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Who is Sananda Maitreya?
Posted Thu 1 Apr 2010 12:21PM BST by Blog Editor in Where Are They Now?
 He is the unmistakable face and voice behind a string of ‘80s hits, including ‘If You Let Me Stay' and ‘Wishing Well'. Having killed off his old identity and changed his name, Sananda Maitreya says he is now much more interested in ‘Post Millennium Rock' than the artist formerly known as Terrence Trent D'Arby.
That was then...
Terrence Trent D'Arby was born in Manhattan, New York City, in 1962 and raised in a religious and musical family. During his teenage years, he lived across America, training as a boxer, enrolling at university and then joining the U.S. Army. He served in Germany before being formally discharged in 1983 and, at the age of 21, D'Arby formed the band The Touch, releasing their only album, ‘Love On Time', a year later.
He then signed a solo deal, releasing his debut, ‘Introducing The Hardline', in 1987, which became his best-known and most successful commercial work. The album prompted critics and fans to proclaim D'Arby the next Prince and produced a host of smash hits including ‘Dance Little Sister' (Watch the video on YouTube) and ‘Sign Your Name' (Watch the ‘Top Of The Pops' performance on YouTube) . It sold over a million copies in the first three days of its release and saw him scoop a Grammy Award.
The follow-up, ‘Neither Fish Nor Flesh', followed in 1989 but sold just two million copies. D'Arby's uncompromising approach alienated some and, although he enjoyed success with ‘Symphony Or Damn' (1993) and ‘Vibrator' (1995), he made bigger headlines by fronting INXS in the absence of Michael Hutchence on the eve of 2000's Sydney Olympics (Watch ‘Never Tear Us Apart' live on YouTube) .
D'Arby's relationship with the music business was now at rock bottom and he set upon a new path of his own choosing. On 4 October 2001, following a series of dreams, he adopted the name Sananda Maitreya, officially leaving behind Terrence Trent D'Arby forever.
This is now...
Now aged 48 and living in Milan with his wife Francesca, he tells us more of the decision to change identities. "It needed to be done. What needs to be done, needs to be done, regardless of what the weather is outside your window of perception. That past no longer belonged to me, it had been overtaken by others, who were still fighting over his body last time I checked.
"Sananda Maitreya is a new matrix, a new vehicle, a new spaceship, a new suit of armour, a new soul altogether, a new life, simple and plain as that and it is not for others to agree or disagree, it is MY JOURNEY. I understand what we had to do in order to survive and move on, the great sacrifices and tough choices that had to be made. We took those decisions and are happy to be in control of this new experience, which we paid for in blood," explains the singer.
In the intervening years, Sananda has never stopped making music and recently toured with his band, The Nudge Nudge, on the ‘Post Millennium Rock Tour 2010' (Check-out the band in action on Sananda's official website) . He is currently working on his eighth studio album, ‘The Sphinx', which he calls his most exciting project to date (Check-out his new material on Sananda's official website) . "Time ennobles and emboldens us as we come to feel more exchange with audiences excited to hear the birth of a new music and a new spirit. Each new project IS new because it reflects new energy and new perspective," he says.
Which probably explains why he would never consider resurrecting his old identity. "Changing to Sananda hasn't made me more perfect, far from it. It has simply made me far more relaxed about the fact that I'm not perfect, nor do we need to be, in order to be us, productive and happy. F**k Perfect. Love life!", Maitreya told Yahoo! Music.
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