Everything You Need To Know About TrOyMan

TrOyMan, whose real name is Troy Earvin Curry, was born in San Francisco, California, grew up in Oakland, and then moved to Atlanta, Georgia, with his mother when he was just thirteen-years-old. He describes the move as “a culture shift, but nothing too drastic.”

Despite the complicated upbringing, there’s no identity crisis there. TrOyMan cites West Coast legends like Dr. Dre and 2Pac as influences, even saying that he was “rapping a lot of 2Pac lyrics before I could even speak complete sentences”, but has no problem representing Atlanta. Of course, the judges for the show were Chance The Rapper, Cardi B, and T.I., the latter of which is one of the kings of the A. Knowing that that connection is there, you might think that Tip went easy on him, but that was not the case at all. There was some pressure on him to come correctly because of that.

Despite that, throughout the show, fans noticed that it wasn’t T.I. that gave him the hardest time on the panel, but Chicago’s Chance The Rapper instead. TrOyMan has even gone as far as to state that it was like Chance had it out for him specifically, though acknowledging that that wasn’t the case at all.

One thing that fans watching the show noted was how infectious TrOyMan’s positive energy was, and he attributes it to his late mother. His mom passed away in April of 2016 after she suffered an overdose on crack cocaine, leaving her in a vegetable state. A few days before his twenty-fourth birthday, Troy made the difficult decision to take her off life support. He spent a week in a hospital room contemplating the decision and says that at the end of the week, a butterfly flapped its wings immediately in front of his face while he was standing on the porch. He felt overwhelming energy that he “sent chills throughout (my) entire body,” taking it to mean that she was the butterfly. He took it as a sign to let her go. On how she affected him, he says, “I’ve looked at how much she was a positive light in people’s lives, and when she passed, I was like ‘well I gotta kinda step into that.’” Ironically, TrOyMan says his kindness has helped him develop the grittiness you’ll so often hear in his music.

TrOyMan’s stepfather was also a rapper, and so he spent a lot of time in a studio around music from a young age, helping count artists in before punches. His stepfather was a rapper called P.O.U.N.D., who was part of a group called Street Thugz, who rolled with 2Pac back in the day. TrOyMan has also had a stepmother who he says he is very close with, along with some stepsiblings who he also maintains good relationships with.

Outside of music, TrOyman has done it all, working at Burger King, K.F.C., being a bartender, a server, and working wedding receptions, to name a few of those jobs. He worked for Adidas and made a song dedicated to them called ‘Miii A.D.I.D.A.S.,’ even managing to get Hip-Hop legend D.M.C. on the remix. He hoped it would get him a push through the company, but it didn’t.

When Troy was sixteen-years-old, he made a song called ‘Anything,’ which ended up allowing him to do Wild Out Wednesdays at BET’s 106 & Park at a very young age. He took first place, making it one of the more notable things he’d done in his career from the jump. Not long after that, MTV named him Atlanta’s best independent artist. For many, these experiences could lead to complacency, but TrOyMan knew it was just the beginning of a challenging, uphill journey. He also says that the experience at BET helped him later on with Rhythm + Flow, in terms of being around cameras.

One of the standout moments from TrOyMan on Rhythm + Flow and arguably on the show, in general, is his performance of ‘Streetlight’. It was one of his songs that ended up on the show’s soundtrack and is a fan favorite amongst his discography.

A lot of music he released before this new streaming era doesn’t appear on digital streaming platforms. In 2017 after the passing of his mother, he put out a project called APRIL (which stands for A Period Realising Infinite Life). It consists of fourteen tracks, and there are no other artists who make guest appearances on it. Troy says the LP is him “climbing out of depression” that followed his mother’s death, which led to suicide attempts. The follow-up to that is his EP Insomniac, which dropped earlier this year. This one does boast features. Fellow Rhythm + Flow contestant Londyyn B appears on ‘Blessings’, which Troy admits his manager from Miami told him to make so she could “shake her ass” to it. His manager also suggested that Londynn appears on the song. He credits the music to the notion that everything you make doesn’t have to be lyrical, an essential piece of information that some don’t acknowledge their entire career. The winner of the show D Smoke and judge T.I. also appear on the next track, ‘Rapido’. After the show, TrOyMan has kept in touch with the King of the South and considers him somewhat of a mentor.