The Battle of Troy

For Rich, the confrontation lies somewhere between a responsibility and a pleasure. (He seems to enjoy a vision of himself and Coleman as righteous cowboys staring down a populace of exuberantly prejudiced morons--like Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles.) Coleman, typically, is more subdued. "I have to be laid back," he says. "What good would it do me to get upset about it?" In the video age, Cowboy Troy can't hide his race, nor does he want to. "I'm big and black, clickety-clack," he announces in the first verse of I Play Chicken. But he would rather not make it an issue. On tour with Big & Rich last summer, Coleman signed autographs on Confederate flags when they were proffered. "On some level, it's a neat feeling that you can connect with people musically regardless of what your politics are. On another level, a choice between signing flags and selling shoes is not a choice."

Coleman and Rich first met in 1992 when Rich, then with the blandly successful Lonestar, looked into a crowd and spotted "a 6-ft. 5-in. black guy in a cowboy hat, starched Wranglers and a giant belt buckle two-stepping his ass off." The pair shared broad musical tastes, became friends and kept in touch, but Coleman rapped mostly at local bars as "a party trick" until 2001, when he quit his job and made two independent albums that left him $25,000 in debt. "DJs would say, 'This is pretty novel, really cool,'" says Coleman of his early efforts. "'But no way is my boss going to let me play it.'" With his consultant job filled, Coleman started working at Foot Locker. He was a few months away from getting a store of his own to manage when Rich and new partner Big Kenny Alphin offered him a guest spot on their tour and then a record deal.

At 34, Coleman found the lure of sudden stardom thrilling and discomfiting. "My wife was managing an MRI facility and making good money in Dallas," he says. "We're not kids. Moving to Nashville, making a record--there's a lot of uncertainty. I was excited but cautious." Whether some of that caution crept into Loco Motive is hard to know, but anyone expecting controversy will be surprised. Troy calls himself "the last of the Brohicans" on the Kid Rock-ish Beast on the Mic and asks the ladies to "get low" and "make it clap" on the willfully stupid (and thoroughly enjoyable) My Last Yee Haw, but the album is hardly a paragon of genre-bending ambition. Most of it falls squarely, if not unpleasantly, within the accepted boundaries of modern country. Mixed in with the inoffensive party tracks (including one that makes a commendable use of Spanglish) are songs about debt and God, and a duet with Sarah Buxton that sounds more like Music Row than the Muzik Mafia. The absence of a single social or political lyric leaves the impression that Cowboy Troy may be the obverse of a certain white rapper whose skin is outwardly a comfort to his audience but whose substantive goal is to make that audience uncomfortable. Troy's skin and delivery may jar country traditionalists, but his material will set them at ease. "That's intentional," says Coleman. "I love rap, but my target audience is country. That's where my heart is." Hopefully, country will have space in its heart for him too. •