“My burden is to describe things as precisely as I see them.” – Ta-Nehisi Coates

Trae Tha Truth is all smiles inside Wire Road Studios. The 35-year-old rapper is busy walking around, shaking hands and offering embraces to anyone who would ask. He wears gold on his hands and around his neck like an Egyptian king, motions at times for a few runners and street team members clad in “THA TRUTH” T-shirts to partake of the food and mingle.

Wire Road is almost like home for him. He banters with in-house producer Issac “Chill” Yowman, a noted producer in his own right, before peering outside. He doesn’t let his feet rest for more than a couple seconds before shuffling back inside the secondary control room where his new album is being played. When he speaks, everything stops, all eyes on him.

“Aye, I’m glad my brother Bun B could make it. This nigga held me down through a lot. Salute to you, my brother,” he motions towards Bun B, who snuck inside the studio’s control room. The building has hosted many a listening session within its walls but none of them have garnered this amount of reunion, of familiarity. Bun nods his head, offers a salute back to Trae before posing for a few pictures.

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The album features a wide name of artists, some nationally recognized and respected such as Future, J.Cole and Boosie Badazz to regional slappers such as Problem, Que and Snooite Wild. The tenor of the album rides right in line with previous Trae albums: the gritty breakthrough of Restless; peerless poise of Life Goes On; his 2003 debut Losing Composure. He narrates over songs such as “Children of Men” and “Book of Life” with a pitch-perfect gravel tone. No matter where Tha Truth twists and turns for happiness, there’s the shadow of a bleak reality right behind it. It’s a world that perfectly describes Trae, a benefactor to many who sees pitfalls more often than not.

It has been said on numerous occasions that strange circumstances follow Trae Tha Truth around. From his Southwest Houston upbringing to the ebbs and flows of a rap career that made him a citywide and regional legend. He’s watched his eyes sink low behind black shades, his body hit with bullets in shootings and thrown through a political hardship that left him inside under Iran like sanctions from conglomerate radio. Yet, he’s smiling.

“My reason for making music is to show you that, ‘Shit, you got it bad? I done been through way worse and I’m still here’,” he tells me days later. Although we don’t speak at the listening session, he calls me the next day while on the road to Dallas. He’s put together listening sessions for Tha Truth, his long-awaited Grand Hustle/ABN debut album, all over the country. There’s a session in Atlanta later in the week, same for Chicago and Milwaukee, something Trae admits that has messed up his sleep schedule completely. Once Trae Day is over, he’ll hop a flight to catch an interview with New York-based Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club. In short, his main consumer fan base all over the country is getting a taste of the album — a project that has been, in his words, 1,300 songs in the making.

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“For Everyone & Everything I’ve Lost…Imma Make Mine Proud” — Trae Tha Truth

Heartbreak and triumph have met Frazier Thompson III at almost every corner. Born on the third of July, 1980, he was brought up on the Southwest side of Houston, constantly moving to the Northwest side and back. To him, growing up in Southwest Houston in the ‘80s gave way to the usual cast of characters: your robbers, your killers, your drug dealers, your athletes, your jackers, everything.

“I’ve been everywhere,” he says. “Damn near every hood in the city has embraced me. I’ve been around, a neutral cat. I was younger than a lot of cats and I ran with a lot of the old heads so a lot of youngsters automatically looked up to me because I was next to some of the legends that people love.”

His record as a rapper is almost unblemished, a collection of street tapes and albums that have catapulted him to being known as one of the city’s more unmistakable narrators. Gifted with a gravel, almost hard scrabbled voice, he’s double-timed his way to registering classic tapes since 1998’s Guerilla Maab debut, Rise all the way to 2013’s I Am King mixtape. He’s shaved his head, packed on weight, become a doting father to his boys (one of which is named Houston) and weaved his way through the headlines for an assortment of situations, most of which have had nothing to do with him.

On November 27, 2011, hours after Thanksgiving, Trae’s right-hand man Dominic “Money Clip D” Brown was shot to death outside the Southwest Houston club Breakers, a death that gutted the entire local community. “He was like a brother to Trae,” Trae’s publicist Nancy Byron said of Clip D’s death. “When you saw Clip, you saw Trae.”

When sirens fell outside the Diamonds Gentleman’s Club on June 21, 2012, three people were dead and multiple people including Trae were injured following a shooting. Two of the victims, Carlos Dorsey and Coy Thompson were affiliated with Trae while a third victim, Erica Dotson was merely getting the rapper’s autograph. While Money Clip D’s death has remained unsolved, the shooter involved in the deaths of Dorsey and Thompson has been charged with capital murder and is awaiting trial. Yet despite the tragedy, Trae quickly says he refuses to dwell on it.

“I don’t even want to let people bring negative shit up,” he says bluntly. “I’ve had that black cloud over my head for way too long. People may consider me a superhero because of it but that’s through God. Deal with it head on, ain’t no sense in running from it.”