer service. People complained all day long! They didn’t like their makeup. Or they liked their makeup but hated their photos. One woman even ran right out the store without paying, and the employees looked at me like, “Aren’t you the manager? Go chase that picture-pay-ditcher down!”

  “Hmm,” I thought, as I watched the woman’s backside disappear past the food court. “Run, Forrest, run!”

  Maybe this wasn’t my dream job after all. . . .

  I dusted myself off, polished my résumé again, and went and got a new job. Specifically, a new old job—I went right back to being the head medical photographer at Cedars-Sinai.

  I walked back in there on my second first day with my head held high.

  There ain’t no shame in my failing game.

  I know all you kids don’t know what that is, but I was looking at slides there! This was how we used to review pictures before the smartphone!

  Tyra: OK, when I talk about how bad I was at singing, I’m overstating it a bit. I don’t think droves of people would have been booing me offstage—they just wouldn’t have been buying tickets to the next show. I knew about harmony and melody, and I was actually a pretty more-than-decent songwriter. Sometimes, I could even pass for a pretty more-than-decent singer if you caught me in just the right moment.

  For example, when I got on the phone with Pharrell, we were vibing immediately. “I want to hear you sing,” he said.

  “Great!” I was so excited. “When do you want to meet up?”

  “No,” he said, “right now. I want to hear you sing right now. On the phone.”

  Oh, shoot . . . But no big deal. I reached deep down, pulled it together, and belted out a Brandy song, because I loved me some Brandy, and since I wasn’t looking right at him, I could just pretend Pharrell wasn’t there and I was just singing along to some hold music from the cable company.

  When I finished, he was actually impressed.

  “Oh my God,” he said. “You’re not Whitney Houston, but you can carry a tune. Like, for real. Let’s do this.”

  Yes! This was really happening. I was going to work with Pharrell!

  Then I got in his studio and “phell” on my face.

  Carolyn: I tried to get Tyra to sing like she wasn’t a serious singer. “You need to have a voice that’s affected,” I told her.

  “What does that mean, Ma?”

  “You know, like high-pitched, nasal, and cute. And maybe, sometimes, you talk instead of sing. Let’s focus on how you’re going to come across onstage. More emphasis on performing,” I said, “and less emphasis on singing.”

  Tyra: I was a nervous mess when I got in the studio with Pharrell. He had a backup singer there, but soon it was more like she was there to sing the lead and I was supposed to provide background vocals for her. Pharrell (and most music producers) works with all kinds of people in the waiting room and studio, and in that room alone, there were probably more people than had ever heard me sing before in my entire life. I was sure that each and every one of them was laughing at me between takes.

  Also, singing to Pharrell on the phone? No problem. Singing to his face? That was a whole different story. Plus he’s gorgeous (that skin that looks like butterscotch satin and those Marcona almond–shaped eyes), so that didn’t help. So let’s just say I was far from feeling Happy. (See what I did there?) Anyway, the song he had for me was called “Playboy.”

  I can remember the lyrics and melody like it was yesterday:

  Playboy

  We gone have some big fun tonight

  Playboy

  And if it feels good

  Then please don’t pay attention

  Let’s just ride

  Playboy

  As I sing the song now as I am writing this, I sound pretty good. I’m breathing properly, holding the notes, adding a little vibrato, and doing a few vocal tricks. That’s because Pharrell is not in front of me. This lets me know I needed the show The Voice to exist back then. I can imagine facing away from the singing star mentors and just
belting “Playboy” at the top of my lungs and killing it. And then Pharrell would hit his buzzer, his big red chair would turn around, and he’d be like, “OMG! It’s TyTy! What up, girl! Let’s go to the studio now and lay this club banger down!”

  Needless to say, that day in Pharrell’s studio was a complete disaster. And “Playboy” never saw the light of day. Cue sad-face emoji.

  Carolyn: We later went and met with David Foster, who’d worked with people like Michael Jackson and Céline Dion. He’s talking about Tyra’s stage presence and how if she can bring what she has on the runway to her songs, then she’s gonna be a superstar. The whole time, my stomach is flip-flopping.

  Then he gets up and goes over to his piano. He sits down and taps out some notes. “OK, Ms. Tyra, sing for me.”

  Tyra looks like she just swallowed a bug. “You mean now?”

  “Yeah, now,” he says with a smile. “Give me the money note.”

  “Mr. Foster!” Tyra says. “I can’t do that.”

  “Sure you can,” he says, his fingers dancing up and down the keys like he’s done this a million times before, because he probably has. “Just blast it! Let it out! Give it to me!”

  Tyra won’t do it. Can’t do it. So David has an idea. “Tyra, I will create a song for you, and you can come back and sing it in my Malibu studio,” he offers. “Maybe you’ll be more comfy in a booth.”

  Oh, Lord. Here we go again.

  Tyra: To save a lot of time, let’s just say the Foster session was similar to Pharrell’s, minus about ten people. However, I did finish the song. It went something like this:

  Our first kiss won’t be the last . . .

  And la la la la la la la (can’t remember this part)

  And good things come to those who have to wait.

  It was kind of an innocent song. But my voice was kinda guilty. Guilty of being kinda talentless. David sweetly passed on making me his mega pop star of the world. But did that stop me?

  Sadly, no.

  Carolyn: Mr. “Hitmaker” Foster was a class act. He had high hopes for Ty but was so gracious with his no. And for being so kind and gentle with my baby, I thank him. Tyra had a house in Orlando, and we would spend lots of time there, especially since it was so close to Disney World and Tyra was obsessed with the place. We would sit on the porch of her house on the lake and hear the bullfrogs croaking and watch the Disney fireworks go off every night at nine o’clock on the dot. She started to spend more and more time in Orlando so she could work on her music with leading music industry peeps based there, and she even got signed to Britney Spears’s and ’NSync’s music manager’s company. She got to working with a few songwriters and producers down there, and I knew I hated the music industry when I realized that they thought it was totally acceptable to schedule meetings for midnight or one o’clock in the morning.

  The area where Tyra lived was so rural that there weren’t even streetlights, and it backed up to a nature preserve that was home to all kinds of critters that made your skin crawl. So there we were, driving into the night on these pitch-black streets so Tyra could record her demo, just hoping we didn’t hit an alligator or wild boar along the way.

  Tyra: In Orlando, I had worked a lot with a singer-songwriter named Billy Lawrence, and when I was in the studio with Billy, I was fine. She was my homegirl and I sang my heart out to her. I guess I felt safe because we hung out all the time chilling and eating at places like Joe’s Crab Shack and Shoney’s, so there was no pressure. I knew she was gonna help me out a bit (a lot) and Auto-Tune the crap out of my voice, but I didn’t care; I was having fun with my buddy.

  Wyclef was another story altogether. I was introduced to him by some friends, and he was warm and sweet and did his best to make me feel comfortable. But once I entered his NYC vocal booth, I again got so nervous—I was in the studio with Mr. Fugees!—and felt like I didn’t have air in my lungs. The song he wrote for me was called “Why Does it Hurt So Bad?” I could barely eke out a squeak. And that hurt. So bad.

  Eventually, I got in the studio with major music producer Rodney Jerkins. I was ecstatic. He was the man responsible for Brandy’s signature sound! With Rodney, I gotta admit, I sounded hella good. To this day, I don’t know how he got the vocals out of me that he did. I think a big part of it was the magical touch of his vocal producer, LaShawn Daniels. LaShawn told me that when I sang, I enunciated too much. I’d pronounce every single syllable, which he said made me sound like a stiff, proper lady with a stick up her butt—and no one wanted to hear a proper lady sing on pop radio. LaShawn coached me to sing with the smooth sound of where I was from: Inglewood, baby! He was a master. He taught me to write down all the lyrics of every song in phonetic slang. If you looked at the paper, it looked like I was slightly illiterate, but when they played it back to me, it sounded so good. “I love you so let me see what you are working with” became “Ah luhyoo suhlemme see wuhchoo werkinnwit”—it sounded so fly! It sounded unbelievable—I was like, “Wait a second, is that me on that track?” Plus, I did all my background vocals on every song!

  Rodney was a friggin’ genius! I ended up doing about ten songs with him and his Darkchild crew, and I felt like it was time.

  Time to go public.

  Carolyn: Tyra had the grand idea to use America’s Next Top Model’s power platform to launch this friggin’ music career! Hold on to ya seats. We’re getting close to that concrete wall!

  Tyra: Besides, the public had been hearing me sing for years on America’s Next Top Model. They just didn’t know it. All those na-na-na-na-nas on the theme song from cycle 1 to more than twenty cycles later? That’s your girl. Yeah, it’s me!

  I had been in the studio with the Top Model music producers when they were composing it, and I got in the booth to show them what I wanted. “We need a girl singer who can do these na-na-na-nas just like this,” I said. I sang it, and they looked at each other, then looked back at me.

  “Uh, you’re here. Why don’t we just have you do it?”

  So I did, and people loved that theme song. That was proof that I had something, right? (The network replaced the “na-na-na” theme song in cycle 23, but when I came back to the show for 24, I rallied hard to pepper them back in.)

  I wanted to debut with a mid-tempo jam called “Drivin’ Me Crazy” to really show the people what I could do. But Rodney is the expert. He picked a song called “Shake Ya Body.”

  This was the actual CD from my big musical debut “Shake Ya Body.” UPN printed a bunch of them as a promo (should I apologize to them as well?).

  So, yes, we shot a video for it. On Top Model cycle 2. I have to tell you, to this day, I still think that video was slammin’! The final six girls from that cycle all had starring roles. We shot some of it in front of a massive waterfall that the world didn’t know was really located in an NYC Chinese tchotchke shop, though you would never know, because it looked like we pulled out all the stops. It looked like it cost a legitimate $300,000 (the price for nice videos at that time), even though we only spent $30,000 (the price of a photo shoot).

  We shot the whole episode and dedicated it to the making and world premiere of that video, and it finally aired on Top Model months later. Now, get this: It was the highest-rated episode we’d ever had (still is to this day, actually. Can you believe it?). That was major! I got beyond excited.

  “The people want me to sing!” said the devil on my shoulder.

  “But do they really?” said the angel on the other, a.k.a. Mama.

  And that got me thinking. . . .

  I wondered, “Did people tune in en masse because they wanted to see me sing, or because they were hoping for a car crash?”

  Still, I was gonna give singing one more go for the thing I loved the most: Disney.

  Carolyn: Oh gosh, did that girl love Disney! When she was a child, we had to keep any Disney trips a secret, because if Tyra knew about them too far in
advance, she’d get so excited that she wouldn’t sleep for weeks.

  Going to Disney was always an ordeal: You parked in Dumbo F95, which must stand for “95 miles to the ticket window,” and then spent a month’s wages on admission. (“Don’t worry,” I’d whisper to my husband as we forked over the cash. “We can always sell the car as soon as we get home.”)

  But it was worth it just to see Tyra so happy. As soon as she got through those gates, it was as if she had entered a magical, transformative world. Her whole demeanor changed. She didn’t walk but skipped everywhere, talked in the voices and accents of all the characters she came across, and scarfed down all the ice cream bars, caveman-size drumsticks, and churros she could get her hands on. And this was pre-FastPass, but it didn’t matter how long those damned lines were; she was in heaven!

  Stills from the “Shake Ya Body” video that premiered on Top Model cycle 2. I still think this video was bangin’!

  Tyra: I can’t really overstate how much I love Disney. Saying “I loooooooooooooooooooove Disney” gets close but still doesn’t cut it because all those extra o’s don’t reflect just how much of an influence it has had on me. We went as a family when my parents were married, but when they separated, my pop’s divorced-dad guilt kicked in and he would take me to Disneyland. All. The. Time. Those multiple trips got me obsessed with immersive experiences and the power of a strong, positive brand. Sound, sight, taste, touch, smell. Disney didn’t just entertain—it downright surprised, delighted, and dazzled all my senses!

  The one bummer for me, though, was the whole princess thing. I mean, look at the Disney princesses of the 1980s. I looked nothing like Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, or Cinderella. And because of that, I knew I could never grow up and play a part in their famous Main Street Electrical Parade. They were all white, and not just Caucasian, but never-seen-the-sun-or-even-a-bronzer-brush alabaster.