Looking Back On “Trouble T Roy” Dixon 25 Years After Pete Rock And CL Smooth’s Timeless Tribute

Looking Back On ‘Trouble T Roy’ Dixon 25 Years After Pete Rock And CL Smooth’s Timeless Tribute

“What Pete Rock did with that song is the definition of hip-hop”

As the ‘80s gave way to the ‘90s, Heavy D & the Boyz became the pride and joy of Mount Vernon, New York. Hailing from the small Westchester County city just north of the Bronx, they were the first rap group from the area to achieve any kind of widespread recognition. Utilizing backing tracks from Teddy Riley and Marly Marl — as well as some choice early Pete Rock production — DJ/Producer Eddie F, rapper Heavy D, and dancers G-Wiz and Trouble T Roy created their own signature sound and cemented themselves as industry heavyweights by going platinum with 1989’s Big Tyme.

Throughout their all-too-brief career together, dancer Troy “Trouble T Roy” Dixon was was instrumental in maintaining the group’s chemistry. He established friendships with each group member before the official formation of Heavy D & the Boyz. Then he made all the personalities within the group mesh — a feat not easily achieved in any creative endeavor. “He was the glue to the group,” Eddie F said in an interview with XXL. “We all knew each other, but Troy was the one who knew everybody as a friend.”

In fact, Dixon was so close with fellow dancer G-Wiz that many thought the two were related. “For a while I stayed with his family. This was before we even started; before we blew up, this is why we were so close of friends. My mom moved to D.C., [and] I ain’t like it in D.C. so I came back to New York and that’s where I stayed. People thought we was cousins,” G-Wiz told XXL.

As the personal bonds within the group strengthened, it wasn’t long before Heavy D & the Boyz seemed destined to become one of rap’s elite acts. Their second album Big Tyme won a Soul Train Music Award, an NAACP image award, and sold over one million units in a mere five months. Eddie F was emerging as a serious producer and Heavy D continued to gain respect as a rapper.

Their post-Big Tyme hot streak hit a high point when they were selected to headline alongside Public Enemy for the Sizzler Summer Tour ’90. The event, which kicked off the 20th anniversary celebration of Indiana’s Black Expo, seemed like a perfect opportunity to further establish themselves as a serious force within the music industry.

“He was the glue to the group. He was the one person that really brought everybody together.”- Eddie F

The group’s happy climb to the the top took a dark and unexpected turn on Sunday, July 15th, 1990 while they were halfway through their 10 city tour with Public Enemy. Some of the group members were joking around on an elevated ramp outside of Indianapolis’s Market Square Arena after a successful performance. When someone rolled a trash can towards Dixon, he jumped onto a four foot retaining wall to get out of the way. He lost his balance, fell over 20 feet, and sustained serious head injuries upon impact. According to those who witnessed the fall, nobody knew how serious it was at first. When they realized Troy was unresponsive and saw the extent of his injuries, it all started to sink in. “At that point we just like slow motion. Everybody was just jumpin’ around and just yellin’ and everything just turned blurry,” Eddie F told XXL. Although Dixon survived the initial fall, he died shortly after being rushed to Wishard Hospital.

Dixon’s tragic death left the group in a state of shock. In addition to the heartbreak of his close friends and group mates, a young, relatively unknown 2Pac was also devastated by Dixon’s passing. Though they hadn’t known each other for long, the two artists became extremely close after Pac joined Digital Underground as part of the Sizzler Summer Tour ’90.

In a 1999 interview with Vibe, Digital Underground tour manager Sleuth-Pro recalled Pac’s reaction to losing his friend. “Tupac came in my room crying, bawling. They’d grown really close, always joking around. (Tupac) really showed a sensitive side that night,” he said. “He wanted an advance on some money because he wanted to go get drunk. He was hurt for the rest of the tour.”

“To this day, I can’t believe I made it through, the way I was feeling. I guess it was for my boy.”- Pete Rock

As the surviving members of Heavy D & the Boyz cancelled the rest of their tour dates and tried to deal with the emotional aftermath of their situation, residents in Mount Vernon joined them in mourning. The senseless loss of life rocked the tight knit community, as many people considered Dixon a local hero with a bright future in the music industry. “Troy was like a public figure that died; someone who was [from] the ’hood but was doing something positive and in the height of what he was doing to get cut short was like he was cheated,” CL Smooth told XXL.

Though CL and Dixon were close friends at the time of his death, they first met during a fight over a mutual love interest. Despite the early squabble, the two artists developed a deep mutual respect for one another through their shared passion for music. “In the end we became brothers,” CL Smooth told XXL. “We became friends and respected each other at the end of the day.”

CL and fellow Mount Vernon resident Pete Rock were just starting out in the industry when Dixon passed away. Already at work on their debut album, CL decided to put his emotions to paper after Dixon’s death. “I wrote ‘They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)’ in ’92,” he said. “It had been in my head but I just couldn’t put it together and [one day] I wrote it right there in the studio and just recorded it… It just took me about an hour to write it, it was the last record [for the Mecca and the Soul Brother album].”

Though the song also talks about CL Smooth’s lack of a father and his uncle fulfilling a father figure role for him, it’s clear that Dixon’s death shaped the feeling and message of the song. To complement the emotional punch of CL’s powerful verses, Pete Rock created what many consider the greatest instrumental of all time. “That’s hip-hop,” Talib Kweli told Complex while discussing Rock’s production. “That’s the definition of hip-hop, what Pete Rock did with that song.”

“When I mixed the song down, I had Charlie Brown from Leaders of the New School in the session with me, and we all just started crying.”- Pete Rock

Also crushed by Dixon’s sudden passing, Pete sought refuge in his legendary basement studio and massive collection of records after his friend’s death. As soon as he dropped the needle on Tom Scott’s cover of Jefferson Airplane’s “Today”, he knew he had the perfect sample source to honor his fallen friend. “When I found the record by Tom Scott, basically I just heard something incredible that touched me and made me cry,” he told The Village Voice.

Using a vintage Emu SP-1200 sampler, Pete let his emotions pour into the beat. By pulling apart Tom Scott’s record and piecing it back together with expert precision, he made a timeless tribute song for his Mount Vernon brethren. The reaction in the studio while he worked on the song was an indicator of the record’s potency. “When I mixed the song down, I had Charlie Brown from Leaders of the New School in the session with me,” he said. “And we all just started crying.”

In a 2007 interview, Pete continued to marvel at how he was able create something so beautiful in his distraught emotional state. “I was kind of depressed when I made it,” he told The Village Voice. “And to this day, I can’t believe I made it through, the way I was feeling. I guess it was for my boy.”

With the 25th anniversary of Mecca and The Soul Brother on June 9th, 2017, “T.R.O.Y.” continues to serve as a perfect memorial for the loss of Trouble T Roy. “It set history in stone,” Dixon’s daughter Tantania told XXL. “I wanna go forth and be able to do something and make them proud of me as well, so it doesn’t stop here. I just have that memory in my mind all the time of my father.”

And for many people outside of Mount Vernon, the song has taken on its own personal meaning in helping them reflect on the loss of a loved one. For this reason, “T.R.O.Y.” will continue to live on for many years to come, further preserving Dixon’s legacy. “I think it’s one of the greatest songs Pete Rock has ever done in his entire life. I climbed to the top of the mountain with that one,” Pete Rock said in an interview with Vibe. “I think Troy was somewhere enjoying every minute of it.”

Gino Sorcinelli writes about books and music. You can also read his work at Cuepoint, HipHopDX, Passion of The Weiss and his Bookshelf Beats and Micro-Chop publications. Follow him on Twitter @ginosorcinelli.

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Looking Back On “Trouble T Roy” Dixon 25 Years After Pete Rock And CL Smooth’s Timeless Tribute was originally published in Still Crew on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.