What’s really good? Reach Records rapper Trip Lee’s answer might surprise you. On the verge of the release of his fourth solo album, the Dallas, Texas native talks with HipHopDX about The Good Life, passing LeCrae a mixtape that he subsequently believes was wack, the upcoming Unashamed documentary and his time at a breakthrough South by Southwest showcase.
HipHopDX: Tell us about The Good Life.
Trip Lee: The Good Life is my fourth album. It comes out Tuesday, April 10, and I’m really excited about it. It’s my fourth solo album. And with this concept of The Good Life, I know everybody has an opinion of what the good life is, especially Hip Hop. Hip Hop has very strong opinions about what the good life is. So I actually wanted to do a whole album where I actually challenge people’s ideas about what the good life is, and paint little snapshots of what I think the good life is, you know, what it means to actually live the way we were created to live.
I did that through a lot of different angles on this album. I got a song called “Robot,” where I say that I’m not a robot and I don’t have to be like everybody else. Basically, I’ve been freed not to live in light of lies. I have a song called I’m Good with LeCrae talking about how we’re rooted and we’re grounded in something deeper. All these different things I use to paint different snapshots of what the good life is.
DX: And there’s a video game for the “Robot” single, right?
Trip Lee: Yeah, we did a video game for “Robot.”
DX: And you finally beat the game?
Trip Lee: It’s a hard game, man. You would think it’d be nice and easy. That mug is a little hard. It’s fun, man. People have been enjoying it, and hopefully it brings home that “Robot” point.
DX: What do you hope people take away from this album?
Trip Lee: I hope that people walk away from this album with their ideas of what the good life is challenged, and I hoped they leave challenged by the way we were created to live in light of truth instead of living in the light of lies. You know, I can just remember thinking that the good life was trying to stack as much paper as I could, get as many females as I could, or whatever, then my eyes were opened to the truth. I don’t want to live in light of those lies anymore. I actually want to pursue what I know is true. I hope it challenges people to live the way we were created to live.
Read the rest of this interview here: http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.19332/title.trip-lee-breaks-down-the-good-life-meeting-lecrae-in-2004
