Trey Lorenz (born Lloyd Lorenz Smith; January 19, 1969) is an American R&B singer-songwriter and record producer. Lorenz and Mariah Carey have collaborated on the number-one hit, "I'll Be There" and he has been Mariah's background singer since 1990. Lorenz is great friend with Carey.
Background[]
Lorenz's started his musical career as a backup vocalist for Mariah on her promotional tour in 1990.[1] The following year he provided background vocals on her album Emotions. In March 1992, Lorenz served as a backing singer for Carey's appearance on MTV Unplugged, where he and Carey sang a cover of the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There." The cover was released as a single and became Mariah's sixth number-one.[2]
The success of the duet led to Trey being signed by Epic Records for his own album. With the help of Mariah, who co-wrote some of the songs and also performed backup vocals for him, Trey's album Trey Lorenz was released in 1992. The single off the album, "Someone to Hold," performed well, peaking at No. 19 and No. 5 on the pop and R&B charts, respectfully. Unfortunately, his single performed significantly better than the album, which was consistently low on the charts. The underperformance of his album led to Trey's label dropping him. Lorenz then settled into a solid career singing background vocals for TLC, Usher, the late Latina star Selena, Whodini, Da Brat, Will Smith and Vanessa Williams. Over the years, he was signed to Carey's label MonarC and to Jermaine Dupri's So So Def Records label, but did not release any albums under either contract. He continued his close friendship and recording career with Carey, joining her on tours in 1998, 1999 and 2003 and co-writing "Make You Happy" with her for the "Men in Black" soundtrack and "Still Not Over You" for the "Money Train" soundtrack.
After more than a decade out of the spotlight, Lorenz returned in 2006 with his second album, Mr. Mista on X-Ray Records, which didn't make much noise on the charts even though he was prominently featured on her 2006 Adventures of Mimi Tour, singing background vocals as well as three spotlight songs (including a cover of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy") every night. Lorenz was also featured as a background vocalist on Carey's comeback album, The Emancipation of Mimi album.[3]
Collaborations[]
- "I'll Be There" - MTV Unplugged (1992)