Author: Isabelle

Ever heard about an underground emcee called N’Trepid? If not, you should definitely have a look at this artist’s my space account.
Rich of an experience of 1O years of emceeing, the Indiana rapper confidently blesses the mic with his untouchable flow.
N’Trepid has developed a style of his own.
Get Em Up starts in an offensive way: hammering piano and keyboard sounds welcome you to hell. The talented emcee spits fire while the listener is lead into a strange and unsafe atmosphere that is provided by the instrumentals. N’ Trepid cuts you off in no time with his incisive words and manages to enchant his listeners with his good lyrical skills and rapid flow. His raspy voice is of advantage too, because it adds to his offensiveness.
Set It Off is based on softer vocal mixed up with rapid drum beats. N Trepid rips weak emcees in no time. Follow the verbal storm of an emcee who knows how to keep it real. Feel the harshness of the struggle and the passion of an emcee who loves doing his job. N Trepid’s enthusiasm and faith are contagious. Flow and lyrics are lead by the hand of a master.
Indiana Boy introduces to N’Trepid’s environment. Enter a place where you life could end up in no time. Weapons, knives, a constant hustling atmosphere are part of the environment N Trepid and his crew draw in their song. Meet an Indiana Boy who proudly represents his hood.
Don’t Get Mad starts with loud keyboard sounds. It introduces you to the dance flows and will allow you to discover a softer side of the artist who intelligently mixes up a hip hop and R’n’B flavor.
Creative, skilled, original and incisive, N Trepid is an artist who definitely deserves to get discovered. Check him out here.
Copyright2006 by Isabelle Esling
All Rights Reserved

T Church/ Shine video review
Rating: 4 stars
Soft violins notes combined with soft beats introduce T Church’s brand new video. Picture T Church, a true Detroiter and an underground experienced emcee walking through the streets of Detroit. T Church is a man of conviction, of faith and talent.
In his video, T Church describes the hard hustle in the streets. He takes you back to 1998, at a time he first released his demo. T Church can now sit back in his car, smoke a blunt and relax, because through his hard work, a constant determination and his genuine talent, he has accomplished a lot.
He addresses at the haters who would like to prevent his crew from succeeding in achieving their goals: it is a matter of fact you can ‘t stop talent.
T Church’s video is a great encouragement to all the people in the rap game who are still grinding.
Watch his lovely video here.
Copyright2006 by Isabelle Esling
All Rights Reserved

When I first arrived to London, I gave you my first impressions about the British Capital that sounded rather positive yet a little bit naive. Today, I will draw you a less friendly and darker picture of London.
Within the few weeks that followed my installation, I started realizing about how much dangerous London actually was.
Not only did the neighbors tell me about the numerous crackhouses that existed in the neighborhood, but also about the people that had been abducted and that disappeared in the middle of the day. Some nasty guys had followed three young girls at a bus stop and stabbed them at their arrival. Also, a young and nice family dad had become the victim of a gang of teenagers and lost his life under tragical circumstances. Yes, dear folks, this is London, a hell of a tough city where life in itself is a constant struggle to survive. London is the theater of a crime scene that surpasses fiction.
There are other negative sides when you live in London City: as much modern and developed as the city might seem to be, some of its places have a middled age structure, like the post office, for instance: when you are in a hurry, it is really unpleasant to notice the way the post office works. You have to queue in order to post an ordinary letter when you don’t have a stamp available. Most of the automatic distributors don ‘t work properly. I admit that i used to complain a lot about the French administration, but the British burocracy is horrible and very badly organized too. There is always a long delay until you get a proper response from an administration.
One of the reasons I moved to England is the French government’s silly policy and its encouragements in favor of a discriminatory policy against young people of foreign origins in the ghetto.
As much as I like America, I never liked George Bush either.
Little did I know about Tony Blair’s way of thinking!
Do you know what Tony Blair is planning to do? He intends to identify yobbish children at a pre-birth stage. Pregnant mothers of “potential troublemakers” will have to accept to be controlled by the British State.
If they don’t, the government will sanction them. How much crazy is that project? How much close is that to Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World “writings? How much discriminatory is that? Discrimination starts when you single out a specific category of people because of their race, their social environment, their religion and make them targets of our modern, well thinking society in which the denial of the right to be differents becomes an unhealthy habit. Non content to fuel hostility against the Muslim community in London, Mr Blair won’t admit his incapacity of solving social exclusion in the British society; Mr Blair feels more comfortable with discriminating against people from the lower social classes.
I am angry with all of them silly politicians who allow themselves the right to play God. Look at yourselves. The terrorists have weakened your so called power already. Stay humble and do your job properly instead of making new victims because of your own weaknesses and incapacities.
While I am sharing those thoughts with you, I am pretty much conscious that the society we live in is made of many imperfections. I wrote about the positive sides of London last time; I also had to expose a more realistic and tougher side of the British Capital.
Life there is nevertheless interesting in London. It resembles the weather: you never know what tomorrow is gonna be like.
Copyright © 2006 by Isabelle Esling
All Rights Reserved

DJ Limelight presents: London Underground, a compilation of Uk hip hop underground artists (CD review)

Rating of the product: 3.75 stars
Most of you hip hop lovers probably have quite a good knowledge of the US hip hop scene; however the UK scene might remain veiled to most of you. DJ Limelight, a DJ from London will allow you to discover and explore the London underground scene thanks to his interesting panel of UK hip hop artists.
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Wannabe Gangsters starts on a sarcastical note. It raises an essential question: “are you wannabe commercial gangsta rappers for real?” This song is built on balalaïka sounds combined with catchy beats while Archimedes spits his venom wth confidence. Track Nr 2 is indeed aimed at all the prankstas that spoil the rap game by pretending to be somebody they are not. real hip hop will strangle wannabes with no mercy, leaving them in a lyrical blood bath.
Soft guitar sounds gently mix up with rhythmic beats and incisive rhymes, introducing the third track entitled They Swear. Mr Drastick’s nice flow is highly enjoyable. Mr Drastick intentionally targets bigmouthed emcees who pretend “to swear and keep it real”, but whose behavior on the streets doesn’t correspond to what they actually pretend to be. Fakes keep running their mouths, but they don’t run streets where credibility has its full meaning. They Swear is intelligently handled, lyrically and instrumentally.
Soft violins contrasting with rapid beats introduce Ain’t No Issue, making you feel the dramatic dimension of the song;
Mega Red will draw the listener a dark picture of ghetto life: drugs, dramatic situations, a constant run against the clock, sticky and overheated situations…
Guitar sounds, rhythmic drum sounds in the background enlighten Nang Flows: get caught in the middle of an enthusiastic and intensive lyrical storm, feel the passion of hip hop dedicated emcees whose words pour down like heavy rain, fertilizing the universe of rhyming with their widespread imagination. Feel the passion while enjoying Python’s skills.
Don’t sleep on track 7, P Freestyle, an intelligent variation of P-wordplays that beautifully enligten Stylan and Lowkey’s talent. The attentive listeners will fully enjoy the contrasts and oppositions created by the words they spit; words are made to be played with. Stylan and Lowkey are the astute architects who manage to make sense while putting their words together while electric guitar sounds and rapid beats make the listener enjoy the musical word game for his ear’s highest pleasure.
I’d also recommend you track 11, Mindstate, an interesting Archimedes- El Palaz collaborating that exposes our world’s politicians’ big lies. The song ironically features Tony Blair’s bunch of lies. Politicians are professional liars, proof are dramas like 9-11 where Bush plays as much the role of a villain as Ben Laden. A clear mind cannot believe what one sees on the TV and what is written in the newspapers. Powerful men are trying to cheat people and it is up to us to open our eyes widely and to react against such mental manipulations. No contest State Of Mind is a powerful conscience opener.
More Fire: the title summarizes it well. Frantic Frank and Krasfmen will ignite the fire and lead you into a lyrically hot track. Let the words enchant you and enflame your heart and burn with passion until they turn into ashes and resurrect like a phoenix bird. Lyrical bullets coming from our emcees mouths would barely leave hip hop heads indifferents. The melody that goes with the words has some spicy salsa accents. Stand up and dance along to the song.
Also, don’t miss track 16. Piano sounds, keyboards and drums reinforce the atmosphere of beef and struggle. Picture thug life in the hood where the youth is “NWA influenced”. Harsh financial conditions, young people who are stressed out to pay the rent,moms living on benefits, minimum wage that doesn’t allow to get what you want: all this constant frustration can make your life a living nightmare. A hopeless youth is struggling to get out of the dirt.
Other themes that are talked about on the CD are the harshness of life in the ghetto, drugs, love and keeping dreams alive.
Stylah and Lowkey’s Window Shotter song is based on a 50 Cent Window Shopper sample.
Globally, the CD is a good piece of work that will offer the listener a various panel of different artistic styles. Most of them artists did a good instrumental and lyrical effort. Curious to know more about the London underground? Put DJ Limelight’s CD on your player and listen!
Copyright2006 by Isabelle Esling
All Rights Reserved

A recent prank has resulted in Eminem apologizing to one of Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends after the pair had a nonviolent altercation on a video shoot.
The rapper allegedly doused Kendra Wilkinson with water during a recent video shoot in Los Angeles for Akon’s song “Smack That A**.”
According to published reports, Eminem came out of his trailer during the video shoot and threw water on Wilkinson, one of the Playboy mogul’s trio of girlfriends who are featured on the E! Television reality series The Girls Next Door, which Hefner also executive produces.
Wilkinson’s agent told The New York Post’s Page Six column that Eminem came out of his trailer, “threw water on her and was really disrespectful.”
“He flipped out on her,” Wilkinson’s agent Jonathan Baram told Page Six. “She’s a tough girl. She didn’t take it, and they went at it, not physically but verbally.”
Wilkinson claimed in the Page Six report that the incident was a joke and that she didn’t want any controversy between her and the platinum-selling rapper.
A post on Wilkinson’s official Myspace.com site (myspace.com/kendrawilkinson) shortly after the incident but later removed, was widely circulated on the Internet and revealed more details on the incident.
“The reason for me doing the video wasn’t for the money, it was to make all my fans happy that I finally did a rap video,” the 21-year-old Wilkinson wrote. “We all know how much I talk about how much I wanna be in one…right?”
Wilkinson said she was accompanied by a friend to the video shoot, where she was greeted by R&B singer Akon.
After being greeted by the singer, Wilkinson wrote that she waited in a cafeteria for a number of hours (10) and was finally called in to do her shoot.
“We start by doing some warm-ups and I was dancing my a** off (literally) [because] it was my time to shine in front of David Banner, Lil Zane, and a couple other rappers and 100s [hundreds] of people,” Wilkinson continued. “Everyone was loving my dancing and makin me feel good. Then Eminem walks in the room.”
According to Wilkinson’s account, Eminem entered the room and was cordial. He allegedly said he was a fan of the The Girls Next Door, and had even purchased a copy of the Sept. issue of Playboy which, he sought to have autographed.
“Then we start doing our scene and everything is going good until we go on a break. I went over to sit on the couch to rest a lil bit,” she wrote. Wilkinson said she was talking to a “really nice guy” sitting next to her when Eminem walked in her direction.
“I smile and say ‘what’s up?’ He takes out a bottle of water and pours it all over me!” Wilkinson alleged. “There goes my makeup, there goes my hair, there goes my tears, and there goes my first rap video!”
Despite the incident, both Wilkinson and Eminem have agreed to leave the incident behind them.
The rapper sent a blooming bouquet to the Playboy mansion where Wilkinson currently resides, to make amends.
And while she may not hate Eminem, Wilkinson wrote that her 80-year-old-flame isn’t too fond of the rapper.
“Hef [Hugh Hefner] hates him now! So I lived and I learned right?,” Wilkinson said. “I will never do a rap video again unless its Three 6 Mafia, Too $hort, Bow Wow or Nelly!”

Rating: 4.5 stars
Strong drum and contrabass sounds, rhythmic beats in the background introduce the shadowed atmosphere of Obie Trice’s Wake Up song from the Second Rounds On Me album.
Too much blood has been spilled in Detroit and Obie’s song is a strong wake up call for violence to definitely stop in hip hop.
The hood is the place that gives birth to the greatest friendships, but it is also the place where bloody dramas spoil people’s lives on a daily basis. You are likely to meet the reaper at each corner. Drug deals, gang rivalries, a bad eye contact, nearly everything can get you killed.
Obie used to live in the streets as a teenagers; his words refer to real life experience. This is not a TV report, no sensation story from the tabloids: those are straight facts about the Detroit hood. Black folks are stuck in a destructive environment and there is no escape.
No matter how bad you want to get out of this dirty hellhole, no matter how famous you can get, the streets of Detroit can get you killed in no time. Death is part of the daily landscape and hip hop reports it in the music with a poignant sense of reality. On New Year’s Eve, last year, in 2005, Obie Trice was hit by a bullet in his head and fortunately survived to the shooting. His friend Proof was less lucky on April the 11th: he stopped breathing after being fatally shot by Mario Etheridge.
It is heartbreaking to lose people you have been hanging out with for years,people who mean much more to you than just another artist you are collaborating with: when Proof died, Obie lost a friend, somebody he used to be cool with and to chill with, a member of his street family.
Violence occurs, horrible dramas happen, but true soldiers gotta keep on struggling hard. Trumpet sounds reinforce the idea of heroism that is expressed in the song. A true soldier is not supposed to give up, no matter what happens.
Obie also expresses his gratitude to be still alive. Despite the dark elements drawn in Wake Up, Obie’s song is also an expression of gratitude and hope for still being alive. Moreover, it is a strong and powerful wake up call for people to realize that violence in hip hop needs to stop for the sake of the music.
Won’t you put your rivalries, problems, differences and conflicts aside and listen? Give the music the chance to become much more of a powerful tool of self expression through the beauty and poetry of its rhymes and place the value of human life above anything else.
Copyright ©2006 by Isabelle Esling
All Rights Reserved

We dreamers sometimes need to be confronted with reality. A reality check can be a harsh awakening. It is nevertheless necessary for us to realize that life isn’t only made of sweetness, but also of tough moments.
It is even funny to notice that when we lack things we considered as important, our mind gets hit when the only important and necessary details, automatically burying secondary things.
I have been through harsh situations. I have often lost courage, but I never lost faith. More strikingly, I realized that I might lose a lot of things, but I am nothing if I can’t write. Writing means the world to me. Not only do I consider writing in itself as important, but writing as a way of expressing myself, letting out my emotions, from happiness to rage. But writing would be vain without having a readership. Readers, you are as much important as the words that come out of my mind and spread on that page!
I am nothing without the music either. Even walking through the darkness is always softened through the music.
No matter how hard fight might be in the jungle, both elements- writing and the music- keep my mind balanced.
When you walk through the night, don’t fear the valley of shadow of death. You might face situations in which you feel you can’t trust anyone, where feelings of discouragement follow desperation. You might ask yourselves why God put you there.
Don’t worry: if God put you there, there is also a way out. The little burning flame inside of you will guide you out of the dark.
Reality check is the salt that prevents your mind from corruption.
Copyright ©2006 by Isabelle Esling
All Rights Reserved

I made some enemies when I spoke my mind after Proof of D12 passed away; I have watched people from the Bender say demeaning things about RIP Deshaun Holton, Eminem and D12…now the same bitches are suing Proof’s estate for the second time. My word to you bitches: fuck the Bender clan!
by Josh Grossberg
Aug 23, 2006, 10:25 AM PT
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
The family of the man gunned down by Proof during a nightclub altercation four months ago is suing the D12 member’s estate again after their first civil suit failed to pass muster with the court and was dismissed.
Keith Bender Jr., 35, was shot by the rapper moments before Proof himself was shot and killed by a bouncer.
According to the Detroit Free Press, the latest suit was filed Tuesday in Wayne County Circuit Court and holds Proof, whose real name was Deshaun Holton, liable for Bender’s death on Apr. 11 at the CCC club. Court papers cite the hip-hopster’s past propensity for packing guns and engaging in acts of violence evidenced by his very long rap sheet as cause for the legal action.
The tragic incident got started when the 32-year-old Proof, a close confidante of Eminem, got into a heated argument with Bender, a Gulf War veteran, during a game of pool at the Eight Mile Road nightspot.
Police cite several witnesses who claim they saw the emcee borrow a friend’s gun before pistol-whipping Bender and shooting him in the face. It was at that point that Mario Etheridge, the nightclub’s bouncer and Bender’s cousin, fired at Proof, hitting him once in the head and twice in the chest.
Proof died from his injuries later the same morning and was laid to rest after an extravagant funeral that included a horse-drawn carriage to transport his body and a remembrance speech from his “brother,” Slim Shady.
Bender was hospitalized in critical condition and remained on life support before succumbing to his injuries a week later. He was buried following a simple service attended by his family.
Etheridge, 28, surrendered to police a few days after the shooting and was charged with carrying a concealed weapon and for discharging a firearm in a building, but was not charged in the artist’s death after prosecutors determined he had acted in self-defense to protect his cousin.
In the aftermath, questions were raised among the various parties as to who shot first, with police and Etheridge’s lawyer, Randall Upshaw, pointing the finger at Proof. Toxicology tests later showed the rapper’s blood-alcohol level was 0.32, four times the state’s legal limit.
Michael Cafferty, a lawyer representing Bender’s relatives, said that Proof shouldn’t be lauded as a hero or martyr when “it was his own criminalistic conduct that not only led to his death, but took the life of an honorable, innocent man.”
Such suggestions were dismissed by Eminem and Proof’s legal eagle, David Gorosh, who called the charge “reckless.”
The latest legal action seeks unspecified damages. Attorneys for Bender’s family and Holton declined to comment Wednesday.

Violence, says rapper Obie Trice, can happen no matter how many albums you’ve sold or how high the profile of the company you keep.
“Anytime you’re in the heart of Detroit or in the city somewhere,” says Detroiter Trice, “anything can happen. Nobody is invisible to violence. I don’t care if you’re Michael Jackson or Will Smith. Nobody.”
Trice, 28, is speaking about the past year of his life. Inside of a year, he’s experienced a near-fatal drive-by shooting that left a bullet lodged in his skull and the fatal shooting of a good friend and fellow rapper.
It’s time for the violence to stop, Trice says. And it’s time, he says, for urban America to wake up.
On Tuesday, when his delayed sophomore album, “Second Round’s On Me,” is finally released, he’ll share his insider’s view of the carnage that he’s seen growing up and the violent reality of the last year he’s experienced in spite of success and fame.
A near-fatal experience
It was the early morning hours of New Year’s Eve, and Trice and his girlfriend were leaving Envy, a club in downtown Detroit.
They were driving in his white Range Rover — he refuses to tint his windows — heading toward his Farmington Hills home when an unknown shooter tried to take his life on the Lodge Freeway.
He’d just passed the Wyoming Avenue exit when the shots came from behind his truck, with one bullet hitting him in the back of his skull. Amazingly, Trice was able to continue driving and then exit the freeway in Southfield, his girlfriend flagging down police officers when he could drive no farther. She called his brother, Terry Wilson, who was in his car not too far from Trice.
Wilson, who also is Trice’s manager, remembers the night being icy, and he was in such a panic to get to where his brother was that he crashed his car into a tree. He hopped out and ran the rest of the way.
When Wilson got there, he was stunned.
Trice was talking to him and seemed OK despite his head injury.
“Unfortunately, a lot of us grew up in a violent environment. When you’re in the industry, it doesn’t go away,” says Wilson. “Me being a native Detroiter, I’m not shocked that people get shot. But because it’s my brother, I was shocked. We weren’t having problems with people.”
An ambulance took Trice to Providence Hospital in Southfield, where doctors released him hours later, saying that because of the bullet’s positioning, it was too risky to take it out. There it remains. Trice goes to Beaumont Hospital in Troy every six weeks so doctors can make sure the bullet doesn’t move to any potentially dangerous zones.
“As a hip-hop artist, you’d think you’d get into a violent incident outside of your hometown. So I was kind of upset that that type of thing happened to me at home and I’m a representative of Detroit,” Trice says, his Detroit Tigers cap tilted to the side.
“I felt a sense of invincibility at one point. I was scared to death at one point. Paranoia kicked in. I didn’t see anybody for a while. I didn’t leave the house. I felt blessed. I felt I was truly God’s child — it was a lot of different emotions that went on. Not too many people come back from a bullet in the back of their head.”
When Trice was preparing to leave the emergency room at Providence Hospital, a group of about 20 friends, including Detroit rapper Proof, was waiting to take him home.
He was released around 4 in the morning, and he and Proof, a member of D12, talked until around 11 a.m. about Trice’s shooting. They tried to figure out who did it and why; they couldn’t come up with a suspect or a reason. Eight months later, the case remains unsolved.
“The look on Proof’s face was a morbid look. When he saw me released, he was shaking his head in disbelief. He tried to figure out who had done it and we couldn’t come up with no clues. I don’t bother nobody. I take demo tapes, I take demo CDs. I call you back if I’m interested; I call you back if I don’t like it. I tell you the truth, what I feel about your music. That’s what you want me to do anyway,” Trice says. “I don’t tint my windows because I feel like I shouldn’t have to. I’m at home.”
Still, something bothered Trice about the conversation he had with Proof that night, something that he wanted to tell his friend, whom he had known since the late ’90s, when they were undiscovered Detroit MCs. “We talked for hours. I was telling him how I really don’t be in the clubs like that. And look what just happened to me. I said, ‘You be all over Detroit, every club … we just can’t move like that.’ He said, ‘You’re right, you’re right.’ Then like three months later,” Trice says, pausing, his head dropping, “Boom.”
A different approach to recording
Following his own shooting, Trice was traumatized, but he had been prepared to release his sophomore album “Second Round’s on Me,” as it was. He had completed recording it at the end of last year.
The label hadn’t begun pressing the disc, but with a lead-off single, “Snitch,” scheduled to hit radio and music video shows earlier this year, Trice was ready to face the world.
With “Second Round’s on Me,” Trice had wanted to take a much more personal approach. When he first announced himself on 2003’s “Cheers,” which sold more than a million copies worldwide, that album had a poppier, radio-friendly hip-hop edge to it. “Cheers” was more structured, he says, because he wrote down every word before he began the recording.
On “Second,” he rapped whatever was in his mind, eight lines at a time, and then he pasted the pieces together. This time he recorded first, bringing the music to Eminem’s attention afterward. Eminem, the Detroit rapper who heads up Shady Records, had made Trice the first solo artist signed to his label.
“I am the executive producer of the album, but I also produced about half of it,” rapper Eminem says via e-mail. “Obie did a lot on his own, and we just picked the best stuff together, mixed it down and put it with the records I produced. Even with this approach, though, I think it sounds pretty seamless for having multiple producers. That was our intent.”
Certainly, Trice had recorded a few danceable tracks, ready for the clubs and ready to be rattling the doors off someone’s car.
But he opened up a little, revealing more about who he is, where he comes from and what he’s all about.
“The album is about me. You get a sense of where Obie Trice comes from, where he’s trying to go,” he says. “I’m not just talking about how much money I got or how much ice I’m wearing. Not to say that there’s nothing wrong with that music, but I got something to say in my songs, something that urban America can feel.”
Tragedy strikes in Detroit
The news came to Detroit hip-hop insiders early on a Tuesday morning, and it quickly traveled around the world. Proof, who many thought of as the godfather of Detroit hip-hop, was dead.The rapper who was born Deshaun Holton was shot to death April 11 at age 32, after shooting 35-year-old Keith Bender Jr. during a dispute at an after-hours club on Detroit’s east side.
It was beyond surreal for Trice and Eminem, who counted Proof as his best friend.
Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers, and Trice went to the hospital, stunned.
“I just couldn’t believe it. I knew it was final. The lieutenant came out and told us it was final, and he was crying, and he said we could go back and see him back there. The room was like getting closer and closer, and it seemed so far away, and when I get in the room, dude is just laying there, like one eye half open, this towel behind his head and a sheet all the way up to his Adam’s apple, and really all you see is his face,” Trice says.
“Marshall is on the ground throwing up, basically. D12 in there crying, I’m touching his face, I’m crying, and his face is freezing. I grab his feet and his feet are barely moving, like rigor mortis is already setting in. This was like a few hours later. And you could see half his eye, and it’s like lifeless. It’s nothing. And I just couldn’t believe it. I just really couldn’t believe it. It was just like unbelievable, for real. I couldn’t even fathom it. Like … come on, man, you’re dead? You’re not dead. I didn’t sleep for weeks after that. For weeks.”
The next week, he was at his friend’s funeral, standing near the coffin, crying and speaking off the top of his head, much like how he designed this new album.
The words were just coming out, and he says he told the thousands who had gathered inside Detroit’s Fellowship Chapel, and the spillover pockets of fans who stood outside listening to audio, what was in his heart.”I want to talk to the black men in here that’s coming up in the hood, coming up in the struggle,” he said through tears back then. “We’re killing each other, dog. And it’s about nothing. Nothing. Nothing. We’re all dying. And we’re leaving our kids. Our mommas. Our grandmas. Over nothing.”
Shortly after the funeral services, just as a scheduled promotional trip was set to begin to push his new album, Trice decided to go back in the studio in Detroit. Eminem, the album’s executive producer, joined him.
Memories from that hospital scene, the funeral and the spiraling details of what happened that fatal night were fresh on his mind.
After being shot in the head and grieving over Proof’s death, Obie Trice shouts down the violence by speaking from the heart
“It took me back to what I went through. It made me mad. I wished I was there. I wished I could have prevented it from happening. I wished he was with me that night,” Trice says.
Additions to the new album
Trice’s life had changed since he’d last been in the studio working on the LP. It included his brush with death and the loss of his friend. He called Interscope Records, the parent label for Shady Records, and said he had a few things to get off his chest.
“Being in the studio and working with me, it’s not hard to get in that place, especially with everything that’s gone on with us,” Eminem says by e-mail. “I’ve always written from personal experience, and some of it naturally rubs off. We can’t always rap about how tough we are or how big our wheels are.”
Trice and Eminem added three new songs to the album: “Cry Now,” which Proof heard before he was killed, “Violent” and “Wake Up.” Originally, the album was scheduled to come out May 30.
“Wake Up,” which was inspired by Proof’s death, is like a lot of the other tracks on the album, largely describing urban blight. It’s one of the best songs on the album, but Eminem and Trice say they don’t plan to release it for the radio.
” ‘Wake Up’ is not really a traditional song at all,” Eminem says by e-mail. “There isn’t even really a chorus, just a long verse and a bridge. It’s not traditional for radio, but if they wanna play it, we won’t complain. It showcases Obie’s natural talent to rap fluidly for a long time with compound rhymes without getting off track at all.”
“Cry Now” deals with black-on-black crime, purportedly talking about how people in Detroit support Eminem, who is white, but someone would try to kill Trice, who is black.
“I made a couple of songs that I feel like us as black men, black youth, black people in general, we need to get past some of the senseless violence,” Trice says.
“I’m just a reporter for what goes on in the neighborhood and where I came from. Those are my roots and that’s what I go through and that’s what I’m going to always stay true to.”
Wilson says that after his brother’s shooting incident, Trice needed a creative release.
“He really had to vent. And as a writer and an artist, that’s how you get a lot of things out. It’s something he needed to do. He didn’t speak on it, he just went and did it. I don’t think he wanted to really deal with the situation, but I think he had to. I don’t think he wanted to put it out there,” Wilson says, “but that was his therapy.”
The death did more than startle Trice and others around him. It woke him up.
“I pray for my family. I pray for the people around me. I pray for the children around me. I pray to be successful at what I do. And I pray for the city. I pray for Detroit.
“I feel like can’t no other city come close to how bad we are right now. Everywhere I go, it’s like, ‘You’re from Detroit?!’ It’s this instant respect. Just because of the violence. It makes me like damn … violence is like everything right now,” Trice says.
“Give me a peace of mind any day. I’m getting older, I got a 7-year-old daughter, and I ain’t got time for that. I’m trying to look at 40. I’m almost 30, and I want to see what 40 and 50 look like. My father is 63.
“I remember having my vision blurred, and I couldn’t see past the hood and didn’t think I was going to make it past 25 or 21. I’m past that. I want to continue to live; have grandchildren.”
Contact KELLEY L. CARTER at 313-222-8854 or kcarter@freepress.com.

50 cent Get Rich Or Die Trying movie review
Rating: 3.5 stars
Despite the fact Curtis Jackson aka 5O Cent had disappointed me a lot since the release of his Massacre album, I decided to give him another chance and to watch his movie yesterday.
The movie was pretty good, despite a few weaknesses. In Get Rich Or Die Trying, Curtis Jackson will tell the viewer his life story and how he came into the rap game.
Picture life in the hood: a young boy named Marcus lives with his mom. Marcus’ mom is a pretty woman who is trying to give her son the best life she can.
Even at an early age, Marcus shows some real interest for the world of rap music.
People who lived in the hood perfectly know that surviving is a constant struggle and making easy money seems to be the only resonable solution when all the government has to offer are welfare and minimum wages salaries.
Selling crack is one of the most rapid easy money maker- as long as you are ready to take the risks that go with it. Selling crack might lead you to the next county jail in no time and it also exposes you to the many dangers linked to the drug dealers; Making that choice can put your life in jeopardy; Marcus’ mom consciously took that risk and would pay it the highest price.
Retaliation from a drug dealer would tear Marcus from his mom at a very young age.
Marcus experiences the great pain to bury his mom whose body has been found burnt down.
Marcus now lives with his grandparents in an overcrowded house. The young boy doesn’t want to live a life of misery like is grandfather and soon learns about the power of the money. Living dangerously seems to be his destiny and the money he gets from his drug sells allows him to live and dress comfortably. Marcus buys a gun to protect himself. He is only a kid, but he has to take the responsibilities of a man.
Marcus gets initiated with the harsh world of drug dealers and involved in vendettas with the Columbians. After several stays in jail, Marcus (the adult Marcus is interpreted by Curtis Jackson), will find the love of his life, a young girl who will become his baby’s mama.
Rivalries, traitors in the world of drug deals, his involvement in the rap game as an underground emcee and his offensive lyrics will put Marcus’ life in real danger. After robbing a rival clan and having one of their boys in ransom( the boy will be released a while afterwards), Marcus and his gang will make some real enemies. His girlfriend will receive some deaththreats from Marcus’ fake friend (who will be revealed as his mom’s murderer at the end of the movie.)
As Marcus crosses the road, he gets shot nine times. While being shot, the illusion of hearing his mom’s voice will save his life. The killer will miss his goal and shoot him into the mouth instead of targettig his forehead. Marcus’ family will drive their wounded relative to the hospital. Marcus died in the truck, but the doctors were able to reanimate him.
His near death experience and his several months little son will motivate Marcus to run his career as a rapper. Back to the club, his music gets played and enjoyed by his public.
However, his mom’s murderer shows up, trying to squash the beef in an hypocritical way and faking love towards his rival. The traitor will admit that he killed Marcus’ mom and Marcus’ manager will kill him with no mercy.
Marcus keeps walking, looking forward at a brighter future.
Weaknesses of the movie
The love scenes were not convincing enough in my opinion and it is mainly due to Curtis’ partner in the movie.
Strength of the movie
5O Cent exposes the poignant details of his life story. The movie teaches anybody of us great life lessons that we should be able to remember:
– you ain’t nobody without money: money is power, power is respect.
– no matter how low you fall, no matter how dark your situation looks like, your willpower can get you out.
Globally, 50 Cent showed some good acting skills and I enjoyed most of the movie.
I think it is worth your attention if you haven’t seen it yet.
Copyright2006 by Isabelle Esling
All Rights Reserved