TFOX is an American singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

, multi-instrumentalist

Multi-instrumentalist

A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays a number of different instruments.The Bachelor of Music degree usually requires a second instrument to be learned , but people who double on another instrument are not usually seen as multi-instrumentalists.-Classical music:Music written for Symphony...

, and record producer

Record producer

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

.

Early life

Travis Ian Fox was born June 27, 1979 in Washington D.C. to working class parents. He has two older sisters. In his parents spare time they started and played in several bands which performed top 40 music. His mother was the lead singer and his father the manager. It was at this time TFOX was exposed to several genres of music. Before he could read or write, TFOX learned to play drums and by the age of 7, he would fill in during rehearsals. At this same time the advent of MTV

MTV

MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

 swept the nation and groups like A-Ha

A-ha

A-ha were a Norwegian pop band formed in Oslo in 1982. The band was founded by Morten Harket , Magne Furuholmen , and Pål Waaktaar...

, Human League, Spandau Ballet

Spandau Ballet

Spandau Ballet are a British band formed in London in the late 1970s. Initially inspired by, and an integral part of, the New Romantic fashion, their music has featured a mixture of funk, jazz, soul and synthpop. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s, achieving ten Top Ten singles...

, and The Clash

The Clash

The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, dance, and rockabilly...

 curiously caught TFOX’s attention.

While TFOX was attending Gar-Field Senior High School

Gar-Field Senior High School

Gar-Field Senior High School is a Senior High School in Woodbridge in unincorporated Prince William County, Virginia, USA, with students in grades 9 through 12....

 in Woodbridge, Virginia

Woodbridge, Virginia

-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 31,941 people, 10,687 households, and 7,769 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 3,047.8 people per square mile . There were 11,026 housing units at an average density of 1,052.1/sq mi...

, he was often ribbed by his peers for listening to “old school” music, which consisted principally of Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder

Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...

, Prince

Prince (musician)

Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...

, and Maze featuring Frankie Beverly. These artists peaked TFOX’s burgeoning musical interests at the time. As his musical interests matured, TFOX devoted a great deal of time to listening to and studying the likes of musical pioneers such as Tony! Toni! Toné!

Tony! Toni! Toné!

Tony! Toni! Toné! is an American Soul/R&B group from Oakland, California, popular during the late 1980s and early to mid 1990s. During the band's heyday, it was composed of D'wayne Wiggins on lead vocals and guitar, his brother Raphael Saadiq on lead vocals and bass, and their cousin Timothy...

, A Tribe Called Quest

A Tribe Called Quest

A Tribe Called Quest is an American hip hop group, formed in 1985, and is composed of rapper/producer Q-Tip , rapper Phife Dawg , and DJ/producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad. A fourth member, rapper Jarobi White, left the group after their first album but rejoined in 2006...

, Meshell Ndegeocello, Pete Rock

Pete Rock

Peter Phillips , better known by his stage name Pete Rock, is an American record producer, DJ and rapper. He rose to prominence in the early 1990s as one half of the critically acclaimed group Pete Rock & CL Smooth...

 and CL Smooth

CL Smooth

CL Smooth is an American rapper, poet, and is best known as the vocal half of the hip-hop duo Pete Rock & CL Smooth....

, The Pharcyde

The Pharcyde

The Pharcyde are an alternative hip hop group based in South Central Los Angeles. The original four members of the group are Imani , Slimkid3 , Bootie Brown and Fatlip . DJ Mark Luv was the group's first DJ, followed by producer J-Swift and then J Dilla...

, and D’Angelo.

TFOX’s music has been inspired by soul

Soul music

Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...

, funk

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

, rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

, hip-hop, blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

, psychedelic

Psychedelic music

Psychedelic music covers a range of popular music styles and genres, which are inspired by or influenced by psychedelic culture and which attempt to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues-rock bands in the...

, folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 and jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

. His artistic inspirations include Antonio Carlos Jobim

Antônio Carlos Jobim

Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim , also known as Tom Jobim , was a Brazilian songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, and pianist/guitarist. He was a primary force behind the creation of the bossa nova style, and his songs have been performed by many singers and instrumentalists within...

, The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

, J Dilla

J Dilla

James Dewitt Yancey , better known by the stage names J Dilla and Jay Dee, was an American record producer who emerged from the mid-1990s underground hip hop scene in Detroit, Michigan...

, Todd Rundgren

Todd Rundgren

Todd Harry Rundgren is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and record producer. Hailed in the early stage of his career as a new pop-wunderkind, supported by the certified gold solo double LP Something/Anything? in 1972, Todd Rundgren's career has produced a diverse range of recordings...

, Giorgio Morricone, Ben Folds

Ben Folds

Benjamin Scott "Ben" Folds is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and television personality. From 1995-2000, Folds was the frontman and pianist of the alternative rock band Ben Folds Five. Since the group disbanded, Folds has performed as a solo artist and has toured all over the world...

, Radiohead

Radiohead

Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...

, Danny Elfman

Danny Elfman

Daniel Robert "Danny" Elfman is an American composer, best known for scoring music for television and film. Up until 1995, he was the lead singer and songwriter in the rock band Oingo Boingo, a group he formed in 1976...

, Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...

, James Brown

James Brown

James Joseph Brown was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist. He is the originator of Funk and is recognized as a major figure in the 20th century popular music for both his vocals and dancing. He has been referred to as "The Godfather of Soul," "Mr...

 and Parliament Funkadelic.

Career

TFOX began composing tracks for what was going to be his debut album in 1999 with only a four track recorder, a snare

Snare drum

The snare drum or side drum is a melodic percussion instrument with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the drumhead, typically the bottom. Pipe and tabor and some military snare drums often have a second set of snares on the bottom...

, a Kawai mini keyboard, and a Rhodes piano

Rhodes piano

The Rhodes piano is an electro-mechanical piano, invented by Harold Rhodes during the fifties and later manufactured in a number of models, first in collaboration with Fender and after 1965 by CBS....

. At this same time, TFOX met his production partner and friend JLaine

JLaine

Jonathan Ernest Laine better known as JLaine is a Washington DC based Hip-Hop producer and drummer.-Background:...

 while attending George Mason University

George Mason University

George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...

 (GMU) and began performing live with JLaine’s group UrbanMinds. Sharing a love for the same types of music, TFOX and JLaine started collaborating. The production duo came to be known as The Wonderboys. With the knowledge gained from performing with UrbanMinds and his musical marriage with the veteran JLaine, TFOX began developing his own style.

In 2001, after graduating from GMU with a B.A.

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 in studio art

Studio art

Studio art is made of art and studio, and the term has several implications depending on the context used. The term encompasses all art forms, be they performing or visual.-Definition:...

 with a concentration in graphic design

Graphic design

Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...

, TFOX began recording digitally and by 2003, had begun recording tracks that would ultimately become his acclaimed debut album, The Music. Meanwhile, TFOX was staying busy, earning his break in 2004 co-producing singer/songwriter K’Alyn’s third solo album Verse 1, Chapter III, alongside co-executive producers JLaine and K’Alyn.

Working on his first major production gave TFOX the drive to put his own debut album back on track. The Music was released independently in 2006 under TFOX’s own production company, Lady Lucy Music. It attracted a considerable amount of attention from music lovers globally and was his coming out to the music world.

Production

Since the release of The Music, TFOX has been making a name for himself as an accredited and sought-after producer. He joined JLaine

JLaine

Jonathan Ernest Laine better known as JLaine is a Washington DC based Hip-Hop producer and drummer.-Background:...

 and Wes Felton

Wes Felton

Wes Felton is an African-American singer/poet/actor/emcee born and raised in Washington DC.-Personal life:Wes Felton had a very musical upbringing. His father is Hilton C. Felton, a jazz pianist who had performed with George Benson, Grant Green and many others.Wes has a son named...

 to form the group Antithesis. TFOX produced several tracks for the Antithesis debut and the follow-up, Love Daze. He is also producing tracks for Alison Carney, France-based company ApolloJazz, and for the Wonderboys album, The Professionals.
In 2010 he has followed up his debut with the release of The Great Junction on Tasteful Licks Records

Tasteful Licks Records

Tasteful Licks Records is an independent, artist run record label based out of Raleigh, North Carolina. Tasteful Licks, also referred to as TLr, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Remedy Media Group, LLC. The name is derived from the musicians’ term for a quick and sudden improvisation done in such a...

. TFOX plays all the instruments on the record and has produced it himself.

Discography

Production credits

Year	Artist	Album	Label
2003	TFOX	Devoid of Vocal Accompaniment	Lady Lucy Music
2004	The Wonderboys	Music Revelation- Instrumentals Vol. 1	Lady Lucy Music
2005	K'Alyn	Verse 1, Chapter 3	Eklectrik Soul
2006	TFOX	The Music	TFOX Music
2008	Antithesis	Antithesis	Tasteful Licks Records
2010	Antithesis	Love Daze	Tasteful Licks Records
2010	TFOX	The Great Junction	TFOX Music/Tasteful Licks Records

External links

• Official website
• TFox on Myspace.com
• TFox on Last.fm