Two by two, young women in heels and miniskirts file into Ty Dolla $ign’s hotel room. Every five minutes, there’s a new knock at the door, and another pair of 20-somethings, scouted from the club by a member of the musician’s entourage, enters with a look of excitement and nerves. Here for a chance to hang out and smoke weed with a burgeoning superstar and his crew for an hour or two, they crowd onto the green-lit balcony of the Holiday Inn, vying for the attentions of the tall, tatted singer/producer. [more…]
Ty is in Fresno, California, the quiet town where he has just kicked off his Beach House Tour, named for his recent debut EP, which shares its title with the mixtape series that came before it. Given the song he is currently most famous for—the slinky, classic-house-referencing smash “Paranoid,” a delectable ode to juggling multiple side-pieces—the scene is almost comical. Ty Dolla $ign came into his own singing about his acuity with ladies, and here they are, proving his point. During his performance at an 18-and-over venue earlier that night, a host of younger women shriek in a pitch you might normally associate with Beliebers. The entire crowd sings along euphorically with “Paranoid”’s anthemic chorus: I’m fuckin round with two bitches/ But I never make them hoes my missus. None of his female admirers seems deterred. Before the show, a white lady with a blonde dye job has him autograph her breasts.
At 29, Tyrone Griffin Jr. is an unlikely R&B heartthrob: not babyfaced or centerfold-adorable like Omarion, nor cut and oiled like his collaborator Trey Songz. Ty cannot dance as nimbly as Chris Brown, for whom he wrote the skulking pop song “Loyal,” which, in April, became Ty’s first-ever chart-topping hit. His smile is sweet and earnest, yet he does not often sing of love, preferring weeded-up, explicitly sexual lyrics about stealing girls from other men, fucking them and, often, kicking them out before morning. “I’m not tryna promote being the best fucking American man,” says Ty. “I’m promoting partying and having fun and being that type of American. I don’t wanna hurt nobody’s feelings. I’m not gonna front and act like your boyfriend. I’m out here, you know what I’m saying? I’m about to go on tour! It’s like running for the presidency… except without a wife.”
Read more: HERE via The Fader!
