T. Love

T Love (born Taura Taylor ) is a female rapper from Los Angeles. She was the main MC for the hip-hop group Urban Prop, alongside Sugar B aka BJ. Growing up just east of Crenshaw in LA’s South West/Central community she later moved to Europe, first to London then to Paris.

History
Early Days
At 11 years old, busting and rhyming in the schoolyard, T-Love dreamed of becoming a rapper. Since then she has been a journalist, a fan, a promoter, a publicist, an artist manager and a performer. Her first public appearance was at the age of 15 on the legendary LA radio station, KDAY, her 2 minutes on the mic reappeared years later as a skit on her album Long Way Up. While in high school T-Love battled with seminal rappers like Fatlip from Pharcyde. Soon she was making demos for producers and other artists like Eazy E, Egyptian Lover and numerous others. In and out of the seminal West Coast Recording Plant in LA, she began to see the possibilities.

The Good Life era
T-Love was one of the first regulars of The Good Life hip-hop workshop in the early 90's. That's where she met Sugar B with whom she form the group Urban Prop. They soon got signed to Capitol Records. Still, by being different, having a different vision would not help her crusade in any way. In fact, it made it more difficult. So, after many delays, and much internal drama, the Urban Prop album never materialized. Only a few songs had been recorded for their album including a freestyle that was the follow-up to the Freestyle Fellowship's track Heavyweights from their second album Innercity Griots. This track where they invited Freestyle Fellowship, Nefertiti, Sin, Ganjah K and Volume 10 was later used on the Project Blowed compilation album. Urban Prop is also featured on the Motown compilation State Of Emergency - Society In Crisis with the song Worry Free. Like other Good Lifers signed to Capitol at the time (think Mikah 9 or Abstract Rude) their album never was released.

Film
T-Love is featured prominently in the award-winning documentary "This Is the Life," chronicling the music movement that was birthed at The Good Life Cafe in South Central Los Angeles. She is also one of the main characters of the documentary "Nobody Knows My Name" by Rachel Raimist about women in hip-hop which covered the tribulations of six women in hip-hop. The movie was named after one of her songs.

Writing
Over the years, she was an editor and a writer for various publications, which enabled her to get to know the industry a bit better. She was the music editor for URB, and frequently wrote for RapPages, The Source, Hip-Hop Connection, LA Weekly and Vibe for which she did the first ever interview with Snoop Dog. More notably she co-wrote two books It’s Not About A Salary with photographer B+ and Girl Power .

Industry
T-Love moved on, helping to develop a few companies - from clothing apparel to record labels - and built her career in the business to balance out the creative expression she was so passionate about. She was the publicist for the now-defunct Correct Records, but left to quickly begin her own startup with her friend Zenobia Simmons she formed Gyrlz On Wylcox, a PR company which was responsible for breaking Notorious BIG, Craig Mack, Black Moon, Jeru, Company Flow, Siah and Yeshua DapoED on the West Coast. They where the first to bring Ultramagnetic MCs to Los Angeles for a memorable gig.
Later on she went solo to build Rumble/Pickininny Records and Picki People management. She managed Cut Chemist, then immediately, she released Jurassic 5’s classic debut, the Jurassic 5 EP and then her own Return Of The B-Girl EP, both of which caused much attention and praise amongst underground hip-hop heads everywhere.

Discography
*Return Of The B Girl EP (1998)
*Long Way Back LP (2003)
*Long Way Up LP (2008)

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