Erving Wonder acquired by Sanctuary
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.
Founds Erving Wonder
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.
Hires Carter as manager
Jeffers hires Carter to manage her rap career. Carter makes Eve his full-time job and starts building his talent-management company, Boy Wonder.
Joins Bad Boy Entertainment
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.
Where’s The Party?
The video for 2 Too Many’s single, Where’s The Party? is released. The video shows the band at a party, and is shot in NYC & Philly by Abbott.
Chillin’ Like a Smut Villain
Chillin’ Like a Smut Villain, 2 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.
2 Too Many dropped
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.
2 Too Many audition
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.
Forms 2 Too Many
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
Father jailed for murder
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.
Troy Carter born in Philadelphia
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.