5 gold stars if you can tell me who these two guys are. or if you can tell whether or not they are the same person.

ALLHIPHOP.COM "TRU YORK" MIXTAPE REVIEW

Tru York (Mixtape)

Artist: Tru Life/J-Love
Title: Tru York (Mixtape)
Rating:
Reviewed by: Rodney Dugue



This is a pretty cute mixtape, cover and all. Well, that's if lime-green hyper-extended male thongs are your type of thing. Sure, the added linen strips and the blonde wig and any horrifically placed couture alignment make for a gussied premium whore. But, perhaps the pageant belongs to LES spawned rapper Tru Life. A careless, ruthless designer by rhyme, Tru Life schemes up ugly, unbelievably dirty fashion to play dress-up with his favorite crew, the Dipset. It's a lot of purposefully mismatching and often credulous rhymes, but it works, as slander always does. Fashion designers are put to shame, but it's great for his mixtape, Tru York hosted by J-Love.

Terrible fashion aside and ignoring all the playful skits ("In Dem Jeans," "Max B Phone Call," "Hip Hop 101 Gameshow Interlude" to name a few) Tru Life has an intolerable animosity and an irascible disposition against anything that looks wrong and you guessed it, those boys from Harlem define wrong so conveniently, "Takin' pictures of jewelry stores like you robbed me, that's not gangsta, that's the hoe-est sh** I've ever seen."

He increasingly relies on seething logic to settle his temper, "I got about 100 chains, some belong to me, some don't," he fumes. It’s a journey in overkill, if you like, but it’s not all about the Dipset; "I Hate Rap" is another politician’s would-be campaign about the innate violence rap engenders, but Life answers to himself with a fine rebuttal, "Look at the facts/Before rap, the jails were packed with Latins and blacks." The beautiful sparkling intro features Jay-Z bursting his swagger in ounces of crushing ad-libs. Other fine moments include "If You Want To" supplemented by fist-tight, airy synth bubbles provided by Cool And Dre and "Family Portrait" an open assessment of his life.

This mixtape is an embarrassingly mocking mannequin that works as an excellent imitator, but not as a true independent. For all the talk of self-righteousness, Life does a lot of trying to blow out his own bonfire, appearing flabbergasted when it explodes in his face, my chain took/I ain't with all that/Hundred thou[sand] for the n****/With the picture of that."

Dipset, in the end, is the star of Tru Life's raps. Tru York is a strong product, even after the entertainment value winnows down and the ghosts of Dipset cede away. Without Dipset, this mixtape is flat and far from funny, but let's save that for another mixtape or better yet the album.

www.xxlmag.com

Monday, February 5th, 2007

Tru Life
Tryin’ Ta Win

Tru Life has cooked up his share of beef in the past few years. Now he talks to xxlmag.com about his recent shots at Harlem’s Dipset crew and why he feels it’s bigger than rap.

Posted In: Features, Main Feature

Interview: Eskay
Back in 2003 hip-hop fans were introduced to a young New York City rapper by the name of Tru Life. Unlike most up-and-coming New York rhyme slingers, Tru’s introduction didn’t come by way of a mixtape or a guest appearance on a more seasoned MC’s album. Instead, we first met the Lower East Side rider on a straight to DVD documentary called Beef, where Tru was having problems with Queens duo Mobb Deep. The appearance on the DVD didn’t do much for Tru’s rap buzz so the aspiring MC spent the next two years in the New York underground rap scene before resurfacing with a vengeance in 2005 as the newest signee to Jay-Z’s Roc-La-Familia imprint.

Fast-forward to now, 2007, and the young gun is embroiled in a very public dispute with his former street associate Jim Jones of the Harlem Diplomats. Tru has also been busy preparing his solo album debut release and recently dropped Tru York, his latest mixtape with J-Love. The tape balances strong concept driven music mixed with scathing disses aimed at Jim Jones and company. XXLMag.com linked with Tru to get the scoop on his static with the Dips, his major label debut and why the hip-hop police aren’t a concern of his.

Your new mixtape, Tru York, has New York buzzing right now.
Yeah, I think people just wanted to hear the truth. A lot of people realized they were being lied to and they’re tired of that. They want the real. There’s only so long you can pull the wool over people’s eyes, you smell me?

So you have a history with Jim Jones, right?
Yeah, I know the broad very well. He’s a disrespectful little girl. He has no respect for hip-hop. He has no respect for himself. He’s not a humble individual and he’s just not a good person. It’s not even about being gangster, he’s just not a good nigga. He’s on TV all the time, with the ice grill, with the hairy face trying to portray this gangster-killer image. That’s not me. I run around smiling. I’m a righteous individual. I don’t run around with that whole aura of trying to be the biggest killer in the world. I think that’s the biggest misconception with me.

Niggas felt threatened by me and by my movement, the whole New New York movement. I felt it was time to step up and tell these niggas to stop being scared, be yourself. We’re not Bloods, that’s not what New York City does. We don’t get crunk, that’s not what New York City does. We can play their music and support the South with their crunk movement because that’s their shit. We can embrace it because they’re making moves in hip-hop right now and I like what they’re doing, but I don’t like when we gotta go and steal from the South and steal from the West and steal from everybody and stop being ourselves.

So that whole beef started after you started to speak out and Jimmy felt like you were talking to him?
The media started to tell Jenny Jones that I was dissing the broad. And the streets started to tell him that I was dissing him because he’s really the face of all that shit like going on TV and putting rags on rims and doing all the extra stupid shit and going out of his way to look gangsta. Niggas started to tell him. He started to see me have some success and we knew each other very well. I personally put bullet proof vests on the bitch nigga’s back. I protected him when he was in need of my services of needing a real nigga to stand by him and hold him down because he couldn’t go to Harlem. The nigga is a chameleon. He turns every muthafuckin’ color. He’s a fraud, he’s a bitch and he felt like I was dissing him.

So why not just ignore him?
I’m not that ignoring type of nigga, man. I’ve been sitting back here biting on my tongue and I’m the type of nigga that really wants to slap him in his face. He’s a hoe nigga. I know that it ain’t no beef. They know it’s not no beef. They was just trying to come up with some fake shit to sell records. They know that and we know that but the little fans who are 16 years old don’t know that. The fans out there are confused and sometimes these niggas be believing shit that they hear and sometimes a nigga gotta step up for what the fuck is right and not be scared and ride out. I’m a revolutionary nigga, man. I feel like this is what I was born to do. I’m gonna speak the truth and whoever don’t like it, fuck it. I know what I’m coming with is a righteous movement. I know I’m a godly person and I know there’s no evil shit in my body. I know I’m standing up for what’s right for the children and for our communities, so it’s whatever, man. I’m willing to die for that.

But you don’t exactly make church music yourself.
I don’t make church music. You know why? I done lived this life my nigga. I’m from the streets. So it’s like, they wanna be gangster, you can’t come at these kids in a preachy kinda way because then it just flies over their heads. So if you come at them in a way where they can relate to you, then you can feed them the meat and potatoes. It’s like I said in a record, “I’m the spook who sat by the door, holding my breath/drop knowledge and get overlooked like Mos Def.” You smell me? I also don’t make songs called “Crunk Movement.” I also don’t represent no fucking gang. I also got a name called Tru Life, which stands for The Righteous Uniting Everybody Living In a Fantasy Environment.

I came across a picture of you on the Internet holding some Dipset chains.
Did you? I don’t know, $19.99 will get you a wallet size with your favorite rapper’s chain on. I’m not an angel my nigga. I made plenty mistakes but I’m just man enough to admit when I’m wrong.

On one of those skits on the mixtape it kind of sounds like you were getting at Lil Wayne.
Who? Weezy Goldberg? Man, tell that little bitch to stick to hosting the Apollo. Don’t come over here with that, nigga. You’re trying to come up nigga, running with the pink banging bunnies, thinking them niggas got New York on smash or something. He got to be kidding me. Go work on Sister Act 3. Everything Jay do, he was trying to do. It’s a joke. Everybody can see that. The nigga is stupidly influenced by Jay-Z. He just wanted to sign to Jay-Z, and the next week you gonna dis the man? Come on man, you gotta be kidding me. If you wanna get your ass spanked, get in line, I’ll spank you and your daddy. Send him this way, man. Them boys kissing each other on the mouth…

This whole conflict with Dipset is pretty public. It’s on radio and everybody is talking about it. With recent events such as the murder of Busta’s bodyguard and the Fabolous shooting, are you worried about catching heat from the hip-hop police?
It is what it is. What am I supposed to be scared of? I don’t understand, like what kind of problem would they have with me? Like me getting locked up, them arresting me? For what? I’m not scared of too many things nowadays. I feel like I’ve been through worse. I’m a nigga who came from the bottom and has been stepped on and I’ve been through all the mud so it’s whatever man. I’m standing up for what’s right, and these niggas is standing up for what’s wrong. Niggas just thought that a nigga like me wouldn’t get heard. They think I’m at the bottom of the pole and, “Oh, Jay ain’t fucking with that nigga,” and that’s why niggas is bugging when they heard Jay on the intro [of the mixtape]. I don’t know what niggas thought. I guess they thought Jay had me on the shelf or something like that. Hell no, I was just dealing with my own little personal issues and taking time to make great music.

You mentioned Jay. With his new corporate family-friendly image, do you think that the escalation of this beef on the street is something Jay should be concerned about?
Awwh man, this is my thing: ya’ll been fooled. This is not a street thing. These niggas is not street niggas! You think we feel our life is threatened by them? I’m more worried about a fan getting misconstrued by their lives and the shit they put out then them. Them niggas don’t pose no muthafuckin’ threats! Jay is not worried them and I’m not worried about them.

So how’d you link up with Jay?
I met Jay through Green Lantern. Snoop Dogg had discovered me and I had like six or seven deals on the table and me and Green Lantern were working on a mixtape. So I told Green that I was getting ready to take one of these deals, man, but I felt like I really wanted to be on a New York label because I felt like the movement was so big for New York. So I was talking to him about Jay and he was like, “Would you really wanna be over there with Jay?” And I was like, “I won’t lie. I wouldn’t mind meeting the nigga and I think that I would really love to be on Def Jam. It’s a legendary place in itself.
So he was like, Man, before you sign one of these deals, let me go over there.” And he went over there and presented the shit to Jay. Jay flipped out and the next day we did the deal. I told him Snoop was the one that found me and was fucking with me and I owe it all to the big homey from the West Coast. So I brought the homey Snoop in to executive produce the album with my nigga Jay-Z.

When can we expect the album?
Probably like by June. I still need time to warm this shit all the way up. Get ready, man, Tru Life album on the way. It’s gonna be revolution. It’s gonna be gangsta. It’s gonna be a lot of shit. Tru Life, a bugged out individual who got his own identity and who is a little bit all over the place at times, I must admit. That’s just the nature of man. I don’t know one perfect man walking this earth. I’m even gonna contradict myself at times and if you point it out, I’ll be like, damn I did!

streets illustrated DVD


tru-life putting dipset in their place (snitchset)


from bossip (DIPS IS OVER)


the picutre man in action (shouts out to the COP SHOP RECORDSHOP)

ALLHIPHOP.COM FEATURE (JAN 2007)

Tru Life: Teach the Babies
By Paine (ALLHIPHOP.COM)



As Hip-Hop fans debate on New York’s return to the marketplace, 2007 will deal out several fresh faces. While Young Jeezy and Rick Ross have succeeded in strong debuts under The Carter Administration, Def Jam readies its homegrown talent Tru Life. With platinum pressures increasing, some already know this Lower East Side talent for reasons outside of his bars and hooks. As Jay-Z kept a tighter lip on the jabs from Cam’ron and Jim Jones, it was Tru Life who was outspoken against Uptown’s brightest stars – drama that Tru says, goes much deeper than music, labels, and bosses.

While the beef sizzles, listeners may be overlooking the talents that Tru Life has to offer. As his latest mixtape Tru York City makes its rounds to consumers, this artist says that the hood needs something more than manufactured gangster rap. Whether he’s writing songs that are living wills to his fans, or appearing sandwiched between Jay and Nas on “New York Takeover”, Tru Life assumes responsibility in polishing the rotten apple that so many out of towners have bit from. Read why this MC believes it takes street credibility to gain access to the minds of Hip-Hop’s orphaned children, and just what he intends to do once he has them.

AllHipHop.com: How does it feel to be the most-talked about rapper in New York without an album?

Tru Life: It feels like a great thing, man. I feel like a blessed individual. It’s been a long grind for me; I’m a humble soul. It’s under crazy circumstances, but it’s a blessing.

AllHipHop.com: What do you mean “crazy circumstances”?

Tru Life: Circumstances, as far as, everybody’s talkin’ right now ‘cause of the drama. I got a mixtape out now – it’s crack, it’s hot. I got a lot of hot records on there, but the drama overwhelmed it and the situation in a way, you know what I’m sayin’?

AllHipHop.com: When you talk about drama, do you almost wish it never happened – for the simple fact that your diss records get way more attention than your conceptual records?

Tru Life: That’s exactly what I mean. So I know, in a second, when this calms down, and they start to listen to the tape, they’ll realize that there are some great records on there. Everything on there wasn’t a diss record. I didn’t have to go that route. I’m in the music business, I just want to make music and feed my family, I’m a musician.

AllHipHop.com: Because of this, do you think newer artists will shy away from beef when they see what it’s done to you and the pressure that it’s probably caused you?

Tru Life: I hope they do, ‘cause the beef thing is wack. I don’t even condone to doin’ it. It’s been a part of Hip-Hop forever, like KRS-One, LL Cool J…I was just with LL Cool J yesterday, chattin’ with him about this. I guess it’s good for Hip-Hop in a certain way, if you keep it Hip-Hop, ‘cause that’s in the history. I think the situations can drift off and get ugly, and turn into somethin’ else – not a good thing. I never really wanted to do this. I don’t think these new artists should be comin’ at established artists, tryin’ to talk about people that have 13, 14 albums out, to try to get a name. To me, that’s really corny.

That’s not really why I wanted to get at them [The Diplomats]. This was a personal thing between me and Jim [Jones]. We have a personal thing. He’s done a lot of things that I haven’t even mentioned to the world. People are thinkin’ I’ve said everything. This actually gets way deeper, we’ll see how far I really wanna take this. He’s done some things I don’t really wanna mention. Like, the kid has done some really foul things that a good person wouldn’t do. Forget about being a gangster, forget about being crazy or a thug – just a righteous individual, a good individual wouldn’t do. He’s done things that a snake person would do – just foul. It’s more than Hip-Hop with me and him; it’s personal. That’s almost why I didn’t wanna do it, because it wasn’t Hip-Hop. But then he started to play games, do certain things, and say my name in interviews, and I don’t know what he was thinkin’ about even doin’ that. Just the disrespect he was doing to Hip-Hop – disrespecting Jay-Z and disrespecting Nas wasn’t helpin’ me. I just had enough of it at one point and was like, “Okay, I’m really gonna have to take my belt off and show these dudes, man – and spank ‘em and give them a taste of their own medicine.” He was trying to use that come up – as a tool. That same tool might come back to haunt him.

AllHipHop.com: You bring about an interesting point about being a good person and righteous individual. People look at somebody like Tupac in those frames. In a New York Times article in 2005, you reportedly tried to convince Jay-Z of your charisma to get signed. You were signed. To what level do you think you’re a good person?

Tru Life: It’s weird when people look at me…not that I’m not…but somewhere down the line, there’s a misunderstanding. It’s like, they saw Beef, and saw me or heard about something crazy I did – and just look at me crazy. Certain individuals saw the end of Beef and saw what I said, and said, “Damn, he seems kinda honest, kinda real, kinda humble,” and saw the good side of me and respected that. Once again, the beef thing overshadows the records. It’s a gift and a curse – ‘cause the people I really wanna speak to are people that in the hood, poor people, the suffering, the oppressed people, the people that are starving, the people who are living wrong and need guidance, the [orphans], the kids that’s mom is shooting heroin and his pops is in jail. To get to them, they all wanna be gangstas. They’re all caught in this gangsta era. They’re not looking at the good side of Tupac, they’re looking at the rowdy side of Tupac. They wanna be the 50 Cent, Tupac, and even Jim Jones. These young kids are brainwashed by this era of this whole gangsta rap s**t, and they wanna be like it. They look at me like that already. They lettin’ me in to talk to them. I gotta come at them in a way where they can relate to me, understand me, and feel like they’re just like me so that they can sit down and listen to me. ‘Cause if you just talk to them very intelligently, it’s gonna fly over their head. If you’re too hard or too soft on ‘em, it just flies over their head. Then you end up gettin’ the Mos Def crowd – which is not a bad thing. To this day, I love Mos Def, I’m a fan, he’s dope – but I think his messages fly over the hood.

AllHipHop.com: You’ve been doing this for a while. I don’t think Common is flying over the hood. Maybe it took Kanye West beats to bring him back, but “Corners” was directed to the hood. I know what you mean though. But when do you think that the hood couldn’t take those messages anymore, or was it corporations selling them something else?

Tru Life: I think there’s a lot people out there… it’s not that they’re not smart, it’s a lot of people suffering. There’s a lot of sick people out there, chemically imbalanced kids in the street that are not all the way there. I ain’t gonna blame it on Tupac, but he seems to be thee most – he’s one of my favorite artists of all time, I love Tupac. I think a people will try to chase and do what he did. I think they really trying to be like him. I don’t know if they really looked, ‘cause I see a positive man, when I see Tupac. I don’t see a negative guy that they’re trying to portray. They’re trying to bite what he did, and just doing it in a wrong way. Somewhere down the line, all these kids are trying to be thugs and gangsters. To me, when I seen ‘Pac do it, I saw him doing One Nation, bringing all his people together. I saw him being a revolutionary. I didn’t see him as a Blood, I saw him as a revolutionary. I saw him trying to invade the gangs and try to get the gangs comin’ together. I see a bunch of kids out here, trying to claim gangs in New York City, portraying a certain image to the kids. Hip-Hop is raising our children, man. That’s why I made “I Hate Rap”, ‘cause there’s realities in saying we are raising these kids; we’re their fathers. Rap is saving n***as’ lives, man. It’s taking hustlers off the street and giving people jobs. Both sides got a strong reality to ‘em.

AllHipHop.com: Scratch Magazine recently suggested that to bring New York back, you’d be best to work with New York mainstay producers like DJ Premier, L.E.S., Buckwild, and others. How does that measure up to the actual lineup as of now?

Tru Life: Actually, it’s totally the opposite, man. I was having a hard time, that’s why my album was taking long. When I first envisioned what I wanted to do, I wanted to get old New York feel with a new twist on it. I can come up with concepts, ideas, ill lyrics, but I don’t do beats. It wasn’t that I wasn’t liking what I heard from the producers, it was just that either it was a real old sound – a sound that won’t really rock today. It’s hard to be a new artist from New York City when New York ain’t really that hot. I felt like to bring it back, it’s gotta be somebody new, somebody fresh, a fresh, new sound. I had to go another route. I don’t really have too many Southern-sounding tracks. I got one track with [Young] Jeezy and Rick Ross that I did. Snoop Dogg executive produced my album, so he brought a lot of different influences to the table – that big, live instrument music. I got the grimy New York feel in it too, with Just Blaze, Swizz Beatz, [and] Neo Da Matrix. I think it’s a pot of gumbo.

AllHipHop.com: In between you and the label, there’s the DJs. How much do you feel them pushing you forward and helping you bring out your best?

Tru Life: When you do any kind of art, and somebody appreciates it, it’s a great thing. Whether it’s a DJ – even more when it’s a DJ, ‘cause they’re the most important. Without a DJ, your music can’t get heard. You need them to get it out across the country. It’s easier when you’ve got somebody who’s been puttin’ out tapes for 10, 20 years, and they’ve got a certain outlet, certain fanbase – they’re giving you their crowd. When you have somebody like a J-Love or a Green Lantern who really believes in you, it’s a blessing. A lot of people don’t give enough credit to DJs as they should. I miss the days when rappers had DJs. I want to bring a DJ into Tru Life – like Rakim had Eric B, like Run-DMC had Jam Master Jay, Rob Base had EZ-Rock. What ever happened to them days? I wanna go back to givin’ probs to the DJ. “Tru Life and such-and-such”, where I can rap about my DJ being the coldest DJ in the world, letting him scratch and cut – keep it 100% Hip-Hop.