How Todd Ray Went From Grammy-Winning Producer to Freakshow Ringmaster
If you walk down the Venice Beach boardwalk in L.A., you’ll find Todd Ray in his element: A 21st century P.T. Barnum standing on the pavement, chirping into a bullhorn and offering passerbys a glimpse at his two-headed turtle. It’s just one of the pets making up his collection of two-headed animals — the world’s largest. A crowd forms around him as he invites the curious behind a question mark–adorned door to check out sword swallowers, bearded ladies, a five-legged dog, chupacabra remains and more. Welcome to the Venice Beach Freakshow, of which Ray is ringmaster and founder. He’s also a newly minted TV star, the focal point of the AMC reality series Freakshow, which follows him, his family and his merry band of sideshow performers as they pursue their most unusual calling.
It’s all the more unusual for Ray since he gave up a successful career to walk his current leftfield path. In another life, he was a Grammy award-winning music producer and an influential player in the history of rock and hip-hop, working with everyone from Cypress Hill and Nas to Santana and Ozomatli. At one point, Ray even had his own subsidiary label under Warner Brothers — until corporate politics disillusioned him on the music business so much that he decided to get out. “I went home and told my wife, ‘Honey. I don’t think I’m gonna renew my contract,” he recalls. After she asked what was in store for a Plan B, Ray looked around his home, which was overflowing with his personal lifelong collection of macabre oddities and circus memorabilia, and told her, “We’re going to open a freakshow.” “She turned to me and said, ‘You are out of your fucking mind,'” he exclaims.
If Ray was already out of his mind as a young teen growing up in rural South Carolina, it was over hip-hop. His love of the music style began when a friend brought him a 12″ of “Planet Rock” by Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force. “As soon as he dropped the needle on that record and that beat hit, that was it. I was completely hooked,” he explains. Ray’s backwoods surroundings left him with limited access to music, so he saved up his cash, flew to New York and purchased every hit record he could get his hands on. He slowly began to build up his collection.
In the mid-Eighties Ray started renting warehouses near his hometown of Lancaster, throwing parties and battling other DJs. He eventually put together his own mix of beats and sold 50,000 12″s on his own. This led him to pursue a career in music production. In his early days on the job, Ray worked with Artifacts and helmed Cypress Hill’s “Ain’t Going Out Like That” on their Black Sunday LP, a track that garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Single. Ray contributed to Nas’s breakthrough by bringing in the then-unknown artist to perform on MC Serch’s “Back to the Grill,” which he was producing. The song took off and Nas went on to earn his first record deal. Making a name for himself under the moniker T-Ray, the young producer also worked with KRS-One, Kool G Rap, Big L, and became known among friends as “The King of the Beats.” “I was obsessed with beat collecting. I would go to old record stores and search for any interesting beats that I could sample. I am a crate-digging icon. Nobody can touch me to this day!” he says proudly.