This post was originally published on this site.
Alley Boy, the East Atlanta rapper and Duct Tape Entertainment co-CEO, has reportedly died after a prolonged battle with kidney failure.
He was 42 years old.
Born Curt Freeman in Atlanta’s Edgewood Courts on March 19, 1984, Alley Boy grew up in Zone 6 and started rapping as a child, recording his first songs around age 10.
He and Big Bank Black co-founded Duct Tape Entertainment, which eventually landed a distribution deal with Asylum/Atlantic Records, putting the label on the national map without mainstream radio support or an internet buzz campaign.
That word-of-mouth grind, as AllHipHop documented early in his career, became the foundation of everything he built.
His catalog ran deep for over 17 years, with projects like The Gift of Discernment, War Cry, and Blatlanta 3 standing as cornerstones of Atlanta’s underground rap scene.
The Gift of Discernment in particular, stacked with features from Pusha T, Big K.R.I.T., Gunplay, and Yo Gotti, showed he could hold his own with anyone in the game.
He also worked with Future, Meek Mill, Gucci Mane, Young Jeezy, and Master P over the span of his career, touching multiple generations of Southern rap.
Alley Boy didn’t hide what killed him.
He spoke openly on the A Humble Soul podcast about years of codeine addiction and high blood pressure destroying his kidneys, even admitting he’d been a dealer and sold the substance himself.
By late 2024, he’d been going to dialysis three times a week for over a year and was pushing hard for a transplant that never came.
He put the whole story out there so that people watching could make different choices, turning his own deterioration into a public warning.
Big Bank, DJ Scream, Rocko, and Hot Boy Turk all posted tributes after news of his passing spread Sunday, each honoring him as one of the most authentic voices Zone 6 ever produced.
No official statement from his family or representatives had been released at the time of publication.
