George Floyd was born in North Carolina. He grew up in Houston, Texas. He played football and basketball throughout high school and college. He held several jobs, and he was also a hip hop artist and a mentor in his religious community. Between 1997 and 2005, he was convicted of eight crimes; in 2009, he accepted a plea bargain for a 2007 armed robbery, serving four years in prison. In 2014, he moved to Minneapolis, finding work as a truck driver and a bouncer. In 2020, he lost his security job during the COVID-19 pandemic.