Early Life
Sananda Maitreya was born Terence Trent Howard in Manhattan in 1962. His mother is Frances Darby, a gospel singer, teacher and counselor who married Bishop James Benjamin Darby, an Apostolic minister of the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ ; who became his stepfather and raised him, hence "his last name changed and later he completed it with the apostrophe". Maitreya was known to childhood friends as Terry Darby. His family moved from New York to New Jersey to Chicago and then Daytona Beach before settling in DeLand, Florida, north of Orlando.
Maitreya trained as a boxer in Orlando and won in 1980 the Florida Golden Gloves lightweight championship. He received an offer to attend boxing school in the United States Army, but he got to college instead. Maitreya enrolled at the University of Central Florida but quit a year later, enlisting in the U.S. Army. He was posted at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and then served in the 3rd Armored Division, near Frankfurt, West Germany. He was formally discharged by the army in April 1983 after going absent without leave. While in West Germany, he also worked as a band leader with the band The Touch, releasing an album of material called Love On Time (1984). It was later re-issued in 1989 as Early Works after his worldwide success as a solo artist. In 1986 he left West Germany for London, where he briefly played with The Bojangels, after which he signed a solo recording deal.
Read more about this topic: Terence Trent D'Arby
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