She’s 25. She’s gorgeous. She’s a mom. And she can sing. That’s Teyana Taylor, the sexy star of Kanye West’s “Fade” video, which premiered Sunday night on the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards.
Oh yeah, there was a song happening during that video, not just Taylor happening. Honest.
Here’s some dish on the woman whose performance came in second only to Beyonce’s on Sunday night. (Sorry, Britney.)
She's a singer and an actress
Taylor debuted with the full-length mixtape “From a Planet Called Harlem” in 2008 after Pharrell Williams had signed her to Star Trak Entertainment the year prior, then moved to West's G.O.O.D. Music in 2012 after releasing the mixtape “The Misunderstanding of Teyana Taylor” earlier that year.
"I am the princess of G.O.O.D. Music, the first lady of G.O.O.D. Music, the baby of G.O.O.D. Music," Taylor told MTV with a laugh shortly after being signed. "I'm kinda the spoiled brat right now. I could get whatever I want."
Her studio album “VII” came out in 2014 followed by an EP, “The Cassette Tape 1994,” in 2015. Among other collaborations, she worked with West on his fifth album, “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.” Check out some of her tracks here.
On camera, Taylor has had roles in movies including "Madea's Big Happy Family, "The Love Section," "Brotherly Love" and "Stomp the Yard 2: Homecoming" and judged "America's Best Dance Crew" in 2015.
Sunday night was hardly Taylor's debut on MTV: She was featured in “My Super Sweet 16” in February 2007, in addition to subsequent appearances on the network.
"Teyana’s a sassy, one-of-a-kind New Yorker who has just been signed to Pharrell Williams' record label so she plans a Skateboard Sweet 16, complete with a 1980’s old school hip-hop theme to reflect her personality,” the network said on its posting of the full episode.
The ladies got real — really profane — on Twitter in 2013. Lots of the tweets have been deleted, but check out the essence of the expletive-filled spat here.
She's engaged to marry Iman Shumpert
Her fiance and the father of her child — and her costar in the sexiest parts of the “Fade” video — is Iman Shumpert, a point guard for the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers. He proposed to her in November at her royalty-themed baby shower, which was held at the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art and featured a dress code that would’ve made Michael Jackson proud.
FOR THE RECORD
2:15 p.m.: An earlier version of this article misspelled Iman Shumpert’s surname as Schumpert.
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Here’s a bit of that proposal:
The way she had her baby was pretty amazing
Shumpert helped usher their baby, Junie, into the world when Taylor gave birth in their bathroom in December, a month earlier than expected.
“She came out as a wonderful surprise to everyone!,” Taylor said on Instagram the day after her baby was born. “Not knowing I was in labor until I felt her head...it took two ten count pushes with my fiancé playing Dr and she entered this world into his bare hands! Eyes full of tears and barely able to speak to the emergency operator @imanshumpert tied a pair of red headphones around the umbilical cord and the ambulance made there grand entrance 5 min later.”
“Mommy carried you, Daddy delivered you. Happy 5 months my darling I LOVE YOU #JunieB #MyHeart #MyJoy #MommiesPrincess,” Taylor wrote in May on Instagram.
And here is Taylor's tummy six days after she gave birth
Christie D’Zurilla is an assistant editor for entertainment news on the Fast Break team. A graduate of USC, she joined the Los Angeles Times in 2003 as a copy editor, started writing about celebrities in 2009 and has more than 34 years of journalism experience in Southern California.
