The-Dream

Beside his steady collaborators Christopher "Tricky" Stewart and Carlos "Los Da Mystro" McKinney, Terius "The-Dream" Nash pushed electronic pop-R&B forward across the 2000s and 2010s, extending a lineage traced through Leon Sylvers III, Kashif, Prince, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Teddy Riley, Timbaland and Missy Elliott, and the Neptunes. Modest early progress gave way to genuine impact once Rihanna’s “Umbrella” reached listeners in 2007, and he confirmed the achievement was no accident by leading the charts the next year with Mariah Carey’s “Touch My Body” and Beyoncé’s Grammy-winning “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).” At the same time he launched a Def Jam recording career, crafting the melodically rich and impeccably layered Top Five R&B/hip-hop albums Love/Hate (2007), Love vs. Money (2009), and Love King (2010). He also became a sought-after partner for rap projects, supplying Grammy-winning tracks for Kanye West and Jay-Z (“All of the Lights,” “No Church in the Wild”). After departing Def Jam he kept issuing his own work at a rapid pace, among them the 150-minute Ménage à Trois: Sextape Vol. 1, 2, 3 (2018) and SXTP4 (2020).

Terius Youngdell Nash passed his earliest years in North Carolina before relocating to Atlanta, Georgia, with his mother. He studied trumpet in elementary school, later took up drums and guitar, and began composing lyrics after his mother’s death during high school. Years afterward he achieved his first publishing deal in 2003 once he met R&B producer Laney Stewart, who placed Nash’s “Everything” on B2K’s platinum Pandemonium! album. Working alongside Laney’s brother Christopher “Tricky” Stewart, Nash contributed material to numerous acts over the following four years, including Britney Spears and Madonna’s 2003 Top 40 pop single “Me Against the Music.” The decisive breakthrough arrived when he, Stewart, and Kuk Harrell created Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” a U.S. number-one pop hit that also dominated charts overseas and earned nominations for Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

Several labels courted Nash for additional hits, including Def Jam, Rihanna’s home, yet the company hesitated to sign him as a performer. That reluctance ended once Nash and frequent partner Carlos McKinney delivered “Bed” to J. Holiday, a new Capitol artist who carried the ballad to number five on the Hot 100. Around that period Nash debuted on Def Jam with “Shawty Is da Sh*!” (also known as “Shawty Is a 10”), quickly followed by “Falsetto” and the December arrival of Love/Hate. The album reached number five on the R&B/hip-hop chart while its three singles, concluding with “I Luv Your Girl,” all entered the Top Ten of the same tally. In October 2008 Nash, Stewart, and Harrell again collaborated on Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” another number-one pop success that captured Grammys for Song of the Year and Best R&B Song.

Weeks after those first Grammy victories, Nash released his second album, Love vs. Money. The March 2009 set topped the R&B/hip-hop chart and came within a hair of the Billboard 200 summit, yielding four singles that included his fourth Top Ten R&B/hip-hop solo entry, “Rockin’ That Sh**” (also titled “Rockin’ That Thang”), plus the Mariah Carey duet “My Love.” Although he initially announced Love King as his final solo project, he reversed course before its June 2010 release; the album entered the Top Five on both the Billboard 200 and R&B/hip-hop charts behind the title track and the T.I. collaboration “Make Up Bag.” A sprawling “Internet album” credited to Terius Nash and titled 1977 appeared as a free digital download in 2011, with Nash handling nearly all writing and production himself.

Nash opened 2012 by earning another Grammy for his role on Kanye West’s “All of the Lights,” named Best Rap Song. He issued “Roc” and “Dope Chick” as charting singles, yet the intended parent album Love IV MMXII stayed unreleased. That October he joined Def Jam as vice president of A&R. Only a few years after the label had wavered on signing him, he already possessed three successful solo albums plus major hits with Rihanna, Beyoncé, and Kanye West, along with an expanding catalog that featured “Just Fine” for Mary J. Blige, “Touch My Body” for Mariah Carey, “Throw It in the Bag” for Fabolous, and “Baby” for Justin Bieber, plus sessions with numerous others including first wives Nivea and Christina Milian. Late in 2012, with Love IV MMXII still absent, Def Jam issued 1977 commercially with minor adjustments to the track list. Early the next year he collected another Grammy when Kanye West and Jay-Z’s “No Church in the Wild” won Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.

Instead of the earlier plan, Nash’s fourth and most collaborative the-Dream album, IV Play, surfaced in May 2013. Guests included Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Kelly Rowland, and Gary Clark, Jr., and the project again reached the Top Five on the R&B/hip-hop chart. In early 2015 he parted ways with Def Jam. Several months later he surfaced on Capitol with the April EP Crown. A follow-up EP, Jewel, was slated for three months afterward, but the Capitol arrangement dissolved. Near the close of the year Nash launched a run of independent releases by posting the Sam Cooke covers collection IAMSAM. The ten-song “visual album” Genesis and the EP Love You to Death both appeared in 2016. He maintained his work with other artists and, in 2018, delivered the triple album Ménage à Trois: Sextape Vol. 1, 2, 3 through L.A. Reid’s Hitco. A fourth Hitco-backed installment, SXTP4, followed in 2020.