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Troy Carter

Troy Carter91 posts

Troy Carter is an American businessman, born in Philadelphia in 1972. Originally a member of the short-lived rap group 2 Too Many, he worked for Puff Daddy before setting up his own artist management company. In 2007 he became Lady Gaga’s manager, helping her sell over 24 million albums and 90 million singles. He split with Gaga in 2013. He is an active investor in over 50 technology startups. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and five children.

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14 Nov, 1972

Troy Carter born in Philadelphia

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Troy Carter is born in West Philadelphia to Gilda Carter, who cleans surgical instruments at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. His parents divorce when he is two years old. Carter grows up on 52d Street and Larchwood Avenue, in a two-bedroom apartment with kerosene heat and sometimes no running water. His mother says her three boys always had hot meals, love, and high expectations, however she often has to scrape change for bus fare.

You know, we were broke. You can, as a kid, kind of recognize the pain in your mother’s face.

He spends much of his time around the corner with his grandmother, who recalls him writing that he wanted to be a millionaire by age 25, and his granduncle, the owner of a popular shoeshine store who gives him encouragement. Grandmother:

Troy always had a composition book and pen, jotting down what he had in mind to do.

He attends Huey Elementary and Sayre Middle School.

I was always the kid in the front of the line because I was the smallest. and [my fifth grade teacher] used to call me ‘The Big Guy.’ Just by the way she would talk to me, she gave me the sense that I could do anything.

He tests well but prefers the nearby public library.

I read every single thing about the music business.

1978

Father jailed for murder

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Carter’s father, who has remarried, is jailed for 12 years for shooting and killing his wife’s brother after an argument.

That taught me about consequences at a really, really young age.

Despite this, his father and step-mother stay together, and after prison his father rebuilds his life.

 [He is] one of my real heroes.

1989

Forms 2 Too Many

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In his senior year, Carter stops going to school. He spends his time on his rap group, 2 Too Many — a name they choose because there were three of them, but always only enough bus fare for one, or food money for one, or whatever they needed or wanted, only enough for one. He also promotes house parties all over Philadelphia, hiring a DJ and charging $1 to $5 a head. His mother, however, insists that he get a diploma or the equivalent, and enrolls him in Job Corps, a federal education and training program, at a rural Maryland high school, where he earns his GED and returns home.

You got a couple of choices: drug dealers were the role models – you didn’t have doctors and hedge fund managers that looked like you. At that time, hip hop culture was exploding . . .  and coming from the family I came from, drugs was not an option

Jan 1990

2 Too Many audition

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Every day Carter walks to Delaware Avenue, to the studio of DJ Jazzy Jeff (Townes) and the Fresh Prince (Smith). One day, a friend who is recording in the studio lets him in. Townes, Smith and Lassiter, Smith’s business partner are in the lounge. Carter:

We literally just walked into the room and said we want to play some music for you. Will told us to go ahead and pop the tape in. [The room was too small for our routine] so everyone went outside and we danced in the snow…They just fell in love with us. We pretty much sucked as a group. They loved us and our tenacity more than anything else.

Lassiter:

Every night someone was down there trying to get put on. It was something about these three kids and their personality and sense of humor that we responded to. I don’t remember if we thought they were talented or not. They just didn’t give up…We would just laugh at them. I remember plenty of times driving them home. I would say, ‘How are you getting home?’ They hadn’t thought it through. They didn’t have gloves. They didn’t have a Plan B.

Lassiter and Smith give 2 Too Many a record deal on their WilJam label.

1992

2 Too Many dropped

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After a  year, which included a tour of Chicago, 2 Too Many is dropped by the label. Carter goes to work for Townes in the studio and for Lassiter as an assistant. He sweeps floors, empties trash, carries records, and helps Lassiter’s children with science homework. Lassiter:

There was always something about Troy. Aside from being bright, he had just a special quality about him. You knew he would be successful in life – if he could avoid the pitfalls that existed in Philly.

Chillin’ Like a Smut Villain

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Chillin' Like a Smut Villain coverChillin’ Like a Smut Villain2 Too Many’s one and only record is released. The record is produced by Hula and Fingers, the production duo behind Will Smith’s Summertime. Two singles are released from the album: Where’s the Party? and My Imagination.

1995

Joins Bad Boy Entertainment

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Carter graduates from throwing house parties to promoting rap concerts. While promoting a Notorious B.I.G. show in Philadelphia — where Biggie Smalls is a no-show — Carter gets talking to Combs, who had signed B.I.G to his label:

We were having a conversation and I said to Puff, ‘Well, tell me about what you do.’ And he told me, and I said, ‘I want to come work with you.’ ‘Well, your first job is to get me that girl behind the bar.’ And I went and got him that girl from behind the bar, introduced him. So I started interning for Bad Boy.

Carter spends a year and a half with Puff Daddy, taking the Greyhound bus to New York three days a week.

1999

Hires Carter as manager

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Jeffers hires Carter to manage her rap career. Carter makes Eve his full-time job and starts building his talent-management company, Boy Wonder.

Founds Erving Wonder

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Carter and Erving found talent management company Erving Wonder by merging Boy Wonder Management and J. Erving Group. As well as Eve, they manage other major hip-hop and R&B stars, Beanie Siegel, Jadakiss, Sleepy Brown, Angie Stone, Floetry, and Nelly.

4 Jun, 2004

Erving Wonder acquired by Sanctuary

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Erving Wonder is acquired by Sanctuary Group Inc., which manages some of the world’s biggest artists. Carter and Erving are appointed as Executive Vice Presidents of Sanctuary Urban. Sanctuary CEO Mercuriadis:

Erving Wonder has made a tremendous impact in both the music and the film world having developed an impressive roster of multi-talented, commercially viable and important artists. Troy and J’s strategic business sense, relationships with the smartest executives in the industry and their ability to brand artists and entertainers made them our number one choice for the development of Sanctuary Urban.

Carter:

Our goal is to take artists to an unheard of level in the U.S. and internationally. The Erving Wonder/Sanctuary collaboration will create more opportunities to help artists transcend music genres, TV/Film, and establish unique branding options.

2005

Sanctuary deal falls apart

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Sanctuary Urban Group terminates Carter’s five-year contract, as well as those of his Erving Wonder partners, J. Erving, and Tony Davis, before they expired. An eventual settlement closes the chapter on Sanctuary’s alliance with the urban music genre. Carter says the cultures of the two firms were just too different:

Instead of me being able to be creative with the artists, I was sitting in finance meetings a couple of times a week. It killed my spirit as an entrepreneur.

He loses his payday from the sale.

As an entrepreneur you take big swings of the bat. I struck out.

Carter, Gaga meet

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Facing eviction from his office, Carter is introduced to Lady Gaga by Herbert, the executive producer at her record label. Carter becomes her manager.

Vince is a big guy, and I see him walking through the reception area. And behind him, I see this girl with these big shoes, and big black eyeglasses, and fishnet stockings, and no pants, just a leotard. We hit it off right away. Everything she is today she was when she walked through the door. She just had a point of view. The music was there. You don’t meet a lot of artists with vision, not early artists, not at the beginning.

Herbert:

He was going to lose his house. He had no Christmas gifts for his kids. But at the end of the day, if you’re a good person like Troy is, good things will come to you…People still to this day, they don’t understand, and try to figure it out. We still live in this world where there’s black people and white people, and people say: ‘Vince, you guys are two black guys. Why did you let this black guy be the manager of this white girl?’ Because in music no one looks at color. They just look at each other’s heart. And when you look at that, it has every color in the book.

Promotes Gaga

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Carter and Herbert promote Gaga in San Francisco and L.A. Carter:

[Gaga had just been dropped by Def Jam Records. Carter had just been fired by Eve Jeffers, his biggest client. And Herbert had just left his label at Universal to start over fresh] So everybody had something to prove, and nothing to lose. We went from club to club. She was in the front seat of our friend’s truck. Going to four clubs a night, playing for a couple hundred people, between L.A. and San Francisco. She pretty much wore the same outfit for one year. It was something no one had seen before. Top 40 radio was telling us we had to get on dance stations, and it was gay music, not what they played.

Carter called club promoters, designers, DJs, media.

This was hand-to-hand combat

Herbert:

We didn’t have money for the ideas we wanted. We didn’t have people paying attention to us. We had none of that support. But what we had was each other. We had heart.

2010

Founds Atom Factory

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Carter founds Atom Factory, a “multi-dimensional entertainment and artist management company” based in Los Angeles, CA, where he serves as chairman and chief executive officer. He says the company can be much more than a simple artist-management firm.

It was more about building a platform on top of music—because music, we realized, sells everything but music.

22 Feb, 2010

Describes ’95-5′ partnership

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Carter is interviewed in Ad Age magazine about Gaga’s marketing partnerships. At this time Gaga has 2.8 million Twitter followers, more than 5.2 million Facebook fans. Digital-single sales are over 20 million, album sales are eight million. Carter says their partnership is “95-5”:

The only thing I do is manage the vision. Ninety-five percent of the time I won’t comment on creative, and 95% of the time she lets me run the business. The other 5% is where we debate about things like, ‘Do you really want to bleed to death on stage at the [MTV] VMAs?’ She wins even when we do have those debates 5% of the time.

Carter says he doesn’t want Gaga to ever look like she’s endorsing a brand — hence why she’s created products for Universal’s Beats By Dre headphones line, Viva Glam and now Polaroid as its new creative director.

You won’t see her face plastered on any packaging or anything. We’re comparing it to when Tom Ford went to Gucci or Steve Jobs went into Apple and brought a different thought process and taste level in. We’re looking for her to do the same exact thing at Polaroid. It’s not about her putting her name on something — it’s reinvigorating a brand.

Sep 2010

Gaga meets Jobs, criticizes Ping

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Gaga and Carter travel to Cupertino to meet with Jobs at his request to discuss Apple’s music-centered social network Ping. Gaga and Carter criticize Ping’s lack of connectivity to other social networks, especially Facebook, as well as its design. It is reported that the leave “respecting Mr. Jobs’ overall vision.” After the meeting Carter calls Michelsen, a well-connected technology investor and entrepreneur, to find a platform for entertainers that could help them manage their fan base across all major social networks. Michelsen:

I said why try to find a platform, let’s try to build one.

16 Nov, 2010

Praises Born This Way

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Carter praises Born This Way:

We’re just starting to play music for the label. We’re very excited about it. We’re starting to play a little for people and getting a feel for it, and she’s done an incredible job, a really incredible job.

Carter also says he and Gaga have yet to decide on how to market the album.

Well, you know what, it’s not where I go from a business standpoint, it’s more about where she goes creatively because, truth be told, we built the business around her creative infrastructure and that business that was built is unique to Lady Gaga.