Cowboy Troy brings ‘hick-hop’ to audiences

His musical career began to spark in 1993, when he met Rich, who was with the country group Lonestar. He started coming to Nashville to hang out with Rich and Alphin, who was in a rock group at the time. He was an early member of the MuzikMafia, the loose-knit group of artists whose weekly performances led to major label record deals for Gretchen Wilson and Big & Rich.

Coleman lent his rhymes to the Big & Rich song "Rollin' (The Ballad of Big & Rich)," and when the duo's album took off, he left his job as a salesman at a Foot Locker store to join them on tour with Tim McGraw.

McGraw sings on the new record, as do Big & Rich and other MuzikMafia members. The album is the first release for the new Warner Brothers Nashville imprint Raybaw Records, which is run by Rich, Alphin and fellow Mafia alums Jon Nicholson and Cory Gierman.

"Everybody in the MuzikMafia family is supportive of each other, and that familial sense allows everyone to feel more comfortable and to realize that you have friends out there hoping you do well," Coleman said.

The country rapper knows his music is unconventional. While the first single slid off Billboard's Hot Country Songs list after only four weeks, the video has been in rotation at Country Music Television since March.

The song does better in some markets than others. At contemporary country station WBVR-FM in Bowling Green, Ky., program director Myla Thomas said it isn't getting any spins. "We don't think it fits our format. We don't consider it country," Thomas said.

But at WKTYS-FM in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, it's aired every few hours.

"The response was mixed at first. People didn't know what to think of it," said operations manager Lorrin Palagi. "For some listeners who were more purists, well, they weren't quite sure how to take the song. But as they spent a little more time with it they've become comfortable with it and have seemed to embrace it."

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