Early Life
The son of Negro League baseball catcher Quincy Trouppe (who added a second "P" to the family name while playing in Mexico to accommodate the Spanish pronunciation "Trou-pay"), Troupe Jr. attended Grambling State University on a basketball scholarship. He failed to finish either of his first two semesters and subsequently joined the United States Army, where he was stationed in France and played on the Army basketball team. In France he encountered Jean-Paul Sartre, who recommended he try his hand at poetry.
Upon his return to civilian life, Troupe moved to Los Angeles, where he encountered the Watts Writers Workshop and began working in a more jazz-based style. It was on a tour with the Watts group that he first began his academic life.
Read more about this topic: Quincy Troupe
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