Trae Interview w/ Ozone Magazine

Texas street rapper Trae Tha Truth is never one to back down. Perhaps most infamously known for punching Mike Jones at the OZONE Awards, the Rap-A-Lot affiliate nonetheless has done a lot of good for his beloved city of Houston that often goes unrecognized – not to mention, he can really spit. Now preparing to tell Tha Truth on his newest project, Trae answers the tough questions in this OZONE exclusive.

What have you been working on since the last time we spoke?
A little bit of everything. I’m getting ready to drop my new album Tha Truth. Since the last time I talked to y’all, I’m back with ABN Entertainment getting distributed through Fontana. Right now I’m on an all-out campaign for Tha Truth. I’m independent, but I still have the same resources as a major label. It’s good for me on both ends. Money-wise, I’m most definitely independent, but look-wise, I still have the connects. I’ve always been my own CEO because I feel like nobody [else] will get out there and do it how I do it. If I don’t get out there and do it, I’ve failed myself. So I’m gonna give it my all. The reason I say nobody will do it better than I will do it is because I’m going to bat for myself harder than anybody.

Considering the climate of the music game today and the economic recession that has affected everyone, do you think it’s more beneficial now for artists to stick it out independently or try to get a major record deal?
It depends on how you look at it. For some cats it’s more beneficial to get a deal; to get all the money they can get and put it up and prepare for whatever else might come. I feel like it’s more beneficial independently because you spend less money and can get the same results as a major. You’ve got cats who are independent that can move 100,000 units or more, and you’ve got cats who are major that move less than 100,000.

You’re still kinda “underground” because you haven’t really hit that peak yet as far as crossing over to the mainstream. Are you comfortable with the position you’re in, having more street-oriented music? Do you feel like you have to “sell out” to become more commercially recognized?
I’m most definitely gunnin’ to stay me. Music, to me, is not only a form of art, but it’s also a form of ventilation. This is how I vent. So if I went for a certain commercial “look” or “sound,” that’s not really me expressing myself and what I’m going through out here in real life. I feel more comfortable doing me. Even these days, with the economy the way it is, a lot of people can relate to the struggle that I speak about in my music. So if I continue doing me, they’ll be able to relate.

Do you think consumers have become turned off by all the materialism in rap music now that the so-called “bling bling” era has passed?
It’s always gonna be here to an extent. People in general like to show off what they’ve got, especially people who ain’t never really had shit. Once they finally get their big break, they’re gonna let it be known. I think it’s cool, but it’s like, you won’t be able to do the majority of your music about that. It’s cool here and there, I mean, shit, you just had me in Chain Reaction [showing off my jewelry]. But at the same time, when you listen to my album, it isn’t about [jewelry] and all that type of shit.

If somebody criticized you for spending a lot of money on jewelry, how would you respond?
I’d say, “Fuck ‘em in they ass.” Nobody is allowed to judge somebody else if you’re not that man up above. You can have your opinion, but you can’t judge me. I know muthafuckers who fuck their money off on gambling or pussy or all types of shit. At the end of the day with me, a muthafucker can’t tell me shit. My whole purpose in living is to take care of me and mine and my family, and all those other people that I can reach out and help.

So would you say jewelry is a vice, or more of an investment for your rap career? The image?
For me, it’s just a bonus. Like I was saying, as long as my family and everything else is taken care of, what’s the problem? All of my stuff is situated before I go spend on myself. Even though I’ve got a right to spend on myself and do what I want – I bust my ass and make sure everything is taken care of first before I go do me. Everybody’s got a right to enjoy life. I give a damn about the critics. I’m my own man.

You just had a child, correct?
Yeah, I just had a son named Houston.

So you’re representing for the city in a major way.
Everybody calls me Houston anyway, so I decided to just go ahead and ride it out. I had two little boys before him, so Houston is the newest addition to the family.

How are things between you and Z-Ro at this point? Are you on good terms or is there still some friction?
If we see each other it’s cool. He’s workin’ on the stuff he’s workin’ on, and I’m workin’ on my projects. We’re both just working and doing what we do. It’s never really been “beef.” Family members just don’t agree all the time. We had differences of opinion on certain shit, so we went our own lil ways, but at the end of the day there ain’t no beef or nothing like that. It’s not like I’m out here lookin’ for him or he’s lookin’ for me.

Is he featured on Tha Truth?
Nah. But there are a lot of songs we’ve got together that haven’t even been heard, so people might get ‘em, they might not. I just take it a day at a time. I can’t really tell you what tomorrow is gonna bring.

You’ve been known to have some disagreements with other Houston folks. Did you and Mike Jones ever come to terms with whatever the issue was? What would happen if you ran into each other today?
Since the [OZONE Awards] incident I’ve seen him once, and that was at a show in Austin. The police surrounded his vehicle and walked him inside the gate and closed the gate, and kept us outside the gate to keep us separated. (laughs) It ain’t that serious. I’m not worried about dude. Go out there and get your money, mane. I’m handlin’ my own business. At the end of the day, I just stand up for what I stand up for, and if I feel disrespected I’ma handle it. Other than that I’m not really worried about it. I’m not sittin’ around trying to bash him or do none of that other shit.

Out of all the places to confront Mike Jones, why did you have to choose the OZONE Awards?
(laughs) Only because it’s you asking me, I’m cool with [answering]. It’s like this: shit goes down out here on the regular. This ain’t the first time they heard about Trae gettin’ into some shit. This is the first time they heard about it throughout 50 different states, and overseas, though. He knew I was lookin’ to holla at him before then. Nobody saw him the whole [TJ’s DJ’s Conference/OZONE Awards weekend] so we didn’t run across each other then. The first time we ran across each other was [at the Awards] and my mindframe wasn’t that I’m at an award show. My mindframe was, “I’ve been lookin’ to holla at you all weekend.” If it had been in the parking lot or the corner store or after the Awards, and I felt disrespected, it was gonna go down. So it was no disrespect meant towards the Awards, and you know I apologized to you for it, but other than that, I stand for what I stand for.

In retrospect, do you think punching him was the best way to handle the situation?
I think it could’ve been handled differently. Because for one, we started off with me letting him know what it was. No voices were raised. When he raised his voice, that’s when it went a different route. But that’s neither here nor there. It’s done.

Well, the reason I’m bringing it up is because it’s not like this is the first time some type of violence has occurred at a Hip Hop event or award show. Do you think situations like this make it difficult for us as a community to have positive events where everybody can come together?
Truthfully, yeah. I can’t deny that. It does kinda put a little bit of strain on it. But at the end of the day, shit just goes how it goes. If you’re at your event, let’s say a bitch who’s backstage tryin’ to fuck with every rapper doesn’t know who you are and disrespects you. I couldn’t be mad at you if you decided to slap that hoe.

Personally, I wouldn’t handle a situation that way.
And I can understand that, but you don’t really know until you’ve been put in that situation. If you feel all the way disrespected, even if you don’t put your hands on ‘em, you’re damn sure gonna be like, “Fuck ‘em!”

But thinking that in your mind and actually physically taking action are two different things.
Baby, that’s just my mindframe. If I think it, I’ma say it. And that might not always be good, but it might not always be bad either.

How can we as the Hip Hop community have more positive events where we’re able to be respected by the general public as a legit business community and not just a bunch of people who cause problems?
Move past it and continue grinding and doing what you do, because at the end of the day, not me nor anybody else should be able to stop you if that’s what’s in store for you. And all the muthafuckers that be out here with that gas shit need to keep that gas shit at home. A lot of entertainers be feelin’ themselves so they do stupid shit that offends people. I think if people have a certain type of respect for one another, there’d be less confusion.

What’d Mike Jones do that was so disrespectful?
He just got real arrogant with the mouth. He just got beside hisself. And to be honest, I ain’t did no interviews about this shit and I don’t care to talk about dude. The shit is done, you know? After that, I let it be known, if he felt it was that disrespectful, he could come back and holla at me on any given day. He didn’t do that, so we left it alone. He knows what he did and I know what he did, but I damn sure don’t wanna use my interview up talkin’ about this cat. I got too much other shit goin’ on, baby.

Gotcha. Okay, so the album is called Tha Truth? Who’s featured on there?
I got so many songs, man. I got enough for two albums. I’ve got songs with Lil Wayne, Ludacris, Jadakiss, Rick Ross, The Game, Shawty Lo, Lloyd, Young Buck, JayTon, man, I got shit with everybody. I’ve been recording real heavy. If something happens to me in these streets, I’ll still have a lot of music coming out. I’m a firm believer in filling up the CD til there ain’t no more room on it, so that’s probably what I’m gonna do.

You’ve made a strong effort to be involved in the community. Aside from Trae Day, did you do anything recently for the holidays?
Most definitely. On Thanksgiving we got out there and fed a whole bunch of families. On top of that, we went to a few neighborhoods. We went to the projects and went door-to-door to deliver food. On Christmas, I got out there with Sheila Jackson-Lee and the city of Houston and we gave out toys to a few thousand kids. On top of that, they had me be Santa Claus for some of the disabled and less fortunate kids. As long as I’m out here doing stuff for the community, that’s what makes me feel comfortable.

Do you feel a responsibility to do give back because of your status of an artist or is it just something you’d do regardless?
If I stopped doing what I was doing as far as being an entertainer, I’d still do that. You’ve gotta understand the way I came up. My older brother Dinkie went to jail when I was around 12 or 13 years old, so a lot of [key] choices I made in my life, I made on my own. That’s not to say they were the right choices or the wrong choices, but I had to experience that on my own without having guidance. I had the big homies in the streets, but at the end of the day it was on me because I was my own man. There’s a lot of people out there who can relate to how I came up. I wanna be that big homie who can let them know, “yeah, this is right,” or “nah, that ain’t right,” or help them understand that things aren’t really that bad. You’ve got people out here that believe in you. You ain’t just out here by yourself.

When you do Trae Day, it’s cool to have the artists come out and perform and all, but what’s the ultimate purpose of the event? What kind of services do you provide for the community?
Every Trae Day, the entertainers are the last thing that comes. That’s how the event ends. When I was blessed to get my own holiday, I wasn’t even gonna make it about me. It was more about the city and the streets and the other stuff that goes on there. We give out school supplies. We give out school clothes. We offer HIV/AIDS testing. We do different activities for the kids. This year we gave away a few thousand immunization shots, the shots have to get to go to school. It’s so bad out here that some people don’t have money to pay for their kids to get shots, so some of the kids weren’t even gonna be prepared for school. So that was a blessing for us to be able to get the kids’ shots and get them enrolled in school.

Did you pay for that yourself or was the city involved?
Everything was done by me out of my own pocket. They tell me there’s ways to get sponsorships, but I didn’t really go that route. Maybe in the future I might go that route, but at the end of the day, it’s from my heart. I did everything I felt needed to be done. I flew in all the entertainers too. That was more of a bonus for the kids and the families that were out there.

There was also a shooting at Trae Day too, right? I don’t wanna focus too much on the negative, but you being an event organizer, did you feel like the media coverage of the event focused more on the negative than the positive? Because that’s how I felt with the Ozone Awards situation -
I knew you were gonna say that. (laughs) And it’s understandable. Cats like us, it seems like we might not realize it, but we realize stuff like that. Niggas like us are always thinking and watching our surroundings and everything that’s going on, most definitely. So it did feel like that, but at the end of the day, good was still done. When Trae Day comes back around, they’re gonna come back. I gotta be prepared and make sure shit is straight for the kids’ sake. That’s the most important thing. I think [media outlets] like CNN don’t even know who I am, to a certain point, so they didn’t give the event [negative] coverage, but even the [media outlets] out here in Houston who do know who I am still kept it positive. Even though the violence happened after the event was over, it still came back to me and I can’t complain about it. We gotta keep it moving. I’m doing all this through my non-profit organization called ABN: A Better Neighborhood or Angels By Nature.

What else are you working on for 2010?
Of course we’ve got the cartoon episodes we’ve been working on, you can find those on YouTube. Y’all [at OZONE] were featured in one of them, of course. Since I’m Trae Tha Truth, what’s different about my cartoon [as compared to everybody else’s] is that these are real life situations I be going through. We bring in a lot of entertainers to do their own voices and the shit is funny as hell. You can be gangsta as hell and see this shit and you’re still gonna be laughing. We’re shopping it around right now. There might be a chance it’ll land on MTV. I haven’t really linked up with Cartoon Network but it might be something they’d wanna put on Adult Swim.

As far as production for this album, did you stick with the same formula?
I did a different remedy. I went for the young hungry cats that a lot of cats don’t even know about. They’re being slept on. A lot of these cats are talented. I just jumped out there and found a lot of young, hungry, up and coming producers like Platinum Hands, Mr. Incredible, Mr. Rogers – he’s up and coming, he’s got a couple records on the Billboard charts and he did my [previous hit] the “Swang” record – I’ve got Gavin, LeToya Luckett’s brother producing on there, I got a lil young cat from the East Coast named V-Don. As far as the bigger names I got Street Runner, he produced a track with me and Lil Wayne, and then I’ve got Mr. Lee and CyFyre, I can’t forget him, because I just shot a video for one of his tracks. With this album I’m gonna try to shoot videos for at least 85% of the album. The first [single] was “Something Real” with me, Slim Thug, Plies, Jodeci, and Brian Angel. That’s actually growing daily. Every week when I look it up, it’s getting added to another couple of stations.

At this point, what’s the status of the whole “Houston movement?” At one time, the whole industry’s attention was focused on Houston, but that time came and went. Do you see a whole new crop of artists coming out of the city, or the established artists kinda recreating their sound?
It’s gonna be a little bit of both, but there’s always gonna be a new wave. It doesn’t matter where it’s coming from, whether it’s Houston, Atlanta, New York, or Miami. People’s attention spans are real short. They’re always looking for the next best thing. With that being said, some of the old heads and the best of the city are gonna be able to recreate themselves. Sometimes you’ve got some young hard niggas coming up doing our thing. In Houston, we’re always gonna have a new wave. That’s my personal opinion. I’m always on the front lines. I think the second wave [of artists] are gonna be moreso on the street side than on the commercial side. But our Houston culture is still the same. Our life still revolves around swangers. We’ve still got slabs. We still listen to Screw. We still listen to slow music. We’ve still got grills in our mouths. We’re still on the streets hustling. I feel [the movement] coming but I don’t know when. I can’t really say. I might be the boost for it or somebody else might be the boost for it, but I just know that it’s coming.

Do you think Pimp C’s passing had an effect on the Houston music scene, as far as dimming the torch a little bit, or do you feel like the other artists have done a good job of carrying on his legacy?
It dimmed the torch because it hurt us. It kinda took a little air out of us, the same as when Screw and Fat Pat and Hawk died. It’s always gonna take a little away from us because it hurts us personally. We don’t really think about the music because we’re losing a pa’tna or a brother or a family member. But after a while, we know we’ve gotta get our energy back and hold it down for them. That makes us go harder. Even when Screw passed, it might have slowed us down for a little while, but eventually everybody across the world knew about the whole Screw movement. Once we go, we go hard. But it’s just a matter of when that time comes.

Sippin’ syrup is also a part of Houston culture, but unfortunately it’s also part of the reason Pimp C passed. Do you think Houston artists have slowed down on using it because of his death?
People always make it more than what it is. Each city has their own type of drugs. You’ve got people who don’t rap doing drugs. You’ve got movie stars doing drugs. There are people who just work a 9-5 job that use drugs. Each person is held accountable. Me, I don’t fuck with none of it, but that’s not to knock the next man.

Is there anything else you want to say?
Are you gonna let me host the next OZONE Awards?

Absolutely not. (laughs) You’ll be lucky if I let you in.
(laughs) Okay, I’m gonna take that. But seriously, it’s Free Dinkie all day every day. Free Pirex, free Pee Wee, Rest in Peace to Screw, Fat Pat, Mafio, Pimp C. Free my brother, they deported him. We out here ridin’ for him. Be prepared, Tha Truth is on the way. I’m still learning this internet thing but my twitter shit is @traeabn and I’m on myspace.com/traethatruth. Be on the lookout for everything I’ve got coming. I’ve got a mixtape coming with Evil Empire and DJ Folk. We stay grindin’ it out. Get ready for Tha Truth. //