JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Andr\u00e9 Troutman is carrying his family\u2019s musical legacy from Jacksonville all the way to the global stage as music director for Kanye West, now known as Ye, and a featured vocalist on the artist\u2019s latest album, \u201cBully.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that growing up, music was all around him. <\/p>\n
\u201cI knew all the jingles on TV, every commercial, every radio song that came on, I was singing to all of them, sometimes to my detriment in school,\u201d Troutman said of his earliest memories.<\/p>\n
Watch the full interview below.<\/p>\n
He sang in his elementary school choir for a treat in the holiday concert, but he learned he liked singing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went for the popsicles and stayed for the singing,\u201d Troutman said. \u201cBut that was my first time ever in any organized singing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Troutman, an arranger, producer, singer and composer who studied vocal performance at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, said he decided to pursue music as a career early.<\/p>\n
When he was in middle school, his uncle Darryl Hall had a summer camp called 100 Youth Voices State Aurora Performing Arts Camp, which he said was his first introduction to performing arts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gave me the exposure to all of those arts areas, things that I had just been doing on my own at home and I used to pretend like I knew how to sing opera, not knowing that I would literally end up getting a full scholarship for singing classical music,\u201d Troutman said. \u201cI like doing this and I can get paid doing it on Broadway and back then I\u2019m like, \u2018wait, you get paid to do this? I was like, \u2018Oh, I could do this. I want to do this for the rest of my life.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
He described a turning point during a church service in Jacksonville that pushed him to relocate to Los Angeles. In high school, he visited his Uncle Mike, who lived there. He did a few things on TV with BET, but he found himself wanting more while he was playing the keys at Central Baptist in Jacksonville.<\/p>\n
\u201cGod was like, \u2018Yes, I have to go,\u2019\u2026I was like, I was like, right now I\u2019m in the middle of offering. I\u2019m in the middle of playing right now. It\u2019s like, yes, it\u2019s time to go\u2026He said to me, \u2018You\u2019re a big fish in a small pond, and I need to expand you globally.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
So he headed to Los Angeles with no real plan, only knowing his uncle Mike.<\/p>\n
\u2018How do you do that?\u2019: The talkbox family legacy<\/p>\n
Troutman is a relative of Roger Troutman of the 1980s funk band Zapp & Roger and has embraced the talkbox that helped define that sound.<\/p>\n
The talkbox is a device that is connected to an instrument, usually a keyboard. The device directs sound from the instrument into the user\u2019s mouth through a plastic tube adjacent to a vocal microphone. The musician controls the instrument\u2019s sound by changing the shape of their mouth, vocalizing the instrument\u2019s output into a microphone.<\/p>\n
CHICAGO: Musician Roger Troutman of Roger Troutman and Zapp performs at the International Amphitheatre in January 1982. (Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n
Zapp & Roger popularized the talkbox through hit songs like \u201cComputer Love\u201d and \u201cI Heard It Through the Grapevine.\u201d They also influenced the West Coast hip-hop scene with their songs being sampled. <\/p>\n
Andr\u00e9 Troutman said he first became serious about the instrument after hearing his cousin Rufus use it in the Sunday service during their family reunion in Ohio. <\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the end of service going up, and I was like, how do you do that?\u201d Troutman said. \u201cI went and bought one. I went to Guitar Center and went bought one. And I knew that I wanted to play it on keytar because I wanted to be cool.\u201d He described the learning curve with a laugh: \u201cA lot of practice, a lot of weird faces, and a lot of bad notes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Troutman describes himself as a singer first and at the time, he was heavily in gospel music. The device requires you to sing into it and he was trying to figure out how to integrate the talkbox into what he already does.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt a definite inherent responsibility to honor the shoulders on which I stand, and do it to my absolute best ability,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen people did start holding me in the same sentence as Roger and Zapp, it was a huge responsibility for me that I took with honor and humility…\u201d<\/p>\n
He acknowledged the doors that playing the talkbox has opened for him.<\/p>\n
\u2018That was everything to me\u2019: Working with Kanye West<\/p>\n
Troutman said he began working with West in March 2025, initially helping with music and production for live shows. <\/p>\n
\u201cLiterally just coming along, to help in the area of music and production,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful thing working with him because he\u2019s such a universally creative person, incredibly wise in how he formulates things…it\u2019s like a vortex of just pure energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
That collaboration grew into a larger role orchestrating music for West\u2019s stadium tour and contributing to \u201cBully.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andr\u00e9 Troutman performing with Ye at So-Fi Stadium in Los Angeles. (Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the Love happened. It was just a very incredibly organic. And I feel like very organic and very God move how it was, was all orchestrated and it just flowed,\u201d Troutman said. <\/p>\n
Performing the song for stadium audiences, he added, has been \u201cmind-blowing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Troutman said having his name on \u201cBully\u201d was deeply meaningful after years of working as an independent musician. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo be able to Google me and just see my name next to something that I created, that mattered that much to me. That was everything to me,\u201d he said, noting how important the credit would be for his mother and daughters to see.<\/p>\n
Andr\u00e9 Troutman performing with Ye at So-Fi Stadium in Los Angeles. (Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n
His family and the world can see that he earned his first two entries on the Billboard Hot 100 list with \u201cAll the Love\u201d and \u201cWhite Lines.\u201d He said the recognition meant everything to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember the night that I reached out to him and expressed how important it was for my name to be on this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Andr\u00e9 Troutman performing with Ye at So-Fi Stadium in Los Angeles. (Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n
He said of the live show at So-Fi Stadium in Los Angeles that he hadn\u2019t really had a chance to sit and take in the magnitude of the performance because it\u2019s happened so fast and they\u2019re gearing up to continue the stadium tour, including a performance on June 26 in Tampa.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a story I couldn\u2019t have written,\u201d Troutman said. \u201cIt\u2019s really hard for me to put into words…\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an immense accomplishment for an independent artist from Jacksonville who\u2019s never signed a record deal.<\/p>\n
\u2018Build with the people next to you\u2019: Advice for Jacksonville artists<\/p>\n
Troutman urged young creatives to build with peers in their own community. <\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of reaching up to this impossible build with the people next to you,\u201d he said. \u201cThe world will come and find you and they will hear you make a noise when you build.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the collective community that you create will elevate you to the next level, not the people who may be out of your reach.<\/p>\n
He pointed to a network of Jacksonville artists \u2014 many who attended Douglas Anderson \u2014 who have supported one another. <\/p>\n
\u201cI call my friends first, and then we build and grow up together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u2018We are a diamond\u2019: Jacksonville\u2019s arts growth<\/p>\n