Coi Leray Age, Real Name and Ethnicity Explored

Coi Leray (born: May 11, 1997, Age: 26 years) is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter who came to the limelight in 2018 with hit singles such as Pac Girl, Huddy, and G.A.N.

The young Coi was born in 1997 and just turned 26 years old. The talented rapper has a multiracial ethnic heritage as she has a mix of Cape Verdean, German, African-American, and Puerto Rican ancestry.

The rapper draws inspiration from well-known American music icons such as Chris Brown and Rihanna, and that inspiration has seen her grow to become one of the more recognized music celebrities in the US today. A closer look at the life and career of Coi Leray promises to reveal so much about her and the vital steps she took to get to where she is today.

Where Is Coi Leray From, and How Old Is She?

Coi Leray is originally from New Jersey, USA. She grew up in a town called Hackensack. The talented rapper was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 11, 1997, which puts her age at 26 years old. Her parents moved around a bit before settling down in her hometown.

Coi is an American citizen, but her ethnic heritage is more complex in relation to her nationality. She has an African-American, Cape Verdean, German, and Puerto Rican ancestral heritage.

Not much is known about the identity of Coi Leray’s mother, whom some sources have revealed to be named Asia Collins. The only information available about her is that she and Coi’s father divorced each other when Leray was a young girl.

Since then, she has opted to live her life away from the limelight, and as a result, there is no verifiable clue that points to what she does for a living. On the other hand, Leray’s father is a well-known music producer, singer, rapper, and songwriter Raymond Leon Scott. He is, however, best recognized by his stage name “Benzino.”

Although Her Mother’s Identity is Scarcely Known, Her Father Is Benzino, A Well-Known Celebrity

Benzino is a talented musician born on July 18, 1965, in Boston, Massachusetts. His impressive musical career has seen the birth of four individual studio albums, with his first titled “The Benzino Project,” released in 2001 and then followed by “Redemption,” “Arch Nemesis,” and “The Antidote,” released in 2003, 2005, and 2007, respectively.

Before the advent of his studio albums, he had been instrumental in releasing several collaborative albums with other artists. His musical career has gone from strength to strength since then.

Aside from his musical engagements, Coi Leray’s father, Benzino, has expanded his artistic abilities to include several television appearances in movies, TV series, and reality TV series such as Bloodline (2005), RapFix Live (2012), and Hollywood Hearts, amongst several others. Leray’s career in music owes a lot to the early influence of her father in her life.

He introduced her to the world of music from a young age, even though there is no verifiable way to prove it, one would assume that when she decided she was finally ready to take the first step, he would have gone out of his way to make the transition smooth and easy for her by placing his resources and considerable connections at her disposal.

What Is Coi Leray’s Real Name?

Coi Leray’s real name is Brittany Collins. This information about the rapper is one that not many people know about her. “Coi Leray” was a stage name she adopted at the start of her musical career, a name she coined from the Japanese Koi fish.

Leray is the only daughter of her father but by no means the only child he has. For starters, Leray has a younger brother named Taj Collins. The two of them are the only children their parents shared as a couple. The couple came to know about her brother after one of the rapper’s first songs, Bow Down, was released alongside the said brother.

She Began Her Music Career As A Teenager

Leray’s musical career, as mentioned previously, was largely inspired by watching her dad in the music industry. Her passion for music was further heightened by closely following the music careers of icons like Missy Elliot and Chris Brown.

She started by uploading musical content to SoundCloud before she quit school at the age of 14 to focus solely on music. She didn’t go straight to the top and had to resort to working in sales to augment the income she was making as an upcoming musician.

Over the following seven years, Coi’s career stayed in the relatively obscure lane of featuring in other people’s singles until she dropped the single that moved her to the spotlight. The single, Huddy, was officially her first and was dropped in 2018 when she was 21.

The same year, she released her first mixtape titled “Everything Coz” which included singles like No Longer Mine and G.A.N. A year later, in 2019, she released another mixtape titled “Everything Coz 2,” better known as EC2. By this time, a then 22-year-old Coi had signed a recording contract with 1801 Records and Republic Records.

In 2021, at the age of 24, Coi Leray released her first EP titled “Now or Never,” which received positive reviews from her fans and the general public, thereby paving the way for her first studio album titled “Trendsetter.” The “Trendsetter” album was released on April 8, 2022, just about a month before the rapper’s 25th birthday.

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Before all these landmark achievements, Coi has dropped hit singles such as Big (2018), Add It (2018), Messy (2018), Do Better (2019), and At The Top (2020), amongst many others. Her tremendous talent has seen her nominated for a BET Award and a BET Hip Hop Award, both in 2021.

Coi Leray Courted Controversy With The Lyrics Of Her Song

Coi is no stranger to controversy, albeit small, depending on how you see it. She was recently dragged into the spotlight for how part of the lyrics of her song, No More Parties, aimed a not-so-subtle dig at her father, Benzino. For all the inspiration she claims to have received from the man, many netizens surely believed that she went too far.

To further deepen the controversy, Coi Leray is on record for having said that she is embarrassed by her father, clearly in response to her father’s tweets that essentially condemned her choice of lyrics. However, in defense of the rapper, she claims that she feels it’s on her to rebuild the family fortunes after her father allegedly lost it all.