- Every song that's about the hood,
is about bad, like you just dying.
Niggas is just dying, getting shot and getting popped.
That's not all that's happening, man.
It's happening if you live that life.
But there's people in the hood that's not gangsters
that live in the hood because they can't afford.
They live regular lives.
Their kids go to school, they got jobs.
So it's lit.
It sucks sometimes but we still find ways to make it.
It is what it is.
What inspired like Trenches,
like really was seeing my life,
walking outside and seeing kids play,
seeing cars drive by, you know, you have the car,
keep playing, seeing fights,
seeing regular stuff in the hood.
Like, yo, this is everyday life,
but we all still happening.
People can get their windows shout out,
but somebody down the block having a cookout,
it's going to happen, you feel me?
Like you ain't about to shut my day down.
If you look at the glass is half empty,
that's how your life going to be, half empty.
But you see other half full,
you gonna have a half full life.
What sound better, half empty, half full?
It's all about perception, my boy.
Perception, my boy.
When the song came, I felt like Polo G
was perfect for the remix only
because he has a youthfulness and he from the hood too.
I gave my version.
I want somebody that really just left the street.
You feel me though?
Put you put your stank on it.
Like, let people feel how you feel.
And I just wanted to be like a good and bad.
A Batman and joker or good and evil type shit.
You feel me?
The intro to Trenches to me was just like,
it's like a mantra to repeat to yourself, like,
no matter what happens in your life,
bro you're going to come out of it.
And you got to go through the bad
to appreciate whatever good you're going to get.
If you never go through a struggle,
how can you accept the blessing?
You're gonna be spoiled.
I don't want to be spoiled.
I want to know what bad feels like
so when my good comes around,
I can harness it and hold onto it that much more.
I know it may not come again for a little while.
And that's what that's for.
We all experienced pain.
We have our struggles, how you come out of it.
You wanna stay in your bullshit
or you wanna get out your bullshit?
You got to choose.
It's all about optimism.
Bro, like if you already in a shitty situation,
you got no choice but to be optimistic.
Like you have to be one or you're going to kill yourself,
trying to fucking stress over something you can't control.
I love people that can turn something negative
and horrible into their blessing.
I love people that can go through something like,
you know what, ain't gonna break me.
I'll be okay.
It takes so much more strength,
I think, to be angry, or to be jealous,
or to tell somebody its their fault.
It's way easier to sit back and like,
you know what, let me just fix me
because you can't fix nobody else but yourself.
People can say they love you all day,
but it's not no love like opening front door
and your kids run to you.
Like that's a different kind of love,
when they jump on you, almost tear your clothes
and your jewelry off because they happy to see you,
or you get that kiss from your wife
and the food's already ready.
Like what the F?
Like you don't get no better than that, bro.
Like, there's nothing better than
to come to something that's yours, that you can work with.
Somebody who gonna work with you, bro its fire.
I love going home, bro.
When we done with this, I'm going home bro.
If you live in the midst of shootings,
gangs and bullshit, yes you can have a great life,
but you better be ready to strap, fight or run
at all times.
And that's all the song is saying like, bro,
you can make your positive, your negative your positive,
but don't forget that still negative inside your positive.
When you see kids going to school, come home from school.
When you see the mailman just doing his job.
When the kid come, ask cut your grass
for five, 10, 20 dollars, stuff like that makes me smile.
Like yo, I still see normal stuff
in the midst of all this bullshit we got going on.
I can step outside in my little bathrobe,
grab my mail and you feel me,
but I'm in the hood though, you feel me.
Like niggas out here and doing some crazy shit.
But we gotta smile to the mailbox
because I aint get shot on the way to the door.
So we lit, you feel me, baby?
Get the stove up, let's get some good breakfast.
So if had to paint the picture of a cookout
in the hood, first song you gonna hear is,
Whoa, you make me happy.
Once that come on, all the kids,
y'all come here and dance, y'all.
Show me that little dance you did last week on YouTube.
Come here.
All the kids doing all the newest dances.
You got uncle with the biggest plate
he ain't trying to share.
He did took the first big piece of chicken.
He did took all the sausage links,
boy did took them buns.
You got your aunt over there upset at him
cause he ain't make her plate.
Then you got two cousins that's ready
to smoke weed and get high.
It's probably me and my cousin, we would get high.
Ready to leave the god damn cook out
but grandma's watching.
So you gotta be on the slick shit
and I be playing basketball, freeze tag.
Cookouts in the hood is fire.
- Until about 7:30 and that's when
the hood niggas is upset cause them all fools.
Now it's time for dominoes, dice, cards,
guns, fights, and somebody gon fuck somebody's baby mama.
I learned that, you know, things isn't always what it seems
and you don't need type of thing on TV.
When I got married,
I wanted to make a whole bunch of music
about popping bottles and fucking bitches
and jewelry and cars and cools
and I'm that nigga and duh, duh, duh, duh
but it wasn't easy for me to obtain in the real world.
But when you see on TV every rapper
got cars, clothes, bitches.
We living different lives, bro.
People will watch something on TV
and want to mimic what they see on TV.
Not knowing that I probably got to have this for free.
This was a gift, gift. I didn't pay for this shit.
But you worked your real job
and spent $900 on grills to be like a rapper.
Everything aint always what it seems, bro.
Don't be nobody but yourself.
I'm a regular ass.
I got on fucking Lacoste, bro.
I ain't got no Margiela, Balenciaga.
That's not me. I'm myself.
I wanted to list a role of something
that happens in every household.
Maybe not the same household,
but it's happening in various households.
There's father that's ready to take care of his kids
when the mom aint around.
There's a mom that's taking care of the kids
and all their kids is gambling when dad's not around
and that's in each house,
this is what's going on in your neighborhood.
It's a spider web of events that happen in the hood
that coagulate so well together
that we can't understand why or how,
you feel me, but it makes sense.
And I wanted people to understand like,
this shit's happening in your neighborhood right now.
These people that you that are fathers or mothers
or sisters or brothers are going through real shit
and still have time to say how you doing.
Look at the hood.
Everybody that lives in there, has to.
You don't have a choice.
You don't have enough money to go nowhere else.
If you ask somebody in the hood like yo bro,
would you want to live to the good neighborhoods,
have a better life?
They'd be like hell yeah nigga, right now.
I don't have no clothes, no bag or nothing.
It could have been a kid who's a genius,
if he would live anywhere else, he'd have been studying,
going to school, doing his thing.
But he live in the hood, so you ain't got no choice.
You're not in a school that much
cause this nigga that on your block
saying you go to school, they gonna beat your ass.
Or you walk past certain neighborhood
they gonna beat your ass.
So now you gotta fucking try to reinvent
what you are and you have to embrace this hood shit.
Do you fight or do you flight?
Not even just as African-Americans,
but as people live in the hood,
because everyone live in the hood.
The had the fucking choice of fight or flight
damn near every day, it's annoying.
You gonna get tired of flight.
You're going to fight no matter what,
because you tired of running.
That's the shit that sucks in the hood.
You could be the best civilian, the best neighbor,
the best everything and you still might
get hit by a stray bullet on the block.
You still gonna get robbed.
Bad stuff still can happen.
It does not matter,
but that does not mean you stop being
the person you want to be.
If you conform to the hood, you ain't helping.
If you see somebody you know that you can probably talk to
like, yo, calm down, like dah, dah, dah,
and you don't, you're hindering, bro.
Nothing is going to be laid out for you
when you live in the trenches,
you can do your best to still not make it.
- So I put it at the end of the first version
and the second verse to add emphasis
to what I'm trying to say.
You can do whatever you want if you believe it.
I believe in God, my whole life.
I didn't believe in me too much, but I believe in God.
And that's where I fucked up.
I was supposed to believe in both of us together
cause he's helped me become who I am.
We are one person.
Every time I say something, I don't know what this is.
It happens. There's a power in your tongue.
I believe that I can be somebody in the industry
that changed some shit, that shook up the foreground,
that can be here for a little while.
I really believe that, so I'm going to work for that.
Every interview I give you everything
that I'm supposed to give you.
I don't come here and get you slouch and lazy.
I got a show, I'm running around the stage.
I'm sweating doing what I'm supposed to do.
That's how much I believe
because I'm going to give you everything I got
so my belief can come true.
But if you believe and you don't do shit, what's the point.
And I think people that have nine to five still
and go to work and I respect them so much more
than somebody out there selling drugs
because the end of the day, you got to listen to a boss.
You gotta do this.
It's a lot of different variables in a job life
that niggas in the street can't do, you feel me?
Like you could sell drugs, one day you can stop,
or you can keep going or some nigga
on your block popped, it's over,
or whatever the case my be.
But when you're working a nine to five,
you have to support your family with that job.
You got to deal with certain shit
and I love people that can go to work
and come home and still take care of their family.
That shit is fire to me.