Beltsville corporal lends his authoritative tone to projects

Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008

Beltsville corporal lends his authoritative tone to projects

by Deborah Stoudt | Staff Writer

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Bryan Haynes⁄The Gazette

Beltsville Police Cpl. Kevin Carter does voiceovers in his spare time. Here, he goes over some voice pieces at an editing facility in Washington, D.C. In addition, Carter will be voicing a film documentary on the late University of Maryland, College Park basketball player Len Bias, who died of a drug overdose.

Beltsville resident Kevin Carter has such a smooth baritone voice that when he talks, people notice.

When he was singing at a bar in Adams Morgan in 1999, Eryca Dawson, who did voiceovers for Bell Atlantic, asked him what he was doing with his voice and suggested he get into voiceover work.

When he’s not working as a corporal with the District 6 Prince George’s Police Department in Beltsville, he spends time doing voiceovers for documentaries, movie trailers and local advertisers.

‘‘You have to get the timing right because the commercial may be only five seconds to a minute long. It’s a challenge because it’s a lot of words in a short period of time,” he said.

His latest movie trailer is of the documentary ‘‘The Life and Times of Rayful Edmond,” about a notorious drug dealer in Washington, D.C.

Carter, 42, started work on another movie trailer voiceover project last week for a biopic on Len Bias, a local icon in the mid-1980s who played basketball for the University of Maryland, College Park. Bias died suddenly of a cocaine overdose in 1986 after being drafted by the Boston Celtics. ‘‘Through my voice I want to share with the world what a phenomenal human being, athlete and person Len Bias was,” Carter said.

Carter also has done voiceovers for local television stations. Overall, he has done about 40, but he hopes that number will grow after the Bias film.

Carter said he knew he had a unique voice, but didn’t pay much attention until Dawson approached him.

‘‘He sounded like a natural James Earl Jones, who was the voice of Darth Vader in the 1970s and CNN and Verizon,” she said. ‘‘It’s naturally deep, authoritative and sultry. One of the unique elements is that while his voice is deep and sultry, which appeals to ladies, it’s a voice of authority, which is not a turnoff to men, and that makes it much more marketable. Kevin’s voice is 100 percent natural, and it commands attention.”

Motivational speaker Tommy Ford, who was an actor on the TV sitcom ‘‘Martin,” met Carter at Ebenezer AME Church in Fort Washington in 2000 and has recruited him to do voiceovers for some of his motivational speeches.

‘‘Kevin has an amazing voice,” Ford said. ‘‘He has a very powerful and professional voice, and one that lets people know that everything is OK. It gives them a sense of security when they hear his voice.”

E-mail Deborah Stoudt at dstoudt@gazette.net.