Last week I sat down with Trae tha Truth, who is always giving back to his community. His efforts have been so great that the mayor of Houston recognized him by officially granting him his own day, Trae Day. But for almost a year now, Trae has been banned from his hometown’s local radio station. Below, we discuss what happened and how it has affected him, his relationships with other artists and promoters, and basically his whole livelihood. According to Trae, if any artist in Houston is even seen having a meal with him, they get banned from the station as well. The trial is scheduled to start August 16, and it’s something we should all pay attention to. I hope they can resolve this. It’s one thing to ban an artist’s music but it’s another thing to try to ruin their entire career, especially someone who has been more active than most people in the community. Some people might think airplay is not such a big deal, but there’s nothing like hearing your song on the radio and having the support of your local station.

Trae tha Truth discusses Trae Day and how last year’s event was successful until everyone was leaving. Some young kids started squabbling and shots were fired. Unfortunately, when he was on the radio the following morning, the host stated that it’s because of the type of people Trae brings out that things like this happen. The host continued to “shoot her little slugs on the air,” and in response Trae insulted her on a mixtape by calling her a fatass.

“Long story short, for one they banned my music. They shooting out texts and emails not to play my music, don’t play no remixes with me, don’t say my name. My son was just born, they had a picture of him on the website. Make sure you snatch down all the pictures of anything to do with him, like on some kiddie sh!t.”

Trae explains the affect his ban has had on his livelihood. DJ’s on the radio station can’t play remixes that feature him, they can’t say his name, and even outside of work they can’t do mixtapes or affiliate with Trae in any way. Other artists can’t mention Trae’s name during interviews or they get banned as well.

“At the end of the day they don’t owe me nothin I don’t owe them nothin. It’s like, the station got people in a catch 22 situation. There was a rapper down there who was on the station and he gave me a shoutout. He was like shout out to Trae you know, I don’t agree with the ban. So you know I just want to shout him cuz thats a real n*gga. And he got banned, and the person who was interviewing him, he used to have a 5 hour show now he got a 2 hour show…Somebody played a Chamillionaire song with a verse of mine on it with me and Pimp, it was a remix, and they actually got terminated for that. A DJ did a mixtape outside of work, he got suspended a week and a half. A DJ actually said he played my music in the club, he just don’t do it in the station cuz he got bigger people to answer to, he got suspended a week and a half. As far as promoters, when they go to do shows, like say if you want to book me for a show you ain’t allowed to say my name or play my music, so now it’s to the point they’re trying to put promoters to the point where you can’t book Trae. I think one of the craziest situations was Bun had the Houston for Haiti, he reached out to me to headline the Houston for Haiti, where we use each one of our names to get all our fans in there and instead of them paying for the show you just make a donation, food, clothes water, etc. and he reached out to them to get them to put me on the commercial with them because every artist has a different fan base, so you know the more the better. But what end up happening was they told him no they wouldn’t say my name. I end up showing up anyway, just me being the cat I am, showed up with 100 big caseloads full of water…you supposed to overlook any of this you have people over there dead and going through it. Right now it’s to the point where anybody affiliated with me they get shut out.”

Trae talks about artists from other places who have been supporting him and taking him on the road, including Lupe Fiasco and Drake. We address the good he’s done for the community, like his Angels By Nature campaign:
[audio:http://angelayee.mystagingwebsite.com/audio/Trae_Last_Break.mp3]