Lil Troy, best known for the 1998 hit “Wanna Be a Baller,” has reportedly suffered a massive heart attack that has left him fighting for his life.
Troy’s alleged health scare was revealed by fellow Houston rap veteran Willie D of the Geto Boys, who wrote on Instagram on Sunday (September 1): “EXCLUSIVE!!! Lil Troy Suffers Heart Attack… Fighting for His Life! [praying hands emojis].”
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In a video posted to his YouTube channel, Willie elaborated on Lil Troy’s health issues and said he had spoken to the rapper directly.
“The good news is he’s still with us. The bad news is he’s not out of the woods,” he explained. “I spoke to Troy this morning — he’s alert but he’s still in the hospital where he’s been since Tuesday of last week.”
Willie D then urged his viewers to “do something about this health crisis that we’re in,” citing the alarming number of rappers succumbing to untimely deaths including Fatman Scoop and BeatKing, both of whom have died in recent weeks.
Lil Troy himself has yet to comment.
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The 58-year-old (born Troy Birklett) enjoyed mainstream success in the late ’90s with the aforementioned “Wanna Be a Baller,” which cracked the Billboard Hot 100 and has over 200 million plays across YouTube and Spotify.
The song, which Troy did not actually perform on, also propelled his debut album Sittin’ Fat Down South to commercial success, reaching number 20 on the Billboard 200 while selling almost two million copies in the U.S.
“Wanna Be a Baller” has a tragic legacy, though, as almost every artist who appeared on it has passed away.
Fat Pat, whose verse was lifted from an earlier song, was murdered months before the song came out; Big Hawk, a founding member of DJ Screw’s Screwed Up Click, was killed in 2006; Lil’ Will, Troy’s cousin, died in a car accident in 2016; and Big T died from a suspected heart attack in 2018.
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Yungstar is the only surviving rapper from the song’s lineup.
Lil Troy previously had a close brush with death in 2021 while working as a truck driver. According to ABC 7, the former rapper’s 18-wheeler burst into flames while he was driving down Interstate 10 in Houston, but he was luckily able to pull over and escape before being injured in the fire.
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Reflecting on his near-death experience and the deaths of his “Wanna Be a Baller” collaborators, Troy told HipHopDX: “I’ve been saying [the song] is cursed for a long time. It’s like that movie Final Destination when everyone starts dying right after each other.
“I started thinking about that when everybody started passing. And I’m like, ‘I know I’m not next.’ Everybody that got on that song or did something together, they start dying one by one after each other. I said, ‘Oh no, it’s not my time to go yet. No, no.’”
