Troy Noka recalls producing Frank Ocean, Bishop Lamont on "Get My Gun"
Troy Noka has production credits on Nostalgia, ULTRA, but few know about the collaboration between Frank Ocean and Bishop Lamont from 2010.
Before Frank was Frank, he was Lonny Breaux and writing songs for other artists to perform. During this time, Noka was working with Lamont and sent him a beat. He tells HipHopDX the story:
I sent it to him, and it kinda happened the same was with Tyga [and the ’Stampede’ song I produced]. The next thing I know, it ended up on a mixtape. And at the time Frank Ocean was just going by Lonny Breaux, so he was just a writer. I don’t even know if at this time Bishop knows who that is on the hook….A lot of people don’t know that’s Frank Ocean on the hook.
The song appears on The Shawshank Redemption Angola 3 mixtape that Lamont dropped in 2010. Frank was credited in his first ever feature as Kellen The Criminal, a title that would go unused thereafter.
It was after this record that Noka, who was known as T-Wiz at the time, would go on to work with Frank more extensively.
He knows what he wants. He’s creative. He has a vision. A lot of artists don’t have vision. And a lot of artists aren’t writers. He’s an actual writer, so he knows what he wants to say. He knows how to say it, and that’s actually his craft that he spent years mastering so he actually stands out. His writing is exceptional, like he has a vision for who he is as an artist. I think that’s a real artist, because he’s able to have people perceive him the way he wants to be perceived. He’s honest. Some people are artists but they aren’t able to be exactly who they want to be or sound exactly how they want to sound. So that’s what stands out with him from other artists.
