In this episode of Unique Access, Soren Baker sits down with OG rapper and West Coast legend Big Tray Deee.
Tha Eastsidaz member explains why he named his new album The 3rd Coming.
“I am Tray Deee and Jesus was the second coming and he brought the truth and revelations,” Tray Deee explains. “I wouldn’t go so deep to say that’s what I am actually doing, but in hip-hop it is…because now you know it seems like all you need is a pretty active beat and a couple of repetitious phrases by the masses and there you go. Music is more cookie cutter now. It doesn’t speak into the totality of the artist anymore. Hip-Hop is all over the place it is about flossing as far as substance it really isn’t there anymore. What are you telling me about what I am looking at down the road, where did your struggle begin, how did you learn what you learned, and how can you teach me?”
The Long Beach, California rapper explains that his album is not an educational album, but that it takes you thorough different phases of his life and different times when he was thinking from a dark perspective.
“Now I have a lot more hope and faith because I have been through so much and I’ve returned and to be able to be a witness that you can survive adversities and still climb your way to the top,” Big Tray Deee explains.
One way Big Tray Deee has remained on top is by connecting with different generations of rappers. O.T. Genasis, who appears on The 3rd Coming selection “Moved Up!,” is among them. He saw the rising rapper performing one night when he was out with Snoop Dogg and Warren G.
“Months later, I asked my wife who would she want on her album and he was one of two people that she mentioned,” Big Tray Deee explains. “I reached out to him and expressed it to him and I told him I also would like to get collaboration. I have a lot of love and respect for him and I look at him like a little brother.”