Football has brought the Denver Broncos' Brandon Lloyd the most notoriety, but the Pro Bowl wide receiver has kept busy with a couple of other career pursuits this offseason.
Lloyd has continued cutting rap music demos -- something he's done since he entered the NFL in 2003, as well as getting a sales job with a Colorado company that supplies specialty metals for the aerospace industry, according to *The Denver Post*.
Lloyd told the newspaper he has been writing lyrics since his teens, and he estimated he has recorded at least 150 songs in the past eight years. His finished songs can be found online at soundcloud.com as he tries to get them placed on video games and television shows. His song "Heavy" landed on the Spike TV show "Blue Mountain State."
"I'm an organic rap dude," Lloyd said. "And my experiences are why my content is the way it is, but I just love local, independent artists, because I consider myself a struggling musician, just grinding away and trying to figure out your path."
The music scene has been a double-edged sword, Lloyd said. For all the doors his status as an NFL player can open, music-industry insiders tend to not take him seriously, and coaches and local media -- particularly in Washington -- claimed his outside interests adversely affected his production.
"I have the guts to stand out and do something I'm passionate about, go against the grain and go against the conventional wisdom that the athlete-rap thing is unsuccessful," Lloyd said. "Yet I'm going to do it. People will say: 'Oh, you're doing hip-hop music? Who does he think he is, a rapper? He's trying to be someone he's not.' When in reality, I'd be someone I'm not by not expressing myself in music."
Lloyd's lyrics tackle everything from football to relationships.
The sales job, which came about through an acquaintance in Denver, is the first "real job" of Lloyd's life aside from a short stint at Taco Bell while he was in high school.
He travels extensively for the job, visiting steel mills and technology plants.
"It has been really rewarding, because football is like fantasy land. It's not like really working," Lloyd said. "So, to go to steel mills in Pennsylvania and Gary, Indiana, and see that people are making containers for nuclear fuel for aircraft carriers, it puts in perspective how important I am, Brandon Lloyd the football player, in the real world."
Still, Lloyd isn't taking on this other jobs at the expense of his day job, which included 77 receptions for 1,448 yards in 2010.
"I plan on going into the season prepared, like I did last year. I didn't predict that. Nobody predicted that," said Lloyd, who has spent time working out in Florida with quarterback Tim Tebow and receivers Jabar Gaffney and Britt Davis. "I'm going to know the playbook. I'm going to be in shape, and I'm going to do my best to stay healthy and be available for 16 games."
