Denzel Curry

Denzel Rae Don Curry (born February 16, 1995) is an American rapper.

Denzel Rae Don Curry was born on February 16, 1995, in the Carol City neighborhood of Miami Gardens, Florida.

He is of Bahamian and Native-American descent.

His mother is a Jehovah's Witness who ran security for stadiums and his father was a truck driver.

Curry started down an artist's path with early poetry ambitions in elementary school before he began rapping in the sixth grade.

His time was spent at a local Boys & Girls Clubs of America chapter where he challenged others to rap battles.

He attended Miami's Design and Architecture High School for two years before being expelled.

Curry then attended Miami Carol City Senior High School, where he started working on Nostalgic 64 while still attending class.

Born and raised in Miami Gardens, Florida, Curry started rapping while in the sixth grade and began working on his first mixtape in 2011, which was influenced by underground Florida rapper SpaceGhostPurrp.

The mixtape was later featured on SpaceGhostPurrp's social media, giving Curry attention in the local music scene and resulting in him joining the former’s hip-hop collective Raider Klan.

On September 24, 2011, Curry released his first mixtape, titled King Remembered Underground Tape 1991–1995.

The whole project that Curry posted was later included on SpaceGhostPurrp's page, which prompted the birth of Denzel's music career.

Following the release of Curry's first mixtape, Curry became a member of SpaceGhostPurrp's hip hop group, Raider Klan.

In 2011, a mixtape named "Curry Wuz Here" surfaced on YouTube, and the release date was claimed to be January 16, 2011.

The group Raider Klan was disbanded, which led to Curry deciding to embark on his solo rap career.

In 2012, he released his second mixtape, titled King of the Mischievous South Vol. 1 Underground Tape 1996, which caught the attention of fellow American rapper Earl Sweatshirt and other members of Odd Future.

Curry's third mixtape, titled Strictly for My R.V.I.D.X.R.Z., was released after the death of Trayvon Martin, who also lived in Carol City and went to the same high school as Denzel Curry.

His style of rap and the name of the record were heavily inspired by Tupac Shakur.

In late 2012, Curry met his manager Mark Maturah, and under his guidance, released his first studio single, "Dark & Violent", featuring J. K. The Reaper and Nell, to SoundCloud.

Curry left Raider Klan in 2013, releasing his debut studio album, Nostalgic 64, in September of that year, while still in high school.

On September 3, 2013, Curry released his debut full-length album, titled Nostalgic 64.

The album features guest appearances from JK the Reaper, Lil Ugly Mane, Mike G., Nell, Robb Bank$, Stephen A. Clark, and Yung Simmie, among others.

In 2014, Curry was featured on Deniro Farrar's track, called "Bow Down" (included from Farrar's Rebirth EP) and Curry was featured on Dillon Cooper's track, called "Eyes of the World" (included from Cooper's X:XX mixtape).

Curry himself has stated that he was heavily inspired by Outkast's record, Aquemini, saying he drew the cover for Nostalgic 64 while listening to the record.

He also was inspired by Goodie Mob and CeeLo Green, and other southern music.

He has since released three extended plays: 32 Zel/Planet Shrooms in 2015, 13 in 2017, and Unlocked (a collaboration with Kenny Beats) in 2020, and four studio albums: Imperial in 2016, Ta13oo in 2018, Zuu in 2019, and Melt My Eyez See Your Future in 2022.

Ta13oo, Zuu, and Melt My Eyez debuted at numbers 28, 32, and 51 on the Billboard 200 chart, respectively, with Melt My Eyez returning at number 17 after the release of an extended edition.

All of his projects have garnered significant critical acclaim.

On June 9, 2015, Curry released his first double EP, 32 Zel/Planet Shrooms, which contained his breakout single "Ultimate".

The song went viral, and was played over Bottle Flip videos among others.

It has amassed over 200 million streams on Spotify and earned 65 million views on YouTube.

His first release in 2016 was the single "Flying Nimbus".

His second full-length album, titled Imperial, was released on March 9, 2016, then re-released later on Spotify as the deluxe version on October 14, 2016.

In June 2016, Curry appeared in XXL magazine as part of their 2016 Freshmen Class.

As part of this appearance, Curry performed a 'freshman cypher' alongside Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Yachty, 21 Savage, and Kodak Black.

As of March 2021, this cypher has received over 180 million YouTube views, by far the most for the XXL channel.

On May 13, 2017, Curry uploaded a track titled "Hate Government [demo]" to his SoundCloud account.

In the weeks that followed, he released two more demos for songs titled "Equalizer [demo]" and "Zeltron 6 Billion" featuring Lil Ugly Mane.

After these releases as well as a series of cryptic posts on social media (seemingly portraying another alter ego called Zeltron), he released an EP titled 13 on June 25, 2017.

In a 2018 interview with The Breakfast Club, Curry disclosed that he was molested by an unnamed older man during his childhood.