Photo Credit: Caroline Tompkins
Tayla Parx is an actress, songwriter, and musician that is currently gaining momentous attention from the long list of artists she’s worked with. She was born as Taylor Parks in Dallas, Texas on September 16, 1993. Her love of music and acting helped define what artistry meant to her. Taylor would sing with her grandmother at church and she became a classically trained dancer when she was only eight years old. Until she was 11, Taylor performed in Dancing in the Wings at the Kennedy Center.
Taylor first came to television screens in 2006. She made appearances on Gilmore Girls and Everybody Hates Chris. In 2007, Taylor appeared in the show Carpoolers, but attracted mainstream attention when she acted as Inez Stubbs in the musical movie Hairspray. Taylor played as Angel in the movie Beyond the Pretty Door. She also appeared in Love… & Other 4 Letter Words. After the success of Hairspray, Taylor moved to Los Angeles to pursue music. At 17, she was in the studio being mentored by Babyface on her musical talents including songwriting. In 2009 and 2010 she appeared in episodes of True Jackson, VP, and Bones. She made another appearance on the show Victorious in 2012. Taylor then started doing voice over roles for the hit video game series The Sims Olympus.
Taylor Parks began to appear in songwriting credits in 2013 when she worked on Sevyn Streeter’s “Call Me Crazy”. The next year she wrote songs for artists such as Fifth Harmony, Danity Kane, Jennifer Lopez, Keyshia Cole, and several others Taylor used Tayla Parx as her stage name and released her first single “Do Not Answer” in 2015. The following year she released the songs “I Love You,” “Bump That,” and “Potential”. As a writer, during the same year, Taylor Parks collaborated with Jason Derulo, The Internet, Alicia Keys, and more. She also gained attention for her feature in Chris Brown’s track “Anyway.” Parks wrote songs for several popular South Korean pop bands including f(x), Red Velvet, and BTS. She even collaborated with Korean superstar BoA on “Your Song”.
In July of 2017, Tayla Parx self-released her mixtape titled Tayla Made. “Runaway” featuring Khalid was the lead single from the project. During the same year, The Knocks featured her on the song “Your Eyes”. Behind the scenes she wrote for Meghan Trainor, Big Boi, Demi Lovato, and other artists. Additionally, Taylor collaborated on three songs for Travis Garland’s self-titled album.
In the early part of 2018, Taylor Parks gained recognition for her writing on “The Kids Are Alright” by Chloe x Halle and Khalid’s “Love Lies” featuring Normani. Parks co-wrote multiple songs for Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer and Christina Aguilera’s Liberation. Parks also wrote for Panic at the Disco’s “High Hopes”, “Tints” by Anderson Paak, and “Swing” by Quavo. Taylor is credited for co-writing several songs from Ariana Grande’s Thank U, Next album including the top singles “Thank U, Next” and “7 Rings”. She has also worked with pop-duo Marcus & Martinus for their EP SOON.
We Need To Talk is the debut studio album from Tayla Parx. It was released on April 5, 2019. The R&B album has 15-tracks that explore concepts of vulnerability, empowerment, love and femininity. Singles on the album include “I Want You,” “Slow Dancing,” and “Me vs. Us.” Taylor Parks has an impressive resume of successful songwriting credits with artists. She is still growing within her sound and pushing her music to higher standards. Her recent studio album explores her creative talent and sense of self-expression. From TV shows, to movies, to games, and of course, music, Tayla Parx is without a doubt a triple threat who explores these mediums to further push her creativity and to help her grow as an artist.
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