Ty Dolla $ign was born Tyrone William Griffin Jr. in Los Angeles. He is the son of a realtor mother and a multi-instrumentalist father who did session work for Death Row Records and Rick James, and played with funk legends Lakeside, best known for their 1980 #1 R&B hit "Fantastic Voyage."
Growing up surrounded by music, Ty soaked it all in. By his early teens, he'd learned to play keyboards, guitars, drums, and bass. At 12, Ty was crafting his own sound using two cassette tapes to loop beats. Recognizing his son's talent, Ty Sr. gifted him an MPC (a music production tool), setting him on his way. His versatility is confirmed by DJ Mustard, the rap hitmaker who created the beats for several of Ty's hits. "He can play like seven instruments, he can sing, he can do anything," Mustard told Rolling Stone.
In 2004, Ty and his writing partner Kory started a duo called Ty & Kory. They signed a recording contract with Venus Brown's Buddah Brown Entertainment and released their debut mixtape, Raw & Bangin Mixtape Vol 2, in 2008, but the big break remained elusive. The stop-and-go nature of the music industry strained his relationships and finances. He even resorted to growing dreadlocks to save money on haircuts. "People thought I was tripping," Ty told Billboard. "I was working with all these famous motherf--kers but nothing really happened."
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