The Crack Emcee

The Crack Emcee was born Louis "Troy" Dixon, 44 years ago, in Los Angeles. His mother had a long-time thing with Charlie Mingus (producing a sister) as well as a long-time thing with Troy's dad, Alvin Troy Dixon, a jazz drummer. He lived with his father for a few years (with Maya Angelou as a, sometime, baby-sitter) but, eventually, Troy was taken in by a foster family and grew up on 78th and Western in South-Central; jazz great, Eubie Blake, as a frequent visitor to the home and Ice T lived half a block away.

He maintained contact with his dad, though, and the two connected strongly through music; the only "modern" musician the elder Dixon had any time for was Frank Zappa. After getting a G.E.D. from Grant High School, in North Hollywood, Dixon joined the U.S. Navy and traveled the world before attending San Francisco City College for a few years, and settling into the city as a struggling artist and political agitator. He eventually went on to work with Michael Franti's early cult band, the Beatnigs (1988) industrial agitators, Consolidated (1992) acid jazz favorites, Broun Fellinis (1995) and his own, short-lived, "Pop Rock" band, Little White Radio (1998).

But, through it all, The Crack Emcee has, also, been releasing a yearly series of critically acclaimed, extremely sample-heavy, and politically charged, solo mix tapes - starting with 1995's Newt Hates Me - that have solidified his reputation for notoriously outlandish, drug-induced, polemics, as well as radically eclectic sound. This output, finally, morphed into his first real attempt at a self-produced solo album, the minimalist anti-war Rap's Creation (Planet Rock) (2002) which, though commercially unsuccessful, was nominated for Album Of The Year (in, both, Rolling Stone and the Village Voice) and saw two of it's tracks make that year's list of Hip Hop's Best Anti-War Songs. He was, also, featured in Donnell Alexander's book, GHETTO CELEBRITY (Crown, 2003).

Today, The Crack Emcee is working on his follow up (a, full-length, double CD: Maximum Base Liver b/w What Doesn't Kill You,...) and, as Programming Director for Better Propaganda.com, works tirelessly to listen to, and expose, as much new raw talent as possible. And for the occasional ranting, he maintains a blog, The Macho Response.