Lloyd

American R&B vocalist Lloyd launched his independent recording path when his 2004 duet “Southside” with Ashanti scaled the Billboard 200. Early airplay, however, came via the decidedly less suggestive Radio Disney. Born January 3, 1986, in New Orleans and raised in Atlanta, he entered the music industry in 1996 as a member of N-Toon, the adolescent pop ensemble assembled by Klymaxx’s Joyce Irby, and contributed to the group’s Dreamworks album Toon Time in 2000. Years afterward, having shifted his stylistic touchstones from Mickey and Donald to Marvin Gaye and R. Kelly, Lloyd drew the attention of L.A. Reid. Once Reid assumed leadership of Def Jam, he consulted Irv Gotti, whose Murder Inc. imprint had become the Def Jam-affiliated The Inc. Gotti inked Lloyd to the roster and paired the streetwise singer with fellow Inc. artist Ashanti on “Southside.” The track resonated with urban radio, BET, and Teen People alike. It supplied the title for Lloyd’s debut full-length, issued in July 2004 under the joint executive production of Joyce Irby and Gotti. A more romantic follow-up, Street Love, appeared in 2007 and reached number two on the Billboard 200, powered chiefly by the hit single “Get It Shawty.” Lessons in Love arrived the next year and featured the Lil Wayne collaboration “Girls Around the World.” Lloyd subsequently signed with Zone 4/Interscope and delivered King of Hearts in 2011. Following the 2012 arrival of his inaugural mixtape, The Playboy Diaries, Vol. 1, he stepped back from public view to concentrate on private matters and remained silent on new recordings until 2016. The Tru EP surfaced late that year after its title track had already been issued, and the full-length Tru LP followed in 2018, incorporating the single “Caramel.”