Rapper Turned Trapper: Why Sterling Davis Left His Music Career To Become Cat Advocate

Rapper Sterling Davis toured the country for years, building a career in hip-hop. But the musician made a bold pivot one day, deciding to put his energy behind another passion: cats. Davis reinvented himself as The TrapKing – as in, trap, neuter, and return – helping to humanely curb the overpopulation of stray cats. The lifelong cat lover also makes it his mission to change stereotypes about men in cat rescue, and to make the often white-dominated field of animal welfare an appealing pursuit in more diverse communities. The TrapKing joined “City Lights” senior producer Kim Drobes via Zoom to talk about how he transformed his career from rapping to trapping.

Things were going pretty well in Davis’s music career. “It was an uphill battle for me, and I finally was getting to the point where I was seeing the results in music that I wanted to see,” he said. He came home from tour for a break and looked for a low-stress gig to keep himself busy. “Being on tour, you learn really fast that in between tours, the breaks, you want to try to do something positive with your time. Because if not, you just spend money, get into trouble, waste time; it’s counterproductive.”

Suddenly the artist found himself pulled in a surprising new direction. “I was getting ready to go on a tour with somebody I really look up to, a guy named Tech N9ne, and it was going to be a popular tour. And in between that tour and waiting for the next tour is when I took the break. I was looking for something to do, and I saw on Craigslist an ad for helping scoop cat litter. I did not know that that would change my life.”