Keith Martin

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2012) This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: This article is not well written in English. Please help improve this article if you can. (December 2012) Template:Infobox Alyhan Popat Keith Martin (born Keith Eric Martin, September 22, 1966, Washington, D.C.) is an American R&B singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, currently living in Surabaya, Indonesia. Martin is best known for writing and singing romantic love songs. He is also an accomplished musician, playing keyboards, bass guitar, drums, and percussion. Career edit: Early years edit: Martin was the second son of three children in Washington, D.C. Growing up, he listened to Glenn Louise, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and Stevie Wonder. He was also influenced by jazz and gospel music. He started playing piano, drums and singing when he was 10, and started writing music when he was aged nineteen. Martin was a force among local artists in the late 1980s, working and performing with Johnny Gill and Stacy Lattisaw. He was a part of the group Masqerade, which included the twins Art and Scott Powell, Sharif Walters and D'Extra Wiley, who later became a member of the 1990s new jack R&B group II D Extreme. Con Funk Shun founder and drummer Louis A. McCall, Sr. saw Martin, and signed him to his Gaithersburg, MD artist management company owned by him and his wife Linda Lou McCall, a music business consultant and songwriter. Linda Lou McCall was hired by MC Hammer in 1990 to help set up his corporate operations and administration in Oakland, California. When she became Vice President of Hammer's artist management company, she and her husband arranged for Martin to come to California, and got him on as part of MC Hammer's Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em and Too Legit to Quit world tours. When the McCalls relocated to Los Angeles in 1992, Martin followed, enabling him to work with Boyz II Men, Shovani and Buster, Grammy Award winning songwriter and producers Marty Sharon and Danny Sembello, Oji Pierce, Ian Prince, and the The Time's Jesse Johnson. First album edit: Michael McCary brought Martin to Sony, where he released his first album, It's Long Overdue in 1995, which peaked at #82 on the US Billboard R&B Albums chart. His first single "Never Find Someone Like You" (which was also independently recorded by Backstreet Boys before) peaked at #53 on the Billboard Hot 100 and at #43 on R&B Singles chart, and was included in the platinum-selling Bad Boys soundtrack. For the next decade Martin stayed busy in the music industry, producing and writing, and releasing several solo albums, gaining him a large fan base throughout the world. His ballad, "Because Of You", is still a major favorite in the US and Asia. Move to Philippines edit: In 2004, he came to the attention of EMI, who hired him as in-house producer in Manila, Philippines, producing and writing for artists in the Philippines and Indonesia. He collaborated with Filipino singer Kyla on her Not Your Ordinary Girl and Beautiful Days albums, with Gloc 9 on his Ako Si... album, with Agnes Monica on her Whaddup A.. '?! album, with Gary V., 604 and others. As of late 2009, he worked with POSH, an all-girl group signed to Viva Records to produce one of their singles, "Missing You" off their album My Heart. Back in US edit: In May 2008, Martin was brought back to the United States by his first manager, Linda Lou McCall, and her business partner, Ruben Harper. He is currently signed to harperMcCALL OmniMEDIA. He lives in Stockton, California, and is chief producer/songwriter for the harperMcCALL "Rhyme Scene Unit" production team. His most recent work is the 2009 remake of Con Funk Shun's 1981 song, "California 1", produced by him and McCall for Rhyme Scene Records. 2011 edit: In January 2011, Martin wrote and produced 2 songs for Australian recording artist Ron Kingston. The first song was a duet called "My Friend" which features Kingston and Indonesian singer Mia on the release. The Disney inspired and animated music video was completed by Empire Films in Australia and released to the public on September 26, 2011.

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