Trip Lee Speaks on Jay-Z's 'God' Title, Lupe Fiasco's Concepts & 'The Good Life' Album
Like Nas, Trip Lee is living the good life. But their respective versions of the experience are vastly different. The Texas-born rapper's material isn't centered on popping bottles in clubs, smoking weed with his crew or being surrounded by women with dollar signs in their eyes. Lee's lyrics follow a path that is more in line with the man above's vision.
The Reach Records signee released his fourth studio album, The Good Life, in April, scoring a No. 17 chart position on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of over 22,000 units. He earned himself the accolade of having the second highest charting Christian hip-hop album of all-time. Not bad for a project that doesn't feature collaborations from rap staples like Lil Wayne, Drake, Young Jeezy or Rick Ross.
Read on as Trip Lee explains how his lyrics differ from other MC's in the genre, why Jay-Z, who's one of his biggest influences, should be careful about using the "God" reference in his work and why Lupe Fiasco's "out-of-this-world" concepts intrigue him.
The Good Life, your last album, came out in 2010. What's different from that project to this one?
With this particular album I wanted to -- this is my fourth album, my first album came out in '06 -- so I'm always trying to grow and get better with each album. I never want to give people something I've already given them, I wanna give them something new, you know? So the people who've been enjoying my music for years, I hope they continue to enjoy. It's getting better and better. And on this one, each of my albums has different themes, so this album I wanted to actually challenge some of the ideas we've sold about what the good life is. Everybody kind of has their own idea. Hip-hop has
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