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During the late 80s going into the 90s one name that was linked very heavily a with sound at the time called NEW JACK SWING was none other than TEDDY RILEY he is hugely responsible for the sound and styles of that day with is own bands GUY and then later on  BLACKSTREET he would also later scale the heights as a producer working with MICHEAL JACKSONon his  Dangerous and Invincible albums . Including the hits "Remember the Time", "Jam" which featured Heavy D, "In the Closet", the title song "Dangerous", "Heaven Can Wait", and "Whatever Happens" featuring Carlos Santana. Riley also went on to contribute to the Juice soundtrack which starred rapper Tupac Shakur aka 2Pac. Riley's song "Is It Good To You" performed with long time collaborator Tammy Lucas was a smash hit. His fellow ex-Guy bandmate Aaron Hall was also on the soundtrack his song "Don't Be Afraid" was one of the big hits on the soundtrack. Its true to say that this dude worked with many of the hottest artist around and lead the way

Born Edward Theodore Riley on October 8, 1966 the first production that bought him to my attention was JOHHNY KEMP I just got paid and KEITH SWEAT first album MAKE IT LAST FOREVER. His work he did wit the likes of SWV(SISITERS WITH VOICES) cemented his status in soul and R&B as a hot producer much sort after .Riley's first major mainstream hit produced song was Bobby Browns "My Prerogative" along with writing skills of Guy's Aaron Hall. Riley got the idea of forming his own group after it was suggested to him that a younger singer named Aaron Hall was looking to join a group. After meeting at a New York mall, Riley and Hall became friends and formed what would be Guy in 1987. Complete with a third member “ Timmy Gaitling- they recorded and finished their self-titled debut in the summer 1988, which by the time of Gatling's exit and Hall's younger brother Damian's entry. The album sold over 3 million copies with hits like "Groove Me", "Teddy's Jam", "Piece of My Love", "I Like" and "Spend the Night". The album had established the group as a unique R&B musical force through out the end of the 1980s into the 1990s.

Like most producers, we quickly forget the simply great songs they brought to the world in or rush for some other new fix and as the new millennium rolled around his sound was defined (by I don’t know who ) as outdated ,Neo soul was on the rise and people where rushing for a more soulful return. Yet in many ways TEDDY sound was soulful the funky jazz blended with the soul was great and it always seemed that the man would be at the top for years to come ,how I loved TEDDY JAM what a great song. GUY and BLACKSTREET one my favourite bands of the last 20 years lead the way with groups such as JODECI emulating there style. One of the achievements of this sound was to introduce many of my younger relatives to jazz music because of some of the vibes he introduced also many began rediscover other artist ROGER TROTMAN OF ZAPP fame was another and like ROGER ,EDDY was a pioneer and I’m not sure we have a lot of those around today, too many see business first and song creation after. This prevents them from educating the younger audiences to seek to be different and do there own thing rather o follow the crowd and blind themselves to this fact, TEDDY is one of those pioneers following is own path and I don’t think it will be long before the radio airways will be playing more TEDDY RILEY tunes. Recently he can be heard remixing on JOHN LEGEND new album EVOLVER.