Teena Marie

Teena Marie earned recognition above all for a voice impossible to mistake—an elastic, vibrant soprano that embodied soul, funk, rock, and any genre that stirred her imagination or ignited her inventive drive. That singular instrument, together with every other gift she brought to bear across a thirty-year span as vocalist, composer, arranger, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, merits lasting tribute. After years of stalled development at Motown she broke through with the 1979 debut single “I’m a Sucker for Your Love.” The creative momentum supplied by her alliance with Rick James propelled her forward; on the next three albums—Lady T, Irons in the Fire, and the Grammy-nominated It Must Be Magic, issued between 1980 and 1981—she assumed full command of production and songwriting while continuing to value strong partnerships. Although “I Need Your Lovin’,” drawn from her third LP, and “Lovergirl,” the 1984 Starchild track, represent her few outright pop chart successes, she remained a fixture on Black radio through R&B favorites such as “Behind the Groove,” “Square Biz,” and “Ooh La La La,” as well as countless album tracks that continue to endure. Fresh commercial and artistic momentum arrived with the Top Five R&B/hip-hop sets La Doña (2004), Sapphire (2006), and Congo Square (2009), yet her life ended abruptly in 2010.

A native of Southern California, she was born Mary Christine Brockert in Santa Monica and grew up in the Mission Hills and Venice sections of Los Angeles. In 1964, at age eight, she performed a tap routine on an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies; during high school she took part in musical theater productions, though her earliest passion was for an expansive spectrum of recorded music. She mastered guitar, bass, and congas on her own and, still a student, fronted her first band. Discovery came while she played in a later group alongside childhood friend Mickey Hearn and her brother Tony Brockert; manager Hal Davis arranged an audition for Motown founder Berry Gordy, who cast the ensemble in the ultimately abandoned film project The Innkeeper. By late 1975, however, Teena had secured a place on the Motown roster. Over the following years she cut tracks under producers Ronnie McNeir, Winston Monseque, the team of Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise, and Gordy himself, yet none reached release. During that period she did place one co-written ballad, “Just as Long as There Is You,” on Tata Vega’s 1976 album Full Speed Ahead, produced by Monseque.

Through Winnie Jones, an employee at Motown’s publishing arm Jobete, she was introduced to the rising funk artist Rick James. Their immediate rapport led to the recording of her debut album with the Stone City Band; issued on the Gordy subsidiary, Wild and Peaceful entered Billboard’s Soul Albums chart in early May 1979, and weeks later the lead single “I’m a Sucker for Your Love” appeared on the Hot Soul Singles chart, eventually reaching number eight. Like most of her later releases, the album demonstrated staying power, charting for six months. Though it climbed to number 18 on the soul album list, Wild and Peaceful only suggested the breadth of her talent; at that stage it largely showcased her vocals alongside James’s writing and production. Teena received a sole co-writing credit, for “I’m Gonna Have My Cake (And Eat It Too),” the only track on which she played piano, and some material had originally been earmarked for others—“I’m a Sucker for Your Love” had been intended for Diana Ross before Motown declined James’s proposal to produce an entire album for the former Supreme. Later in 1979 she earned another Motown songwriting credit with “Happiness,” recorded by the short-lived Gordy act Apollo.

Listeners encountering Wild and Peaceful without photographs concluded that Teena Marie was Black. Motown’s own assumptions about her audience proved equally off-target when a promotional tour paired her with Shaun Cassidy. Those misconceptions, along with any impression that she remained merely an apprentice, were dispelled by the 1980 albums Lady T and Irons in the Fire. For Lady T she enlisted Richard Rudolph, widower and longtime collaborator of Minnie Riperton, whose recent death from cancer had affected her deeply. Together Teena and Rudolph produced the record and co-wrote several songs, most prominently the dance-floor funk number “Behind the Groove,” which reached number 21 on the soul chart. She wrote and co-arranged “Aladdin’s Lamp,” a piece that recalled Riperton’s earlier style, and among its background singers was Jill Jones, daughter of Winnie Jones, who co-wrote “Young Girl in Love” with Teena. Another link to her past appeared in “You’re All the Boogie I Need,” composed with Mickey Hearn, a partnership that continued for years. The album also features the spoken voice of Maya Rudolph, then a child of Riperton and Rudolph. Only six months after Lady T, Teena’s third album, Irons in the Fire—entirely written, produced, and arranged by the artist herself—yielded her second Top Ten soul single and first Top 40 pop entry, “I Need Your Lovin’,” while reaching number nine on the soul album chart.

The year 1981 brought further activity: she joined Rick James on the Black-radio perennial “Fire and Desire” from the multi-platinum Street Songs and contributed to Ozone’s “Gigolette.” Irons in the Fire itself overflowed with acknowledgments of her influences—the Marvelettes, Aretha Franklin, Donny Hathaway, John Lennon, and others—while the Temptations supplied background vocals. Taking a cue from Blondie’s “Rapture,” she rapped on the number-three soul hit “Square Biz,” name-checking additional inspirations within the lyrics. It Must Be Magic climbed to number 23 on Billboard’s pop album chart, her strongest performance to that point, became her first RIAA-certified gold release, and earned a Grammy nomination for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female, an award won that year by Franklin. Mounting frustrations with Motown culminated in litigation and the Brockert Initiative, later known as the Teena Marie Law, which prohibited labels from retaining artists under contract while refusing to issue new material; Teena later observed that the ruling also aided Luther Vandross and Mary Jane Girls in similar circumstances.

Departing Motown, she signed with Epic and created her own publishing company. The new chapter opened in 1983 with Robbery, her first album on which she wrote every song independently. She incorporated additional rock and Latin-jazz elements, enlisted Patrice Rushen and Stanley Clarke, and scored further Black Singles chart entries with “Fix It” and “Midnight Magnet.” Pop breakthrough arrived with the next release: “Lovergirl” reached number four on the Hot 100, carried Starchild to gold certification, and brought a second Grammy nomination for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female. The award again went to Aretha Franklin, whose “Freeway of Love” had been co-written and produced by Narada Michael Walden, one of several luminaries—alongside Ronnie McNeir and Leon Ware—who appeared on Starchild. After producing and writing for her Epic-backed group Q.T. Hush, she pursued a heavier sound on 1986’s Emerald City, which also included a batucada excursion. Naked to the World (1988) and Ivory (1990) adopted a polished contemporary R&B approach touched by new-jack swing. Those final three Epic albums generated seven charting singles, among them the enduring ballad “Ooo La La La,” which topped the Hot Black Singles chart and was sampled a decade later on Fugees’ “Fu-Gee-La.”

Following several years away from recording, she issued the independently released Passion Play in 1994; another decade passed before her next album. Much of that interval was devoted to raising her daughter. In the early 2000s she found an unexpected home at Cash Money Records, the New Orleans-based rap label. La Doña (2004) and Sapphire (2006) both debuted at number three on the R&B/hip-hop chart; the former also reached number six on the Billboard 200—her career high—and contained the Grammy-nominated “I’m Still in Love.” Guests on those sessions included Rick James, Gerald Levert, Smokey Robinson, MC Lyte, and her daughter Alia Rose. The pattern of collaboration extended to Congo Square, a 2009 Stax release featuring George Duke, Shirley Murdock, Howard Hewett, and Faith Evans.

On December 26, 2010, Teena died of natural causes. For the preceding six years—until roughly a month before her passing—she had experienced seizures stemming from an injury sustained when a picture frame fell on her head while she slept in a hotel. Numerous compilations, reissues, and posthumous projects have appeared since. First Class Love: Rare Tee, a two-disc set of pre-debut Motown recordings, surfaced in 2011. Her final studio tracks, completed under Alia Rose’s supervision, were released two years later as Beautiful. In 2021, John Morales Presents Teena Marie: Love Songs & Funky Beats presented fresh remixes of both hits and deeper catalog selections drawn from the original multitrack tapes.