BallerStatus.net Beyond Hip-Hop: Tyrese: Waist Deep (original) (raw)

Tyrese and Meagan Good in "Waist Deep"
Photo: Rogue Pictures

Tyrese: Waist Deep
Monday - June 19, 2006

� by Jay Casteel

Tyrese has come a long way since a lot of first saw him on that bus singing "Always Coca-Cola" for the beverage's commercial. His film career has seen success with 2003's "2 Fast 2 Furious," 2005's "Four Brothers" and now with his latest body of work "Waist Deep," where he takes on another hood role a la "Baby Boy."

But, this isn't the typical, senseless hood movie we're used to seeing, according to Tyrese, it's more than that, which ultimately led him to accepting the film's starring role as O2 -- a man fighting to get his son back, who is being held for ransom.

Tyrese sat down with BallerStatus.net during a press junket in Los Angeles to discuss why he chose to do another "hood movie," his chemistry with his co-stars Meagan Good and Larenz Tate, and what playing a father figure meant to him.

Also, he touches a little on his music career and his leap into his rapper Alter Ego Black Ty.

BallerStatus.net: Black and Latino actors usually say that when they first started all they could get was the drug pusher/gangster/street hustler roles. So, what was it about this role that made you take it 'cause one could look at it and say it's a step back for you? But, obviously you saw something in it that made you take on the role.

Tyrese: It's not a step back. It's a solid setting. John Singleton's favorite words would be "You could never run out of stories to tell about South Central L.A.," so he'll never be out of the South Central L.A. business. Vondie came in and had a different kind of story to tell. Not too often do you get a sense of the "Ransom" type settings and not too often do you get as much action along with drama, along with substance with L.A. as you get in "Waist Deep." That's what was exciting to me -- the car chases. I felt like I was working with another direction, instead of just coming in and doing some typical South Central hood type movie where everybody's looking angry and wearing red and blue or whatever else. It was like 50 steps above the typical South Central L.A. type movie. That's why I wanted to do it. And because we got a chance to go to Mexico at the end [laughs].

BallerStatus.net: Can you talk about the chemistry between you and Meagan [Good]? You guys kind of lit up the screen. Did you know it would be there?

Tyrese: Oh yea, that's the lil' homie. I've been knowing Meagan for a while now. I'm proud to say she mentors off me. I'm on of the people in her life that she actually takes advice from and she respects my opinion. She calls me for a lot of things and we've had hours upon hours upon hours of conversations about life and just everything. So, the opportunity to work with her on screen, I already knew it was gonna be a given that there was gonna some chemistry because it's not that we have to be emotional and we have to go to a lot of emotional places and we don't know each other. So, it was more of a convenience and it worked out. Plus, it wasn't like I was in her trailer everyday trying to get at her [laughs]. That's the homie already, so we already got past all that flirting.

BallerStatus.net: So, does that mean the love scene was all business?

Tyrese: Well, you know, it was all part of a day's work. I'm just trying to do my job [he says grinning]. It was just another day at the office.

BallerStatus.net: You played the father role, and in that type of environment, kids usually grow up without a father. How was it playing a role of a father, but still having all the issues of being in the hood? How was that a challenge for you to take on that role?

Tyrese: It wasn't a challenge much because the image of a father do exist although we don't quite see it too often. A lot of my boys I grew up with in the hood still have their mother and father at the house, and their father was a big influence on them day-to-day -- with baseball, football, track, whatever. Whatever a father does to support, some of my homies had that. The homie's father became all of our fathers. Only a man can get on you about certain things, not a woman. A woman can come in with the female touch, but only the father will sock you in your damn chest. Momma would probably hurt her wrist.

It was just one of those things where I had to tap into what I knew. My father wasn't there. For me, that was a part of the motivating factor for wanting to do the film 'cause you're not used to seeing a black man being on a mission to get his son. Everything about this role was a man...

BallerStatus.net: Larenz Tate's character, who played your brother, wasn't feeling the whole father/son thing as much as your character. What was it like working with Larenz Tate?

Tyrese: I love Larenz Tate. I felt like I worked with somebody who did a hood classic ("Menace II Society"). Like "Baby Boy" is considered one of the movies that everybody has seen and appreciates. "Menace II Society" is that other film, alongside "Boyz N Da Hood." So, I felt like those three movies are hood classics. It's like Jody ("Baby Boy") working with O-Dog ("Menace II Society"). It was a real pleasure for me. Just chemistry.

It's crazy 'cause me and Larenz have been hanging out for a while now. We've never worked together obviously. I just felt like it's going to be a leap to get from that "You the homie, we go to clubs, we hang out" to "now, it's time to act together." So what we did was, we went to the Regency Beverly Wilshire Hotel and booked out a conference room. We was just up in there...they're probably pissed 'cause we was throwing chairs around, hitting walls and just improving and coming up with anything off the top of our head to get past "you the homie and now it's time to act." We were just talking mess off the top of our heads. And we ended up doing that scene at the beginning where I come home and he's in the apartment chilling, drinking and smoking. We did that scene the first day [on set], so it worked. If we didn't do that thing at the Regency Beverly Wilshire, we would have never got chemistry that fast on the acting side. So, it was blessing.

BallerStatus.net: How do you balance doing movies and being an artist?

Tyrese: I'm a little late right now because I was in the studio.

BallerStatus.net: I heard that you're dropping a rap album too?

Tyrese: Yea, y'all be expecting that. It's an album called Alter Ego. It's a double album. One whole side is hip-hop; the other side is R&B.; My aka is Black Ty. Welcome to Black Ty.

BallerStatus.net: What kind of transition is it 'cause you've been singing most of your career?

Tyrese: I've been rhyming longer than I've been singing, believe it or not. I used to be in a rap group called Triple Impact and the R&B; thing came up first. I ain't never been the one to question the order of God's blessings, so now Black Ty is here. We got Snoop Dogg, Game, Paul Wall, Chingy, Mannie Fresh, Baby from Cash Money, Ice Cube, Kurupt...everybody's on the album.

BallerStatus.net: So, it's going to be really West Coast?

Tyrese: Yes, there's definitely West Coast collaborations. I was able to conveniently get a hold of some folks and let them hear Black Ty. They heard it and wanted to jump on the record fast.

BallerStatus.net: Can you describe your style and how you fit in with some of the artists you mentioned?

Tyrese: I don't really know. As far as my style, I'm gonna let people compare me to whoever they are going to compare me to. But, I just be doing me. I get in the booth and I love it.

BallerStatus.net: Do you think your fans are going to accept you rapping?

Tyrese: It just takes people hearing it. They will get it when they hear it, but it ain't really a sell. I'm not selling Black Ty on people, I'm just making people aware that it's coming. It's a difference. I don't want something that people may not be used to being forced on them. Right now, you're talking to a man who started in this game as a singer and now you respect me as an actor hopefully. So, it's about exposing people to different sides of what you're capable of one step at a time. Back when I first did "Baby Boy," people went to the screening like, "Let me see what this stankin' ass n---- is gonna do." And then they ended up appreciating it, so it's about one thing at a time.

I'm one that has worn about seven different hats already, from the singing to modeling to MTV hosting to whatever...songwriting, producing. I try to do it all.

BallerStatus.net: A lot singers use hip-hop within their music. Do you feel that sticking in a rap verse makes an R&B; better?

Tyrese: Well, fortunately and unfortunately, rap is necessary. It's a part of what music is in a very dominating way. The fact that an R&B; song ain't an R&B; song without a rapper at the end of it, it's just the way it is. Here's the twist, a guy like Jamie Foxx had to get a rapper on a song, but imagine listening to a song when you got me singing on the hook and I'm rapping. Damn! That's something, ain't it?

BallerStatus.net: Everyone gets inspiration from different places. Where do you get yours?

Tyrese: Life for me. I hate to generalize it that way, but I love hip-hop, I love music and I love people having doubts in me. Like reporters, if y'all are know for doing this and you decide next week y'all are gonna still do this and gonna start doing something else, there is a lot of people in your personal life that aren't gonna support y'all trying to make a transition from one thing to another because this is what they're used to y'all doing. So when you're trying to make that transition, they gonna be like, "I dunno man. You're able to do all these press junkets and have access to all these stars. You need to just stick to that." That's just wrong that your loved ones don't support you, but you get motivated by that 'cause you realize you weren't born as a Siamese twin. You ain't gotta share nobody's heart, thoughts or intentions. I'm my own man.

Black Ty is gonna stay and people gotta get used to him eventually. When you're at a club and everyone else is party and you're anti-Black Ty, you're eventually gonna get your ass on the floor. That's the way it's gonna go.

BallerStatus.net: So, what can we expect about the R&B; side versus the hip-hop side?

Tyrese: R&B; is going to be R&B;, and it's going to be everything that you're used to and then some. Another part of my motivating factor is that Tyrese has never been able to tear down the clubs. I've never been able to tear down the clubs the way I want to.

When I go to a club and them hip-hop joints come on and some of the R&B; up-tempos come on, they start partying and I be sitting down saying "I wish I was in the club and they was playing something I was doing." My record with Jermaine Dupri and Da Brat, "What'chu Like," that was one of my records where I was like, "Yea, I'm in the club." But, other than that, my voice is too raspy or too sultry for people to get down to me in a club, so I was like, "I gotta get in the club." Ohhh, I'm in the club right now!

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