'Hick-hop' pioneer Troy wields a unique brand

'Hick-hop' pioneer Troy wields a unique bran
By Brian Mansfield, Special for USA TODA
Meet Cowboy Troy, billed as "the only 6-foot-5 black rapping cowboy i
country music.

Plays Chicken with charts: Former shoe salesman Troy Colema capitalizes on “different.” Warner Bros.

Well, yeah.

Cowboy Troy is the latest — and perhaps most commercially daring — ac to come out of the Musik Mafia scene that produced multiplatinum act Gretchen Wilson and Big & Rich last year.

Troy — born Troy Coleman in Victoria, Texas — appeared on Big Rich's double-platinum Horse of a Different Color album. He toure with the duo on last summer's Tim McGraw tour and wound up rappin during McGraw's set as well.

Big & Rich are co-producing Troy's album, tentatively set fo release in May. I Play Chicken With the Train, a single that feature country fiddles and hard-rock guitar riffs, is getting pockets o airplay, most notably in Michigan and Florida

Troy's self-described "hick-hop" owes as much to the talking-blue country records of Jerry Reed and Charlie Daniels as it does to th old-school raps of Sir Mix-A-Lot and the Sugarhill Gang's Wonde Mike. "I grew up listening to country music, rap music and rock 'n roll," says Troy, 34. "I figured, 'Why can't I take my favorit elements of all three and mix them into one style?' "

And Troy takes pride in being different. He's something of Renaissance man — a University of Texas psychology major an professional wrestling aficionado who speaks fluent Spanish an started taking Mandarin Chinese lessons when he got bored with th story lines on Monday Night Raw. He also can tell what size and widt shoe a person wears just by looking at his or her foot.

But Troy left his job at a Dallas Foot Locker last year afte appearing on the Country Music Association awards show with Big Rich and signing as the flagship artist of the Musik Mafia's Warne Bros. imprint Raybaw Records. (The acronym stands for "red an yellow, black and white.")

In a radio climate in which Big & Rich can sell 2 million album and still struggle for a top 10 single, a rap record could encounte serious resistance. Warner Bros. Nashville chief Bill Bennett say early reports show Chicken splitting country listeners' reactions a almost exactly 50%

"It's doing almost exactly what we thought it would do," he says

Warner Bros. hopes a series of TV bookings — including Nashville Sta and April's CMT Video Awards— will help country fans warm to Troy' style. CMT could begin running the Chicken video as early as thi week.

"We're going to use TV to help the country audience understand tha he's a country artist," Bennett says

Says WBCT-FM program director Doug Montgomery: "I don't think wha Troy's doing is any farther out than a lot of the Shania Twain stuff It's just a little bit different."