Background and career
Denzel Rae Don Curry (born February 16, 1995) is an American rapper. Born and raised in the Carol City neighborhood of Miami Gardens, Florida, Curry started rapping while in the sixth grade and began working on his first mixtape, King Remembered Underground Tape 1991–1995, 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 (stylized as RVIDXR KLVN). Curry left Raider Klan in 2013, releasing his debut studio album, Nostalgic 64, in September of that year, while still in high school. 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 See Your Future 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. Two years later, Curry announced King of the Mischievous South, Vol. 2 which released on July 19, 2024. Reviewers most often praise Curry's aggressive rapping style, energetic performance, lyrical abilities, and artistic versatility. He has been credited as one of the pioneers of the SoundCloud rap genre.
Denzel Rae Don Curry was born on February 16, 1995, in the Carol City neighborhood of Miami Gardens, Florida. He is of Bahamian descent. Curry started down an artist's path with early poetic 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.
In early 2011, Curry's debut mixtape, titled Curry Wuz Here, surfaced on YouTube and the release date was claimed to be January 16, 2011. On September 24, Curry released his second and breakout mixtape, titled King Remembered Underground Tape 1991–1995. The mixtape being posted by Curry, was later included on SpaceGhostPurrp's page, which prompted the birth of Denzel's music career. Following the release, Curry became a member of SpaceGhostPurrp's hip-hop group, Raider Klan. In early 2012, he released his third mixtape, titled King of the Mischievous South Vol. 1 Underground Tape 1996, a mixtape of which caught the attention of fellow American rapper Earl Sweatshirt and other members of Odd Future. Also in 2012, Curry's fourth 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 Curry. His style of rap and the name of the record were heavily inspired by Tupac Shakur. Towards the end of 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.
After the disbandment of Raider Klan, Curry deciding to embark further on his solo rap career, with the release of his debut full-length album, titled Nostalgic 64, on September 3, 2013. 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 appeared as a featured artist on Deniro Farrar's "Bow Down" (a song of which was included from Farrar's Rebirth EP) and appeared as a featured artist on Dillon Cooper's "Eyes of the World" (a song of which was 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, CeeLo Green, and amongst other southern music.
On June 9, 2015, Curry released his first extended play (EP), titled 32 Zel/Planet Shrooms. His first extended play is the double extended play, in which contains his breakout single, "Ultimate", a song that went viral and was played over Bottle Flip videos, and among others. It has amassed over 200 million streams on Spotify and earned 65 million views on YouTube. His first release was the single, called "Flying Nimbus", that was released in early 2016. On March 9, Curry released his second full-length album, titled Imperial. 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 December 2024, this cypher has received over 221 million YouTube views, by far the most for the XXL channel. The deluxe version for his second full-length album—Imperial—was re-released on Spotify on October 14.
On May 13, 2017, Curry uploaded a track, titled "Hate Government [demo]", to his account on SoundCloud. In the weeks that followed, he released two more songs, titled "Equalizer [demo]" and "Zeltron 6 Billion" (featuring Lil Ugly Mane). After the releases and a series of cryptic posts on social media (seemingly portraying another alter ego called Zeltron), he released an extended play, titled 13, on June 25. Following each demo tracks being included on the extended play and two other new songs, Curry released another song, called "Skywalker", on August 18. On September 22, a remastered version of 32 Zel was released, including a remix of "Ultimate" (featuring Juicy J). Since started releasing songs for 13, Curry made several mentions about his third studio album, titled Ta13oo, but since there was no release date for the album being announced, 13 would be serving as a sampler to Ta13oo. On February 28, 2018, he appeared as a featured artist on ASAP Ferg's "Kristi", a song of which also features other artist IDK. It was first performed live in Austin, TX, on March 10, during their collaborative tour. On March 16, he uploaded a song, titled "Uh Huh" (featuring IDK), onto his official YouTube channel. On April 2, Curry released the lead single off of Ta13oo, titled "Sumo", on Zane Lowe's Beats 1 radio show. On May 24, Curry released the second single off the album, titled "Percs". Curry then released the third single, titled "Clout Cobain", on July 13, and announced that his album—Ta13oo—would be released in three acts: The first act, Light, was released on July 25, followed by Gray on July 26, and Dark on July 27. Each previously released single represents one of the album's acts, as "Sumo" represents Light, "Clout Cobain" represents Gray, and "Percs" represents Dark, which come together cohesively to form Ta13oo.
