Troy2DaVent

So you might be asking yourself, what does it take to be the #1 record breaker of the year? Talent, dedication, hard work, and don’t forget, the army of DJ’s that make up the front lines for the iconic southern independent label, Slip N Slide Records, more then that, they make up the Elite Slip N Slide DJs. Headed by the President of the DJ division, Troy2DaVent, a native to the Miami music scene. Thru all his dedication he shows how you can start as an intern at a record label and with some hard work and motivation, soon be the President of an entire division. Not to mention the list of artist he’s broken and the even longer list that he was able to work with. I had the chance to sit and talk to Troy about the Slip N Slide DJ’s, some of the new artists he’s managing and what plans he has for the coming year and after.

Hustle Mill: So where did you grow up?

Troy: Gainesville Florida, sugar hill projects.

Hustle Mill: What effect did that have on your life and your music career?

Troy: I mean I grew up with my Moms and my step Dad, the way they raised me, I seen the inner struggle of people when they was coming up, and music and sports was the things that kept me out of trouble and kept me going to school.

Hustle Mill: So how did you get started with Slip N Slide?

Troy: Basically I was working for a radio station out of Fort Pierce Florida, and I wanted to do some intern work, I was just coming out of a failed rap career, and I loved music, and I wanted to intern at Slip N Slide, and got in touch with one of Ted’s assistants Nicole, and I started working directly for her, so I went out on the road and started putting up posters and passing out flyers and CDs, and anything I could do to impress Ted Lucas, and she vouched for me, and I caught his attention.

Hustle Mill: So how did you first decide to start the Slip N Slide DJ’s?

Troy: Slip N Slide is like a machine, and you want to do all you can to contribute to the machine, and you got people in the office every day trying to come up with ideas to help push the record label, and I got together with a couple more people and we decided to start a DJ Coalition, and I knew a lot of DJ’s and hung out with a lot of DJ’s, and it turned out to be a great decision.

Hustle Mill: How long has the Slip N Slide DJs been around now?

Troy:  Slip N Slide DJ’s been around for about 3 years, at the end of the day it grew fast, even beyond my belief, it’s well noticed and well recognized now.

Hustle Mill: What does the Slip N Slide DJ’s have that set them apart from other DJ coalitions?

Troy: Well the Slip N Slide DJ’s as a whole, we take it back to the basics, our motto is record breakers, a lot of people when they think of the Slip N Slide DJ’s they think it’s allot of big Hollywood DJ’s, but when we first put the Slip N Slide DJ’s together we wanted to recruit a lot of DJ’s that were down to earth, allot of times when you get to be a Hollywood DJ or become to big of a DJ, allot of egos get involved, we want those DJ’s that can go to the club and play a record and believe in their movement as well as ours, allot of big DJ’s only go to the club when they going to perform, and were the kind of DJ’s that you do see in the club, or in the radio that will spin the record. So that’s what sets us apart from the rest.

Hustle Mill: You were recently nominated for the Diamond Awards for Record Breaker of the year, and at the Southern Entertainment Awards for Impact DJ of the year, how does it feel to be nominated in such a powerful category like that?

Troy: I mean I’m just honored to be nominated for any award, and DJs, we work hard to be acknowledged, I think it goes back to when the DJ’s were the man and the rappers used to be the DJ’s assistant, but now a days the DJ is the rappers assistant and the Rapper is the man. Any time a DJ is acknowledged it makes me feel good, so it feels good to be nominated for any type of award.

Hustle Mill: There were Slip N Slide DJ’s nominated in 18 categories in that award show, how does that make you feel to see how far the DJ Coalition has come?

Troy: I go back to say our DJs are real DJs, they down to earth people, shouts out to all the DJ’s, it remind me of the movie 300, you can have a whole army and your roster can be listed as so many, but you got to have true DJ’s on your side, if you just have 300 troopers, that down for the movement, and down for their movement, then your unbeatable. I’d rather have 10 DJ’s that I can call and say hey man we need this played or this pushed and it gets done, then have a lot of DJ’s on the roster and cant get anything done. It makes me feel real great to see so many of our DJ’s get nominated, and be acknowledged for their hard work and their movement.

Hustle Mill:Now I understand your managing your own Indy artists, tell us a little about the artists you got.

Troy: Well I’m starting to get into the artist management, I manage a female artist by the name of Kaneri Diamond, we just been doing what we can to get her situated, some time later this year, I’ll be able to have more time to put more emphasis on her career, and I think right now with the help of the DJ coalition and other DJ affiliates she’s moving in the right direction, I’m always looking to manage an artist I just want to wait till I have more time,  cause that takes allot of time.

Hustle Mill: You have a radio show taking over Florida right now, Slip N Slide Krip2nite Radio, break it down for us, and give us a little info on it.

Troy: Well Slip N Slide Radio is something we made like 2 years ago, Ted gave me permission to use the name, from the radio stations were we constantly broadcasting out of, is WJFP radio FM out of Fort Pierce, which is owned by Black Media, which is a sister parent, the stations is world wide you can hear it all over, just go to www.wjfp.com, and you can bring the player up and listen live, because were the sponsor of our own show we get to be the program directors, and we can do what we want and play what we want, so that gives us an advantage that a lot of other radio stations can’t do because of the politics of the radio business.

Hustle Mill: Now you’re also a mixtape DJ, you got the Krip2Nite mixtape series, tell us a little about those.

Troy: The Krip2Nite mixtape series is my way of speaking out, there’s a lot I’ve seen in the industry that’s not right, so I express my feelings on my mixtapes, and the Krip2Nite was a spin off of the Krip2Nite that killed superman, me and my friend was in the car one day and we was like man people aren’t just hating no more they super hating, and I said well we need some Krip2nite for the super haters then, so that’s where the name came from. So I speak about things that are wrong with the game. It’s my way of being in the game myself.

Hustle Mill: I seen on your page you had Vol 1-3 on the page, what’s up with Vol 4 is that out in the streets or what’s up with that?

Troy: Yea volume 4 is out right now, I’ve done tapes with Ross and exclusive mixtapes, you know you hear DJ’s putting out Vol 200, and then turn around and have a rapper crap on us like Lil Wayne did, so I say if I’m going to promote you, the least you can do is stamp my mixtape series, I believe that a rapper should be able to promote me as well.

Hustle Mill: Now I know you always got something going on, what ventures are you perusing right now?

Troy: Well were about to do this independent world website, I firmly believe in helping independent artist, and I believe that for far to long the game has been taking money from independent artists and not educating them like they should be. I go to so many events and music conferences and I feel like that it has turned more about charging an independent artist to do something. So our first event is in Okeechobee Florida on Feb 20th, Indy artist are getting in free of charge VIP, and well be forming the website to go help Indy artist.

Hustle Mill: So what is the biggest influence on your life?

Troy: With the exception of god letting me live another day, there’s a lot of people passing away, Big Will from the core DJ’s, rest in piece, life is short so any time the lord allows you to live another day, that’s a big influence as well as my kids and Barrack Obama, I never thought in my life time I would see that, and it scares me cause my grandma always use to tell me when you start seeing stuff like that it’s about to end, but my Dad used to tell me I could be anything I wanted, but I never really believed it till now, so now I can turn to my son and say you can be president and that’s a reality now.

Hustle Mill: If you could work with any one, who would it be?

Troy: I want to say Pac but everyone would say that, but some one I would never dream of working with was Jay-Z, and I’d like to do a mixtape with Biggie.

Hustle Mill: So what can we expect to see from you this year?

Troy: Man we going to see more movement from the Slip N Slide DJ’s we got allot of good DJ’s, allot of good squad leaders, I think that we going to continue to look for allot of good radio P1 DJ’s and our DJ coalition will truly be elite, I’m starting to see Ted Lucas’s vision, he’s started a Pop Division and a Rock Division, and I see a lot of big movements for Slip N Slide and the DJ’s and myself.

Hustle Mill: So is there anything else you want to shout out or promote?

Troy: Shout out to every DJ out there, have some respect for yourself, this isn’t my expression but, if you want to change the world do it with music, and every DJ that’s listens or hears it, understand that you are the one that plays the music, and you control the change, so you can start a fight with some crunk music, or you can play a song that changes some ones life, so I want to shout out to all the DJs out there , all the Slip N Slide DJs, the Slip N Slide staff, Ted Lucas, one of my idols, my family and my kids and my girlfriend, and you for letting me do the interview.

Hustle Mill: Well thanks for coming thru for the interview, good look with everything you doing this year. Shout out to the Slip N Slide DJs.

By Jared “Jay” Chase

www.myspace.com/jchase45