Troy Carter is a music magnate from Philadelphia, PA.
In 1989, he began his journey as a rapper named Li'l Troy for the group 2 Too Many. After they lost their deal with Will Smith’s WilJam Records, Carter gave up rapping to work with Smith and James Lassiter’s Overbrook Entertainment, before being fired in 1995.
After working as an intern for Diddy’s Bad Boy, he launched his own company, Boy Wonder Entertainment, where he found success with managing hometown rapper Eve, whose debut album in 1999, debuted at number one on Billboard.
More success came in 2001 after consolidating Boy Wonder with the J. Erving Group, restructuring it as Erving Wonder, where they managed other huge acts including Floetry and Freeway. In 2004, they were acquired by Sanctuary Artist Management, where they continued to represent other clients like Journalist, D12, Nelly and Akon. Three years later, in 2007, Carter and Erving parted ways and he later founded the Coalition, before Eve fired him.
Carter once again found more success with Lady Gaga, after negotiating with Jimmy Iovine of Interscope to sign her through a joint venture with Vincent Herbert’s Streamline and Akon’s Kon Live Distribution. Around 2009-10, The Coalition was rebranded as the Atom Factory, with Azealia Banks and Meghan Trainor as the recent representees.
In 2016, Carter was appointed global head of creative services at Spotify and quit two years later. In 2020, Carter and J. Erving reunited to launch a music development technology company called Q&A. A year later, he was tapped to become CEO of SoundCloud.
