MIAMI RAPPER WANTS CHANGE
Carol City’s Denzel Curry is demanding change
Carol City-raised hip-hop artist Denzel Curry has seen it all. Police killed his brother. His friends have been gunned down. Now, Curry wants to create a world free of racism.
Hailing from Carol City in Miami Gardens, Denzel Curry has seen it all. Police killed his brother. His friends have been gunned down. Now, Curry wants to create a world free from racism.
Few people love MiamiDade County more than Denzel Curry.
“When I win a Grammy I’m a take it back to Dade,” he declares on “PERCS | PERCZ,” a single from his critically acclaimed third studio album entitled “Ta13oo.”
Curry’s statement is one of pride — he was born and bred in the Carol City neighborhood of Miami Gardens — but also one of positive affirmation: it’s a matter of “when” not “if.” Sure, this might seem a bit overzealous considering that one, he’s only 25 years old; two, he lacks the backing of a major label; and three, he’d be the first hip-hop artist from Miami to win a golden gramophone (no disrespect to the impresario that is DJ Khaled). But here’s the thing about Curry: He doesn’t lack self-confidence.
“You can’t come to Miami and not know who I am or who Rick Ross is,” Curry said, referring to his fellow Carol City native, who has dominated the Miami hip-hop scene for the past decade.
And quite frankly, to those who are conversant with today’s rap scene, he’s right. There are very few emcees in Miami — hell, the world — who can match Curry’s range. It’s not every day that an artist seems at ease covering Rage Against The Machine’s “Bulls on Parade,’‘ lyrically assaulting the American justice system and melodically depicting parking lot pimping over a 1980s R&B sample — all in one show. Eschewing Miami’s dominant hip-hop sounds — specifically Rick Ross’ grandiose kingpin chronicles and the chants of Trick Daddy and Trina — allowed him to cultivate a diverse audience while also earning him the praise of those same pioneers.
“His energy is unlike no other, but his wordplay, his intention, his heart — he’s very genuine,” Ross said to Amazon Music of Curry, echoing his praises.
“I think he’s dope,” Trina told the Miami Herald. “... His talk is a different type of style. That’s what made me like him and that’s what made him sound different.”
Armed with a signature machine-gun flow plus an appre
ciation for the writings of both Outkast rapper Andre 3000 and Shakespeare, Curry has come a long way since 2015’s “Ultimate” catapulted him onto the national scene. He’s been heralded as a trailblazer of “punk-inspired rap” by Rolling Stone. An “XXL” Freshman by the eponymous hip-hop magazine. A “pioneer of SoundCloud rap” by Pitchfork.
In December, he reached another milestone: his first Platinum plaque from the Recording Industry of America, signifying more than 1 million sale of his single, “CLOUT COBAIN | CLOUT CO13A1N.”
Nowadays, Curry has leaned into his social consciousness. Spurred by the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, his true self shined bright. In marches some 2,000 miles from home in Los Angeles. In the studio crafting protest anthems with some of the city’s most talented musicians. And in conversation.
“I’m not just an entertainer: I’m someone who’s speaking on his experiences and expressing himself,” Curry said.
The intertwined pandemics of systemic racism in policing and COVID-19, which continues to disproportionately devastate the Black community, appears to have awoken something in Curry. As someone very cognizant of the world around him, the events of the past eight months have served as inspiration for his three albums currently in the works, he says.
While Curry’s music has always contained traces of social commentary, he appears ready to meet the moment. His latest release, “Live From the Abyss,” the proceeds of which will go to the Dream Defenders, is evocative of just that: The song begins with a news broadcast detailing the protests in Minneapolis before he unleashes his frustration at America’s current political climate.
“I don’t f*** with my president, tried to block all Mexicans/If he hear this message, please don’t send SWAT to my residence,” he raps, later lauding the importance of reading. “Misinformed then you need to read/ The truth they always hidin’ in books because they always overlooked.”
A since-deleted Instagram post showing an effigy of a Black man with a noose around his neck and the words “THIS N***** VOTED” scrawled across his body accompanied the song’s October release. The image dates back to pre-Civil Rights Movement Miami-Dade, where, just like in most southern cities, the Klu Klux Klan used intimidation to control the African-American community. Curry’s caption speaks to creating a unified coalition to topple white supremacy.
“Indian land. Black slavery. Chinese mining. Latino labor. My brothers and sisters have overcome substantial amounts of injustice to achieve equal opportunity. Equality doesn’t come with a limit, and no amount of your PRIDE can instill fear in my heart.”
‘I HAD TO
TRANSFORM MYSELF’
It’s impossible to ignore the role of death in Curry’s life.
As much as he loves South Florida, his relationship with the region will be forever marred by loss. His former Carol City Senior High classmate Tiarra Grant was fatally shot in 2013. His brother, Treon “Tree” Johnson, was killed in 2014 after being tasered and pepper-sprayed by Hialeah Police. His good friend Jahseh Onfroy, known world over as XXXTentacion, was gunned down in 2018. These deaths, mixed with what he calls the “darkness” of attending Carol City High and growing up in an area once synonymous with murder, left the rapper with demons.
“You was in there with all your homies and everything,” Curry explained. “You going through the same things they going through: shootouts at school, big fights by the Popeye’s, kids getting shot playing peewee behind the barbershop.”
The switch in schools was a turning point in his young career. In the hallways and cafeteria of Carol City, he embraced the writing skills that prompted the initial move to DASH. Denzel Curry, the hip-hop artist, was born in the process, his birth name serving as listeners’ first introduction to the authenticity present in his music.
Music became a soul soother, offering an escape from his day-to-day while providing an outlet for expression. The alter egos that appear in his music — the rapid-fire crazy lyricist Aquarius Killa and the suave ladies man Denny Cascade — also helped him deal “with real life.” He compares them to the late Kobe Bryant’s “Black Mamba” moniker. “When he’s playing, he’s the Black Mamba: nobody can f--with him,” Curry continued. “He’s a deadly snake. He’s there to snipe at all costs.”
Following the release of his first project, ”King Remembered Underground Tape 1991-1995,” Curry joined South Floridabased music collective Raider Klan. He left two years later in 2013 but contributed to a style that laid the groundwork for SoundCloud rap, the subgenre characterized by lo-fi bass-heavy beats that draws its name from the music-sharing website, and influenced a generation of South Florida rappers.
A steady stream of projects followed his departure from Raider Klan. Lyrical content, vivid storytelling and AK-47-esque delivery won acclaim for early projects “Nostalgia 64” and “Imperial” — and seemed more polished by his third studio album “Ta13oo.” But rather than sticking with the sound that created his buzz, the then-23-year-old artist chose to flaunt his versatility and grow more introspective, touching even on his own mental health struggles.
CONSTANT ANGER
But fame came with weight. In 2018 interviews following the release of “Ta13oo,” he repeatedly talked about being angry while making portions of the album. He had just permanently moved to Los Angeles after dwelling in South Florida for his entire life. The pressure of being an independent artist had begun to weigh on him. Arguments with friends and family became more frequent. To cope, he turned to excessive drinking and smoking.
Curry’s homesickness grew even more apparent in the lead-up to the 2019 album “ZUU,” which takes its name from Carol City itself. The album serves as semi-autobiographical ode to his Miami-Dade, one far removed from the popularized images of South Beach. Seamlessly woven through the work are nods to his family, the 1980s cocaine wars that helped finance the city’s infrastructure and even his Miami rap forefathers.
In the months following its release, fans were shocked to see that he had cut his signature dreadlock hair style. That decision, he said, was motivated by spiritual cleansing.
“I had a nervous breakdown,” Curry said. “I was really going through depression. I wanted to kill myself one day.” The day after the episode he didn’t “feel real,” he said — just empty.
Aided by therapy, Curry began the process of making himself better, he says. He sobered up, shifted his focus to working out and fell in love with muay thai, an Asian form of martial arts.
“Unlocked,” the collaboration project with indemand producer Kenny Beats released in February 2020, served as the coronation of his new way of life. A continued stream of consciousness recorded over the course of 72 hours, the oeuvre represented an awakening of sorts.
“I had to transform myself,” Curry said. He explained that both he and Beats “unlocked something within themselves,” alluding to his vocal inflections that went from DMX to Alvin the Chipmunk in less than 30 seconds. “It was Kenny producing but it wasn’t the typical Kenny production. It was me rapping but it wasn’t the typical Denzel rapping.”
Similarly, Miami-Dade finds itself in need of its own transformation, something that Curry has articulated for nearly a decade. The themes of untimely Black death and post-traumatic stress disorder can be linked to a history of exclusionary policies that have left Miami’s Black community separate and unequal in terms of median household income, home ownership and educational attainment.
The consequences have been dire. Many neighborhoods remain segregated. High schools with a large number of Black students perform worse in state rankings. Black Miamians have significantly higher rates of maternal deaths, infant deaths and hospitalizations for congestive heart failure.
Although not unique to Miami, these trends paint a harrowing picture of a future where skin color still matters even if the country eventually becomes majority nonwhite, as the Census projects.
With Curry, though, Black Miamians young and old have a voice.
“I’m not the type of person to bite my tongue,” Curry says.
‘WITH ME
OR AGAINST ME’
Incensed in the days following Floyd’s killing, Curry issued a rallying call to his 436,000-some Twitter followers.
“Most people don’t treat us as Americans, let alone human,” Curry wrote in a stream of tweets. “Most of you say there’s no reason to riot but in our defense there’s no reason to be killing my people. The tension in the United
States has got me at a crossroads and I’m here to tell you it’s either you with me or against me.”
At the time, it could’ve been career suicide. The mid-June video of white actors and actresses including Julianne Moore and Aaron Paul decrying racism had not yet been made. Black Lives Matter had yet to be embraced by corporations. Kneeling during the national anthem as a form of protest was still overwhelmingly considered taboo.
Curry’s uncensored screed, however, was the Carol City native at his core.
“He doesn’t follow popular conventions,” said
Wes Charles, an avid hiphop fan and Curry’s favorite teacher from his twoyear stint at DASH. ”A lot of rappers do what you expect. He’s always doing something unexpected.”
That same boldness is the hallmark of Curry’s career. It’s what allows him to explore new sounds without worrying about the bottom line. It’s what allows him to have no fear when approaching issues of racial injustice. It’s also what allows him to speak freely on topics like defunding the police.
“I’m not going to pay my hard-earned money from my taxes for someone to abuse their power when I know they should be here for my protection,” Curry said, agreeing with protesters who believe police budgets have gotten way too big. “No one pays attention until money is involved. If you take away the money, you also take away the power and the freedom.”
To Curry, it was personal.
“My brother died because of s--- like this,” Curry said of Floyd’s killing. “That’s why I’m saying and doing my part, because I don’t want this s--- to keep happening.”