He's Got Jokes

10/12/2003 7:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Billy Johnson Jr

Even the straight-faced, hard-edged rappers, who only rhyme about surviving street life, have to laugh when listening to Obie Trice's "Got Some Teeth." In the song, the Eminem protégé, who also hails from Detroit, jokes about the big risk in getting drunk and engaging in a one-night stand: You could wake up next to an ugly, toothless hag.

The comedy route is working so far from Obie, whose debut album, Cheers, sold more than 200,000 copies during its first week of sale. He was introduced to the hip-hop world during the spring of 2002, when Eminem gave him a shout-out while dissing an electronica artist in the same breath. In the song "Without Me," Em rhymed, "Moby, you can get stomped by Obie." At that prompt, Obie appeared onscreen in the video and body-slammed a dummy resembling the techno DJ. The tag made the perfect set-up for Obie's own album.

When LAUNCH's urban editor Billy Johnson Jr. sat down with Obie more than a year later, Obie stressed that he actually loves Moby and would never lay a hand on him. The new Shady Records MC also explained his balance between comedic and serious rhymes, his first impression of Eminem, working with Dr. Dre, why he doesn't go by a stage name, and exactly what prompted him to write the hilarious song "Got Some Teeth." Read on...

LAUNCH: In the song "Cheers," there's a line about how you're getting the chance to speak to the world. What does it feel like to be in that position?

OBIE: The mindset to "Cheers," or being able to speak to the world, is crazy for me, 'cause when I first got started, for me to be able to get on D-12's album, I didn't know how to handle that. It was the best thing in the world, like being drafted into the NBA. I am lucky, but a lot had to with grinding and working my music. But definitely I know it didn't have to be me, and I know that I'm blessed to be here in this position. So I'm just going to run with it and take it day by day, and never forget where I came from. 'Cause you know, I could have easily been a plumber, 'cause I didn't have no school education. I could be locked up, or I could be dead right now. So, I definitely something I plan on progressing to the next level with this music, and staying around.

LAUNCH: What's you philosophy in terms of mixing up your lyrics? Some are more street, while some are more humorous...

OBIE: I feel like the super-most gangster of the gangsters has to smile sometime, and have fun. So I'm going to show my personality, but I'm not buying no sh-t, and I ain't taking no sh-t from nobody. So if you want to bring it, we can handle however you want to bring it. But I like to laugh, and I like to talk about deep things that some dudes don't touch. Eminem, being that he's an artist, gives you the freedom to be an individual. That's what I like about the [Shady Records] label.

LAUNCH: So what's one of the things that you get to talk about that other rappers don't or won't touch?

OBIE: I talk about silly sh-t. I mean, I take it to the club, but I talk about my mama, I talk about my daughter, I talk about how when I was growin' up in, my mother just couldn't handle it, and I look back and I was just one bad-ass little n-gger. I let the world hear my story. And some people don't get that personal to me; some rappers do. I respect the music where you can get deep, getting down and dirty with what you're trying to say. My album is just a rollercoaster kind of album. It's not one particular direction. I just got in there and wrote what I felt at the particular time.

LAUNCH: Is there a particular song that's about your mother?

OBIE: Yeah, it's called "Don't Come Down," and she nearly came to tears when she heard it. My boy's mother cried, 'cause you know I'm bringing them the truth. Everything on my album is true. There ain't no made-up sh-t about this album. But my mama liked it: "Thank you, my little motherf--ker," you know what I'm saying?

LAUNCH: You say you get deep, but ironically, I read an article where you said that you think that some rappers put too much personal information in their songs. Can you talk about that a little bit?

OBIE: Certain things that relate to the streets, if you're talking about it on your record, if this is something actual factual--what's really going on--or if it's a story, you have to differentiate the difference. I wouldn't put myself out there like that. If I did something like that, scandalous, where the law can get involved...I mean, that's hanging yourself!

LAUNCH: Can you talk about before you hooked up with Eminem, how you weren't that familiar with Caucasians?

OBIE: I'm from the hood, and I ain't never really seen no white people. That's just the bottom line. So when I got there, I really didn't know how to connect. It was a growing process, you know what I'm saying? It was just like, if you deal with certain type of people in your environment, that's what you're used to, that's what you know. It takes a minute to adapt to something different. If you're used to working at a blue-collar job and you get a white-collar position, it's going to be a struggle. You going to have to go home, you can't hang--you got to get yourself prepared for the next day. You're literally taking steps walking, pacing yourself: "OK, I'm going to go in the door this way and I'm going to say, 'Hey buddy.'" You know what I'm saying? It's a training process, and then you figure out that people are people. All people bleed just like me.

LAUNCH: So what was your impression of Eminem when you first met him? At the time, he was blowing up.

OBIE: It was the art of it: I took his first album to the hood and he was just brilliant to me. And I thought, "I can really do this sh-t. If he can do it, I can do it." The first time I heard the first album, it was the dopest thing that had happened in a long time. And I took it to my neighborhood and dudes were not trying to hear that sh-t. I literally had to make my homeboys listen to that sh-t. Listen to what he said. Listen to his wordplay. Listen to his delivery. Dude was like, "Get that white-boy sh-t out of here." And then The Marshall Mathers LP--boom! That's when people like, "Obie, be bring that sh-t around here forever." That inspired me to keep it moving.

LAUNCH: How did you come up?

OBIE: In my hood, they always used to call me an a--hole. Like, I do certain sh-t that piss people off. So I just flipped it and used it. I stepped right in and wanted to make an album.

LAUNCH: Can you tell me about the song you do with Dre and Eminem?

OBIE: That was crazy to me. I was like, "This is my first album, and I got Dr. Dre on a song with me!" That's real respect, right there. And the song is bangin'. Then Eminem doing the hook. This is it, you know what I'm saying? All of this back-and-forth on this record, when we see each other, we handle it accordingly. But I ain't got to be back-and-forth with these dudes on the record. I'm trying to grow as an artist on this music tip and staying around. That's what I'm about.

LAUNCH: You have other aspirations as well, right?

OBIE: If I can get with somebody who's into the screenwriting thing, I would like to get off into the screenwriting thing. I don't want to be an actor; I'd rather be in the background making movies, behind the scenes.

LAUNCH: What is it about screenwriting that interests you?

OBIE: I always used to write short stories; when I was in school, that's the sh-t that I got down on, writing. I used to get B's, A's for short stories, while the rest was D's, F's. So I think I can be creative like that and take it to the next level, with the proper tools and with the proper people who can guide me in that direction. Just give me a minute--I'm telling you it's a done deal for me.

LAUNCH: Tell me about your influences.

OBIE: They was the ones: Kane, Biz Markie, Run-DMC, Cube, N.W.A., Biggie, 'Pac, Jay-Z...all these dudes were influential. That's all I listen to, is rap music. I ain't got no other music than rap and R&B. That's probably why I ain't got no woman. I'm strictly hardcore hip-hop. I be like, "Bitch, shut up, shut up!" and she be scared. I'm just f--king around. But it's cool. The hip-hop--Big Daddy Kane, all the dudes from the old-school--I listened to them and they got me going.

LAUNCH: Why did you name your album Cheers?

OBIE: You know what? I was just going through that like, "Damn! What the f--k am I going to name my record?" I knew I wanted to talk about where I came from and the things I went through, but I couldn't come up with nothing. I'm just sitting at the bar one day, and I go "Cheers" and sh-t, and I'm like, "That's what I'm going to name my record, f--k it." It's a celebration of me being here. A celebration of the people that I've lost, the lives of the people that I've lost, and it represents beer and sh--t, the bar.

LAUNCH: What have you learned from the people at Shady Records?

OBIE: I learned a lot. I seen a lot. I thought that you just go into a studio and boom, make a record and you go off onstage. Seeing them dudes go through their interviews, it ain't sh-t to me, but D-12 is like, "Man, I hate this sh-t." Like, "I'm tired." I'm like, "How can you be tired? You can be either doing this or you can be back on the block." It was just like that to me. They're like, "Your turn going to come, dog, you'll see." But it's cool. I wake up sometimes and be like, "Damn, I got to do press at 8 o'clock in the morning," but, it's cool, that's what I do. So watching all those albums just upped my game. Seeing how these boys do it, feeding off them. They feeding off me. It was just something.

LAUNCH: Can you talk about the karaoke machine you had?

OBIE: That was just a toy that my mother had bought for me when I was young, 'cause I always wanted to rap, so she went and got it for me and I used to stay in my room and like, we had this old record player and I used to take the mic of the karaoke machine and put it at the speaker of the record player to dub an instrumental of the record and then record my vocals on another tape with that instrumental over it. That sh-t was crazy, just doctoring it up. It was just something that she got for me, and it got me here today.

LAUNCH: What kind of songs were you making?

OBIE: I had a song "I'm Only 13," which was about doing grown sh-t when you can't. I remade a couple versus the symphony old-school sh-t. I'd just do songs, whatever I was feeling.

LAUNCH: Tell me about the song "Got Some Teeth," which used to be called "My Favorite Song."

OBIE: It was like 4:30 in the morning, and we was in the studio--me, Em, and the engineer--and we were like, "What this hook going to be?" 'Cause I had the lyrics already down...the song is not about sh-t, he's just jumping around in a club, and we blasting the song, we were f--ked up, and it was 4:30 in the morning and we're laughing and sh-t, and I'm like, "Yeah. this is my favorite song." Then I'm like, "That's the name of the sh-t," then I start putting it together. We was freestyling, and the engineer dude was like, "Yeah, and I hope she got some teeth." And we were like, "That's it!" We put that together right there, just like that.

LAUNCH: Tell me about being mentioned in Eminem's "Without Me" song--the line "Moby, you can get stomped by Obie."

OBIE: "Without Me" I felt was a good plug at that time, but me and Em still didn't have the time to work. We didn't really work until after 8 Mile and all of that sh-t was over, and when 50 Cent was about to drop. So it was like, he was so busy, "Without Me" was a brilliant plug for me. That sh-t took off. People know the know the name but they can't place a face with it, but it was cool for him to think of that. And I love Moby--I don't know if it's his real name--'cause it rhymes with the name Obie. I would never put my hands on you Moby, ever. But that was dope. The whole thing about that was dope. It was a good buzz, a good plug for me.

LAUNCH: You have a song called "No Rap Name." Tell me about that.

OBIE: I figure this is me, f--k it. Back in the day, my rap name used to be Obie One. I used to go to the Hip-Hop Shop when Proof from D-12 used to host it, and one day I rapped and he was like, "Yo, what's your name?" And I said, "Obie." He's like, "What's your real name?" I was like, "Obie Trice." And he goes, "Yo, that's what I'm going to introduce you as for now on, on the mic." And it just stuck with me--this is me, real name, no gimmick.