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fans worldwide as Raizer
T, Anthony Ryzor was a notoriously difficult man to get an
appointment with. Time was so valuable a commodity to him that he
paid people to manage his time. Those people did, however, make
concessions for the boss’ sexual needs, because they all knew that
Raizer T produced his best work when sexually fulfilled. Like most
successful superstars in showbiz, Raizer T was at any given time
always surrounded by people, including bodyguards, business
advisers, legal advisers, managers, publicists, personal
assistants, masseuses, friends, and many other people whose benefit
to him was questionable.
    Raizer T was born and raised in Philadelphia,
but had moved to New York City at the age of 16. He had become
friends with another youngster who was well-known for his rapping
skills in the New York underground Hip Hop movement. When that
youngster had signed a record deal with a major record label and
had gone on to achieve commercial success with his first album,
four songs on that album having been produced by Anthony Ryzor,
Tony had never looked back. He had gone on to produce over the next
four years dozens of songs with other artists, until he established
himself as one of the go-to-men in Hip Hop. By the age of
twenty-three Anthony Ryzor was a multi-millionaire and living
comfortably.
    At age twenty-four he released his debut
album and Vibe magazine
called it a classic. Using a fusion of electronic beats, drum
sounds, stringed instruments and African percussion instruments,
the 14-track album had featured only two guest artists. Its main
themes were romantic disaster stories, Black consciousness and
machismo nonsense, delivered in a distinct voice that set Raizer T
apart from other rappers, over addictive choruses that were sung
mostly by the rapper himself. Critics said that the reason why
Raizer T was so major was because he could rap and he could actually sing. When asked by The Source magazine in a featured article, with his face on the
magazine’s cover, about his style of music in the album he said
that it was nothing new; he was simply following an increasingly
popular trend in that era of Hip Hop, when RnB and Hip Hop were
evolving in such a way that singers were rapping and rappers were
singing. It was an exciting era for RnB/Hip Hop, and he was happy
to be a part of it. He singled out R Kelly as one of the pioneers
of this trend, pointing out that as far back as the year 2000, when
Kelly had released his hugely successful album, TP-2.com, a
classic, he had rapped better than some established rappers on some
of the songs in that album. Raizer T also paid tribute to fellow
rap artists, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, and Jay Z for helping to
transform the face of rap and making it an indelible part of pop
culture.
    Following the huge success of his first
album, Tha
Ryzor , Anthony Ryzor
would spend the next two years expanding his business interests,
writing music for other artists, producing songs and albums for
other artists, and being featured in other artists’ music, and
overall growing the brand that was Raizer T. Between 2008 and
2009, The
Source magazine counted
that Raizer T had featured and appeared in a combined total of 167
songs and music videos by other artists in virtually every
mainstream genre of music. Forbes magazine estimated that he was
one of the top five earners in Hip Hop in both 2008 and 2009, even
though he head not released an album in those two years. In 2010,
amid intense hype, Raizer T released his hugely anticipated second
album, Tha
Ryzor II , in February.
It defied declining record sales in the music industry and sold
more than 700,000 copies in its first week. It went on to sell a
total of more than 3,000,000 copies for the year. The only other
album to match those figures in 2010 was Eminem’s Recovery .
    Recently, Reebok, the sportswear giant, had
collaborated with him to make pairs of sneakers they called Raizer
T’s. Those shoes were sold out within two weeks of