It’s safe to say, that Teyana Taylor’s time has finally come. After years of false starts and almost touching the base of fame, 2018 has seen the singer, model, actress and dancer finally come into her own as an artist. To signal that it’s “Teyana’s time,” she covers the Sept/Oct issue of Playboy magazine—and as expected, she looks incredible.
The professional tide for Teyana Taylor began to turn back in 2016 when she was featured in the award-winning, jaw-dropping video for Kanye West’s song “Fade,” from his album The Life of Pablo. A mere few minutes of Teyana dancing her heart out and showcasing her enviable body, got the mainstream attention she had been flirting with in the decade since TV audiences first saw her on MTV’s My Super Sweet Sixteen.
Now, as she just dropped her highly-anticipated (and Kanye West-produced) album K.T.S.E. (Keep That Same Energy,) she’s opening up to Playboy about her career, motherhood and more.
On her long and shaky road to musical success, Taylor says “Everybody knows, as far as the music side, it’s been a long journey for me—which it has been for any person who’s great in the industry.” She elaborates on just how much her music means to her by stating that all of her other jobs are a way to fill her creative void until her music officially explodes the way she wants it to. “I definitely feel overwhelmed sometimes because I’m doing so much to occupy my mind from the things that are not quite happening the way I want or need them to happen,” she says. “The other 100 things that I do are just until it comes to fruition.”
She also gives readers a peek into what it’s like to work with someone as creative and focused as Kanye West, she says “That’s the beauty of working with someone like Kanye: He gets how creative people work. I would never let someone tell me, ‘This is what you’re going to sing today.’” She continues, stressing that she needs to be in control of her career and what she puts out to the public, saying “That’s the Karl Lagerfeld in me. I got to grab the camera myself, because you don’t see what I see, baby. I need you to be able to feel me. I need you to be able to touch me.”
You can currently see Teyana Taylor in the new season of BET’s Hit The Floor airing now and she also stars in the upcoming films, Netflix’s The After Party and the indie The Trap. She’s also now on tour with fellow R&B artist Jeremih.
You can check out the full interview and photo spread of Teyana Taylor in Playboy, which is on newsstands now.
