25 celebrities you didn’t know had music careers

Taryn Manning

Nowadays, most people recognize Taryn Manning as Pennsatucky in the Netflix original hit Orange Is The New Black. But years before that, Taryn already appeared in several major movies and she was also the vocalist for the electronic duo, Boomkat. The name may not ring a bell, but you have definitely heard a song or two from the duo.

In the early 2000s, Taryn made her film debut in the film Crazy/Beautiful alongside Kirsten Dunst. She followed that role up in the Britney Spears-starring film Crossroads and later appeared in 8 Mile with Eminem. She earned rave reviews in 2005 when she appeared in the Oscar-winning flick Hustle & Flow.

While building her portfolio onscreen, Taryn and her brother Kellin formed Boomkat, and got signed to a major label with Randy Jackson, which eventually fell through. They were signed to DreamWorks Records, and that’s when things started happening for them. Boomkat songs appeared in campaigns for Gap, and films like The Hot Chick, Crossroads, and 8 Mile.

The song you may recognize the most would be the duo’s cover of Blondie’s “Rip Her To Shreds”, which appeared in the movie Mean Girls. The song plays at the beginning of the movie when Cady Heron (played by another actor-turned-singer, Lindsay Lohan) is navigating her way through her first day in a real high school.

The duo released two studio albums, Boomkatalog. One in 2003, and A Million Trillion Stars in 2009. Their debut earned pretty favorable reviews, while the second album flew kind of under the radar, mostly garnering attention on MySpace (remember those days?). The duo never officially split, but it has been years since any new music has been released.