Table of Biography
Teddy Riley is a multitalented American personality. Teddy Riley is a singer-songwriter, keyboardist, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist. He gained fame for producing songs for various artists of varying nationalities.
Childhood and Early Career
Teddy Riley was born on October 8, 1967, and his current age is 56 years old. Teddy hails from New York City, U.S., and grew up in St. Nicholas Houses in Harlem. Likewise, his full name is Edward Theodore Riley and his zodiac sign is Libra. Talking about his family, Teddy’s mother is Mildred Riley and his stepfather is Edward. Similarly, his brother is Markell Riley.
From the young age of 5 years, Teddy was a child prodigy. Teddy started playing instruments in church. His uncle built a studio in his famed Harlem club “The Rooftop”. There, young Teddy spent most of his time while growing up.
Caption: Teddy Riley posing for a photo with his mother after receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of
By the age of 14 years, upstate New York rappers began making music to young Teddy’s tracks. Under Gene Griffin’s guidance, Teddy formed the short-lived group “Kids at Work.” Gene is a local music producer.
Similarly, at 18 years old, Teddy already produced Kool Moe Dee‘s 12″ single Go See the Doctor. This song became a crossover hit after being released on an independent label in the year 1986. Additionally, Teddy also previously worked on the production of Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew’s The Show in the year 1985.
Teddy Riley – Career and Professional Life
Professionally, Teddy Riley is a famous singer-songwriter, keyboardist, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist. People credit Teddy for the creation of the new jack swing genre. As a producer, Teddy has produced records by artists like Michael Jackson and Usher among numerous others.
The singer credits Barry Michael Cooper for providing the name to this genre. On August 16, 2019, Teddy was honored with a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 6405 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
Likewise, Teddy fused hip-hop and R&B in his production work. He did this with artists like Michael Jackson, Samantha Mumba, Doug E. Fresh, Bobby Brown, Hi-Five, Keith Sweat, Profile, Today, Heavy D & the Boyz, and Men of Vizion. He also did so with spearheaded groups Guy and Blackstreet.
Caption: Teddy Riley posing for a photo with his family at the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Source: Essence
Teddy formed the former group, i.e. Guy, in the year 1987. The other members of this group are Aaron Hall and Timmy Gatling. With this group, Teddy performed at the 2009 BET Awards. The same year, the singer worked with fellow singers Amerie and Robin Thicke on their albums.
From working on Snoop Dogg’s album Ego Trippin’, Riley became part of the production supergroup QDT. The other members of QDT are DJ Quik and Snoop Dogg. Similarly, Teddy is also the producer and co-writer of Lady Gaga’s song Teeth from her EP, The Fame Monster.
More Details
Caption: Teddy Riley appears in an article with the late singer Michael Jackson regarding their collaboration. Source: Soul Food
The singer’s consistency and drum ideas had an influence on modern-day R&B. Since Teddy’s influence, this genre contains more samples and rapping segments. This genre now contains singing too, which is a practice reminiscent of the Jackson family.
Further, Teddy has had a seminal influence on gospel and R&B music with neo-soul-style singers like Marvin Gaye. Such singers became more open to using rap and sound effects in their recordings.
More recently, Teddy has stepped into the South Korean music industry. The singer worked with singer/rapper Jay Park on the latter’s English track Demon. This was originally meant for Michael Jackson. Teddy also produced a mini album for the Korean girl group Blackswan aka Rania.
Teddy is also the producer of the South Korean girl group Girls’ Generation’s single The Boys. This was the group’s 1st international release. Likewise, Teddy is also the producer of songs for boy groups SHINee and EXO.
For SHINee, Teddy worked on Beautiful, Shine, and Dangerous. These are the songs from the group’s two-part third Korean studio album. The producer also worked with the girl group f(x) for their songs MILK and All Night. These songs are from the group’s 3rd studio album Red Light. With EXO, Teddy worked on their song What Is Love.
Teddy Riley – Brand Endorsements
The popular singer has also been involved in endorsing brands. He is the brand ambassador for the 3D audio app brand.
Teddy Riley – Net Worth 2024
The singer then created his “Teddy Riley” YouTube channel on February 27, 2010. So far, this channel has over 136.3k views and 1.29K subscribers. Similarly, Teddy has over 688k people following his journey on Facebook. Moving on, Teddy has a net worth estimation of around $3 million US dollars.
Relationship Status
Teddy is married to Donna Roberts. Likewise, Teddy has a total of 8 children. They are Nia, Taja, Dejanee, Dante Horne, Bobbie, Samar, Lil Teddy, and TJ Riley.
Caption: Teddy posing for a photo with his children at the 2016 Soul Train Awards. Source: Youtube
Body Measurements
Teddy stands tall at an approximate height of 5 feet 7 inches or 1.7 meters and his weight is around 79 kgs or 174 lbs. Other than this, there is no further information regarding Teddy’s other body measurement details like his chest-waist-hip measures, dress size, shoe size, biceps, etc. Moreover, Teddy has dark brown eyes and hair of the same color.
Social Media
Talking about his social media presence, Teddy Riley joined Twitter in March 2009 and so far has over 80.9K followers on his @teddyriley1 account. He is also available on Instagram as @teddyriley1 and has over 990k followers as of early July 2021.