We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Derek & Teresa Taylor a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Derek & Teresa , appreciate you joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

Derek

I grew up in a suburb right outside Chicago, Il. Back in those days we had people that were all about finding ways to keep kids like myself out of the streets and so someone came up with the idea to have talent shows in and around our area. Me and a group of friends decided to enter these talent shows as a Pop-Locking group. It was here that I started to develop a thirst to create and entertain. After winning some of these competitions I found myself immersed in this world of artistic expression. At about this time Hip Hop was having a significant growth spurt which sparked my interest in rapping. It was the rhyming of words that captured my attention. After I caught the bug for writing dancing seemed to take a back seat and at the age of 15 I was confident that I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Approximately 2 years later I was on my way to Los Angeles to knock on record company doors.

Teresa

As a little girl I was always singing. I grew up in a cultural setting and was expossed to many great things such as the theater, I discovered my love for music when my parents took me to see a South African musical Called ipi tombi when I was only 7 years old. My parents spoke Spanish/English but my siblings and I only spoke English, Culturally confused i didn’t always quite know how to express myself with words but singing helped and has always been a way to express myself as well as let out my emotions, I studied with a private voice teacher and received training from a professional show choir group known worldwide as The Young Americans. My vocal interest span from opera to r & p (rhythm & praise). I have never sung opera professionally but I work out my voice with opera so that a can have the vocal strength to sing everything else better. I consider myself a voice actor. I love to sing, rap and do a voice overs. I believe a nice tone can heal the soul. You can feel love or hate in the tone of the voice I choose to use my voice to heal.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

We’ve always been passionate about our craft. Although we come from two different genres of music we’ve learned how to draw the best out of each other throughout the creative process. Most of our music is inspired by life experiences which makes it easier to connect to our audience.

We’ve had the pleasure of writing and recording over eight albums, collaborated with numerous artist from all over the world and have performed on stages both here domestically and abroad.

We created a the music collective known as THA MASH UNIT back in 2004!! TMU is an artist collective that creates content to help shift the culture back to God. Our logo is a circle with a broken arrow indicating that we are broken people that have been healed to reach other broken people.

Our focus has always been to create music that has meaning and depth. Being Christians in this industry has helped us to stay focused on our mission which is to be the alternative to the same old thing and to inspire others to think about what life is really all about.

Some years ago we took on a new challenge of going into public schools to share our real life stories through the arts to encourage young people to fight for their future. This endeavor broaden our vision and showed us that we still had other talents to cultivate. Part of the job was to vet out new artist from all the country and create these high-end assemblies that would blow students minds!! We led these massive tours for nine month intervals for three years in a row. Shortly after Covid hit we converted in-person assemblies to virtual assemblies. So now we have Mash Unit Muzik for the artist side of company and TMU Assemblies for the school side of the company.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Having a better understanding of the business of music would’ve been very beneficial. The heartache we experienced was incredibly difficult. Being taken advantage of is almost an acceptable practice. We would not sign those types of contracts today because we have a greater understanding.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

We think the process of creating is just as exciting as achieving the finished product. When we write lyrics that connect to another lyrics it feels so good!! To create a body of work that has continuity, focus and drive can be a challenge but for the artist its so rewarding!!

Contact Info:

• Website: http://thamashunit.org
• Instagram: @mmt_tmu
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MistaMrsTaylor/
• Twitter: @MistaMrsTaylor
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqpRGwdvt32FcZ03COzh4hw
• Other: http://tmuassemblies.com