Denzel Rae Don Curry (born February 16, 1995) is an American rapper raised in Carol City, Florida. Curry started rapping while in sixth grade and on September 24, 2011, at age 16, released his first mixtape, titled King Remembered Underground Tape 1991–1995. The entire project was later included on SpaceGhostPurrp's Facebook page, prompting the birth of his music career. Following the release of Curry's first mixtape, he became a member of SpaceGhostPurrp's hip-hop collective, Raider Klan, and a frequent collaborator of Miami music-art group Metro Zu.
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 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.
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 label.
Curry's third mixtape, titled Strictly for My R.V.I.D.X.R.S., 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 rap style on this mixtape was inspired by 2PAC. On June 9, 2015, Curry released his first double EP, titled 32 Zel/Planet Shrooms. 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 was featured on a cover as one of the XXL's 2016's Freshmen Class.
On May 13, 2017, Curry uploaded a track entitled "Hate Government [demo]" to his SoundCloud account. In the weeks that followed, he released two more demos for songs entitled "Equalizer [demo]" and "ZELTRON 6 BILLION ft. 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 entitled 13 on June 25, 2017. All of the demo tracks were included on the EP as well as two other new songs. On August 18, 2017, Curry released another song called "Skywalker." Later that year, on September 22, a remastered version of 32 Zel was released, including a remix of "Ultimate" featuring Juicy J.
On April 2, 2018, Curry released the lead single off of Ta13oo titled, "Sumo" on Zane Lowe's Beats 1 radio show. On May 24, 2018, Curry released the second single off the album titled, "Percs". Curry then released the third single titled, "Clout Cobain", on July 13, 2018, 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 comes together cohesively to form TA13OO. TA13OO features guest appearances from GoldLink, JID, JPEGMAFIA, ZillaKami and more.
On January 5, 2022, the official trailer for Curry's fifth studio album, titled Melt My Eyez See Your Future, was uploaded to his YouTube channel. It was revealed that the album would contain guest appearances from artists such as T-Pain, 6lack, Slowthai, Rico Nasty, J.I.D, and Thundercat, among others. Curry said the project would feature a new, more mature sound, different from his previous works: "Y'all are not going to hear the same type of Denzel anymore." On January 24, a single titled "Walkin", along with a Western-inspired music video directed by Adrian Villagomez, was released. Curry also said the album "is made up of everything that I couldn't include on Ta13oo or Imperial because I was going through depression and anger issues", and would take inspiration from traditional hip-hop, drum and bass, trap, poetry, and jazz. The same day, a North American and European tour promoting the album (with guest acts Kenny Mason, Mike Dimes, Redveil, and PlayThatBoiZay) was announced. On February 24, Curry released another single from the upcoming album, "Zatoichi" featuring Slowthai. It was accompanied by a music video also directed by Adrian Villagomez. On March 18, Curry announced the album would be released on March 25. On March 21, a third single, "Troubles" featuring T-Pain, was released along with a music video. The album was released on March 25, 2022. It debuted at number 51 on the Billboard 200 chart, and at number 23 on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.
Curry recorded a song featuring rapper Reason, "1st Quarter", as a contribution to Apple Music's "collection of exclusively commissioned new songs from Black creatives", titled Juneteenth 2022: Freedom Songs. He commented: "It's an accomplishment to make it through the first quarter of my life. Especially as a Black man in America".
Curry's song featuring PlayThatBoiZay, "Let It All Hang Out", was included in Elvis—a biographical movie about Elvis Presley that premiered in June 2022—as well as on the movie's soundtrack album.
On June 24, 2022, a collaboration between Dot da Genius, JID, Curry, and Kid Cudi, titled "Talk About Me", was released, along with a music video directed by Cole Bennett. On June 29, 2022, Curry performed an NPR Tiny Desk Concert. On July 21, he performed "Walkin" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
On September 30, 2022, Curry released Melt My Eyez See Your Future (The Extended Edition). The album features reimagined versions of songs from the original album with live instrumentation performed by the Cold Blooded Soul Band, which performed with Curry on his NPR Tiny Desk Concert and The Tonight Show performance.
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…shrink me down again