Sign Your Name

The artist known as Sananda Maitreya will always be Terence Trent D’Arby (Terence Trent Howard) to me. He was a slightly taller Prince knock-off with dreads and a more feminine look. I was never a “fan” of D’Arby but he was a bit interesting for a while. He was the latest Neo-Soul artist for the DBPC (Dirty Backpack Click) to love and feel one with. He allowed them to feel and be different, and that was cool. When one wanted to escape from rap, rock, and pop, D’Arby was an alternative.

Not sure if this is true but from what I’ve read, D’Arby adopted the name Sanandra Maitreya after dreams he had but legally changed it in 2001 on October 4th. In an interview he declared Terence Trent D’Arby dead. He “watched his suffering as he died a noble death,” but why couldn’t he simply be placed in a coma? What if he wanted to change his mind? Seems that d’Arby was doing the “artistic death” thing and wanted to just reinvent himself. He might have felt shackled by the W.O.S. and wanted out with a new start.

Though from NY (Manhattan to be exact) D’Arby was in the army but was discharged after going AWOL in 1985 while in Germany. He was in Elvis Presley’s old regiment, if anyone cared. 2001 saw D’Arby/Maitreya return to Germany to begin his own recording label, Treehouse Pub; and the release of his first album in six years. He took an unreleased album from his D’Arby days and revamped it to Wildcard under Maitreya. We’ll delve more into D’Arby in his own separate article on The Bootlegger’s Chronicles next month.

Sit back, draw the shades, place the phone on vibrate and go back to the 80s.

Terence Trent D’Arby: Sign Your Name

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