Tracey Hinds is an American mortgage broker best known as the ex-husband of R&B and soul singer and actress, Macy Gray.
The former couple were married for two years, from 1996 to 1998, and had three children together before parting ways. Although he is associated with a very popular figure in the American entertainment industry, very little is known about Tracey himself. However, we’ll share with you the little information we have been able to glean.
Tracey Hinds Background is a Mystery
Apart from the fact that we know Tracey Hinds is an African American man born somewhere in the United States, there is practically no other available information about his background. This means that details of his date and place of birth, his parents, siblings (if any), childhood, and education, among others, are yet to be unraveled.
However, it has been reported that Tracey is a mortgage broker. Even though his educational background is unknown, it is believed that he must have studied something related to his current career in the tertiary institution.
He Was Married to Macy Gray For Two Years
Macy Gray and her ex-husband, Tracey Hinds, were reportedly married for two years before they parted ways. Sadly, information about when, where, and the circumstances surrounding their meeting are not known.
The former couple was said to have gotten married on 7 March 1996 just shortly after they had met and at that time, Macy was still struggling to find her feet in the music industry. Unfortunately, their marriage ended in 1998, just one year before she had her career breakthrough with her 1999 debut album On How Life Is.
Before then, the duo had already given birth to three children: two daughters and a son. Their first child, a daughter named Aanisah Hinds, was born on January 16, 1995, and is currently 28 years old.
Their second child, a son named Tahmel Hinds, was born in December 1995 and is 27 years old while their last child and second daughter, Happy Hinds, was born on October 6, 1997, and is 25 years old now. Reports have it that Tracey and Macy got divorced shortly after Happy was born.
An artist and a graphic designer, Aanisah attended Beverly Hills High School from 2009 to 2012. There, she studied Visual and Performing Arts before moving on to Pratt Institute from where she graduated with Bachelor’s degree in painting.
Tahmel is reportedly a musician, and Happy is the editor-in-chief at Happy Hinds Magazine. In one of her Instagram posts, she revealed that she started @happyhindsmagazine97 but did not launch it for three years because she was too scared that it would not go well. Thankfully, she did eventually and it’s been going better than she imagined.
Reason Behind Tracey Hinds’s Divorce From Macy Gray
Like we stated earlier, the union between Tracey and Macy lasted for a short while and the reason behind the crash of their marriage is believed to lie in their decision to rush into marriage recklessly.
At the start of their relationship, everything was fine between the lovebirds and they were so in love with each other. However, things took a different turn after they became parents and were unable to handle the real-life issues that came with parenting. Having their first two children in the same year made things even worse, but they kept coping.
However, Macy’s relationship with Tracey hit rock bottom during her pregnancy with their last child, Happy, resulting in divorce eventually. Afterward, even though Macy did not want to, she had no choice but to move in with her mother together with her children.
On the flip side, her marriage to Tracey and their divorce inspired her first album, On How Life Is, which skyrocketed her into fame, compensating her for whatever pain she might have gone through.
To date, the relationship between the R&B singer and her ex-husband is still sour. Speaking during an interview, Macy revealed that she and her children are not in communication with Hinds.
While it is not known where Tracey is since the divorce and whether he remarried, it is common knowledge that Macy has remained unmarried ever since. She has dated several men but is yet to find the one with whom she would grow old.
Is Tracey Hinds a Female?
Among the very little information available about Tracey Hinds is that he is a man and not a woman. The confusion about his sexuality possibly arose from his name, “Tracey”, which is more generally considered to be a female name even though it is unisex within the United Kingdom.
That aside, Tracey Hinds is known to have fathered his three children with Macy and as of now, there has been nothing to prove that they probably had them with any outside help. That said, common sense would tell anyone that there was no way he could have fathered their three children if he were female, that wasn’t scientifically possible as of the time Aanisah, Tahmel, and Happy were conceived nor is it possible presently.
Now that we are clear on the fact that Tracey was a man as of the time he was involved with Macy Gray, one might ask, couldn’t he have transitioned into a woman after they parted ways? Well, that is very much possible, but as of now, there is no information pointing us in that direction. So, as far as we know, Tracey is still a man.
Meanwhile, some sources have it that he died sometime in 2020. Whether or not this is true is yet to be confirmed.
How Many Albums Has Tracey Hinds Released?
Macy Gray has come to be known for her very unique raspy voice and style of singing. As of now, she has been nominated for the Grammy Awards five times, winning one. In the course of her very successful music career, she has released 10 albums, 25 singles as a lead artist, 7 singles as a featured artist, 7 promotional singles, and made 29 guest appearances. She has also appeared in 17 music videos as a lead artist and in 4 as a featured artist. Below is a list of her albums.
Studio albums
On How Life Is (1999)
The Id (2001)
The Trouble with Being Myself (2003)
Big (2007)
The Sellout (2007)
Covered (2012)
Talking Book (2012)
The Way (2014)
Stripped (2016)
Ruby (2018)
Live Album
Live in Las Vegas (2005)
Compilation albums
The Very Best of Macy Gray (2004)
I Try: The Macy Gray Collection (2008)
Original Album Classics (2012)
How old is Tracey Hinds’ Ex-Wife Macy Gray?
Macy Gray is 55 years old. She was born Natalie Renée McIntyre on September 6, 1967, in Canton, Ohio, to Laura McIntyre and Otis Jones who split after some years of being married.
Her mother who was a maths teacher remarried to a steelworker who became Macy’s stepfather. The singer has two siblings: a sister who is a biology schoolteacher and a brother named Nate, who runs his own gym located in West Philadelphia.
During her high school days, Macy attended several high schools, including a high school that expelled her as a result of the way she behaved. She eventually graduated and went on to study scriptwriting at the University of Southern California.
The Singer Began Her Career Early But Never Took it Seriously
The R&B star began her musical career by taking piano lessons at the very young age of seven. As an undergraduate of the University of Southern California, she accepted to write songs for a friend of hers and subsequently, a demo session was fixed for another singer to record the songs. However, the singer did not show up, so Macy took her place and did the recording.
After that, she began to set up bands and write songs for fun, and with time she became more enthusiastic about it and couldn’t detach herself from it. Then a friend of hers offered her an opportunity to be a singer in his jazz band and she accepted.
As a way of preparing herself for the job, Macy dedicated her time to listening to different jazz CDs given to her by her friend and studying the various singers. By so, she was able to teach herself how to sing for a gig. However, she never took it seriously until later.
Meanwhile, Macy was working a cashier in Beverly Hills. Along the line, she met a writer-producer named Joe Solo and together they wrote and recorded some songs in the latter’s studio. With the demo tape on ground, Macy was able to land singing opportunities at Los Angeles jazz cafes.
Even without thinking so highly of her voice, she got signed by Atlantic Records and started recording her debut. Unfortunately, Tom Carolan, the man who got her signed to the record label left Atlantic Records and as a result, she was dropped. Consequently, she moved back to Ohio.
Thankfully, her hopes of launching her music career professionally was restored in 1997 when Jeff Blue, a Zomba Label Group Senior VP A&R man based in Los Angeles, came into the picture. He was able to talk her into returning to music and got her signed to a development contract.
After that, Macy Gray began recording new songs drawn from her experiences in life and Jeff started selling her to record labels. In 1998, Epic Records signed her to a deal. The following year, the entertainer released her hit debut album, On How Life Is. Since then, she has never look back.