The wait for Troyboi’s debut album is finally over, Left Is Right is out now.
The album is a stunning 20 tracks long with virtually no filler. Every track has a purpose and a raison d’être, perfectly transitioning from one track to another or controlling the flow of the album from start to finish.
The album is mostly devoid of collaborations, except for a few notable exceptions including Nefera and one of his close friends, icekream. And let us not forget that there is a legitimate Ice Cube collaboration on this album. Wow.
The album itself needs to be listened to in order to fully appreciate it – words simply don’t do it justice. That being said, we were able to call up Troyboi and ask him some questions about the album, the aesthetic behind it, and his upcoming headlining show in Los Angeles. Listen to the album below and read on to see some of Troyboi’s thoughts.
How did the title and concept for the album come into being?
For the title, Left Is Right, a lot of people try to sort of place my music, they consider it “left of center.” So I kind of go against that, like, “Well, it’s right in my head.” Therefore, “left is right…” Doing it like a play on words. It also just represents carving out your own lane and not worrying what other people think. A lot of people will tell you that you can’t, but you can.
And how about the album artwork? It’s extremely detailed and looks very specific to your brand.
That was designed by an incredible artist named Marwan Shahin, he’s out in LA at the moment. But he’s been doing mine and my boy Icekream’s art since basically since we started putting out music on Soundcloud. He must have had a hundred followers at the time – since we did that, we’ve all grown together. For me, this was just an incredible piece of work. I mean, the attention to detail is mindblowing, just phenomenal. So I’m very, very blessed to have my album art as his body of work.
The album art, I just gave him the album and he just listened to the album on repeat and that’s how he designed the art, that’s what he came up with. That’s what he put down.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BX1CxKbF2Ag/
Like you mentioned before, your music could be called very left of center. In a more general sense, you would be considered a trap artist. But you’ve dabbled in a lot of other things like house, hip hop – you even have a collaboration with Ice Cube on the album.
So this was actually done, I [unintelligible] one of Cube’s vocals. Obviously I put the vocal and made a beat around it, then passed it onto his team and I got a message from my manager saying that it was good to go – they OK’d the track. So for me, that was absolutely blessed. It was an honor to work with someone like that, y’know the music from the west coast, the stuff that he started, it’s great, it’s influential to my music. It’s an incredible feeling.
Bringing it back to the west coast, you’re headlining the Palladium in September.
Yes, yes. My last show in LA was in November last year, but this one is going to be taken to the next level. It is absolutely next level compared to the last tour.
Is there going to be a custom stage design for it?
Yeah we’re going all out, visuals, stage design, we’re bringing out my dancers, there’s going to be a lot of surprises – I won’t say too much but it’s going to definitely be taken up a notch.
When this album drops, what response are you looking for? What response from fans would make you the most happy?
For me, just that they like it and appreciate it. That’s it. Anything beyond that I’m blessed. For me, this has been my best work so I feel super proud and happy regardless of what anyone would say about it. I’ve given my best here at this moment.