During his interview on The Breakfast Club yesterday, Troy Ave was staunch in his claim that his music is strictly non-fiction: "I don't talk about nothing I don't got, I don't even be talking about Ferraris or Lamborghinis... I don't be fucking with shit like that." Evidently, though, this desire to keep it 100 at all times doesn't extend to his interviews.
Over the course of the 48 minute discussion, the BSB rapper made some very far-fetched claims that blurred the line between "cocky" and "delusional," touching on everything from his profits to his fashion sense. Of course, he was mainly there to clarify the seemingly paltry, ultimately misleading Major Without A Deal sales numbers we saw last week, but he somehow managed to overshadow that with his own outlandish claims. Read on to get the seven most ridiculous of these, so you don't have to sit through 48 minutes of Troy reiterating them over and over again.
He pockets 95% of his album sales
Troy Ave is technically independent (more on that later), operating through his own BSB label, so the percentage of album revenue that goes directly into his pocket is obviously a lot higher than the 15% that's standard for major label signees. Throughout the interview, as well as on Twitter last week, Troy claimed that he gets 95% of all sales, with the remaining five percent being split between his lawyer and the distributor.
As some have pointed out, that would mean that no producers, guests, graphic designers were paid for any of their work on the album. Troy chalks this up to A) having all in-house production and B) all of his guests paying respect to him by doing their features for free. Well, the production credits of Major Without A Deal include hip hop veteran Kid Capri (not signed to BSB), Tha Bizness (not signed to BSB) and Chase N Cashe (also not on the label), so either Troy's very good friends with each one, or something's fishy.
Troy also brings up the fact that major labels often spend $150,000 on promo and marketing for albums, and mentions that he spent “less than a fraction” than that for MWAD. One cent is still a fraction of $150k (one fifteen-millionth, to be precise), so the fact that Troy hands Charlemagne a hundred dollar bill at the end of the interview immediately disproves his claim.
He is totally, 100% indepedent
As DJ Envy tells it, Troy is an “independent artist at his truest form” who “pays for everything." True, he did found his own label, BSB, and is still mostly signed to it, but he's getting help from some pretty big partners. First off, he's got a deal with Empire Distribution, a company that also distributes music by guys as big as Cam'ron and Rich Homie Quan. In addition to discounting his indie claim, this also raises questions about the 2.5% of his sales that he says go to the "distributor"-- if he's talking about Empire, then he's not counting for the actual stores that sell copies of his album, who surely get a cut of the sales.
Then there's his deal with BMI Music, a company that claims to have deals with half of last year's Grammy winners and primarily handles licensing fees and royalties. With so many big names on MWAD, it's not surprising that Troy needed some help with licensing, but to do so, he needed to partner with a national corporation.
His haters are just as bad as racists
“For someone to try to tear me down and slander me," Troy said in the interview, "It’s like damn near modern day slavery.” As he's been attacked online a lot in the past years or so, it's understandable that he bristles at the mention of those who unfairly slam him, but his self-martyring tone throughout the conversation was brash enough to negate his point.
“I’m like Jackie Robinson with a racist fan,” he said when asked about the memes people created in the wake of his sales numbers, comparing the hardships he faces as a rapper in the 21st century to the first black major league baseball player. A little unfair, no?
An entertainer with no history of civil rights activism has no right to begin a sentence with, “Not to compare myself to Malcolm or Martin, but…” Troy Ave has done nothing to further anyone's rights in this country but his own (which is totally fine!), so he can't be surprised that remarks like this will only encourage people to continue "slandering" him.
He represents an entire generation
It's a tough sell to say that any one artist has ever represented an entire generation. Maybe the Beatles came the closest ever, and maybe the argument could be made for Kanye West, but there's no way that someone with less than 65,000 people following him on Twitter can claim to speak for all Americans born during a certain span of time. That is, however, exactly what Troy claims.
“You trying to tear down Troy Ave, you trying to tear down a whole generation,” he said, in a statement that mirrored his slavery comment. He elaborated with, “I saved a whole generation of people from being drug addicts and turning up and wearing tight pants and feeling like they can’t have hometown pride,” and aside from the fact that "turning up" and "wearing tight pants" aren't inherently bad things, it's also just a patently ridiculous statement. Only a very small fraction of the current generation of kids have heard Troy's music, so unless he's using telepathy, there's no way he could "save" all of them from whatever evils he wants to align himself against.
Manolo Rose doesn't make hits, Troy Ave does
Troy's never had a song on any Billboard chart, but his most popular song to date is probably "All About The Money," a track originally titled "Dopeman" by Manolo Rose. We've already heard Rose's side of the story, and when Troy was asked if he was trying to ride the wave of the already-bubbling regional hit, here's what went down between him and Charlemagne:
Troy: "If you made a hit record, make another one."
Charlemagne: "He did, with the 'Run Ricky Run'."
T: "Did he?"
C: "Yeah, that was a hard record, that was big in the clubs"
T: "It ain't about being a hard record, is it a hit record?"
Even though it doesn't have the star power that Troy's collabs with artists like Diddy, 50 Cent, T.I. and Lloyd Banks do, "Run Ricky Run" has more Soundcloud plays (a million plus) than any of the 219 individual songs on Troy's Soundcloud. That's only one metric of success, but at this point, Troy's in no place to question the hitmaking ability of someone who isn't cosigned by any of the big-name artists that guest on MWAD.
Any negative review of "Major Without A Deal" is biased
Troy's new album hasn't received too many positive reviews yet, and in his mind, that's all due to bias. “[Anybody that has] something negative to say about me, they have not listened to a music from an unbiased standpoint,” he said in the interview, basically implying that, if presented without context to someone that has no idea who Troy Ave is, his music is impossible to dislike. "All the legends" allegedly think the album is "crazy," but for some reason, critics aren't following suit.
“If someone dealing in facts," Troy elaborates, "I can always respect that.” It's very hard (if not impossible) to critique music scientifically, so all reviews are inherently subjective, something that Troy conveniently forgets when he advertises MWAD as the "rap album of the year" with no justification.
Of all the crazy shit Troy Ave said in the interview, this has to be the most stupefying. Our friends at SneakerMob already laid into him for justifying his Air Force 1's-and-Adidas-pants combo, but it deserves another roasting. Here's Troy on his outfit:
"There’s certain sneakers you can wear… you can put the camera on these. These ain’t regular sneakers. These are the high top Air Force 1’s, they’re a little more money than the low top. Or with certain Jordan Brands you can do this. I’m one of the flyest ones moving."
Firstly, white high top Air Force 1's are very regular sneakers that are available at Foot Locker. Secondly, they cost a whopping ten dollars more than the lows. Thirdly, it is impossible to be fly, let alone "one of the flyest ones moving," when you mix brands like that.