In the final hours of 2005, Michigan rapper Obie Trice found himself in his Range Rover bleeding profusely and near death.
Moments earlier, the platinum selling artist had been at a nightclub and was driving home with his girlfriend along the John C. Lodge Freeway in Detroit.
“I was going to the club to meet the comedian Mike Epps because I wanted him to be on my album,” Trice said. “He had left the club, so me and my daughter’s mother decided to go home.”
A few minutes after the two merged onto the freeway, a vehicle pulled up behind them and a strange sound followed.
“It was just a whistle sound inside the vehicle,” Trice said. “Even with the radio up we could hear it. So we turned the radio down and I looked back and said ‘Oh ... that is a bullet hole.’”
What followed was a scene that is all too familiar with many residents of the Motor City.
“Right as soon as I said that, five more bullets came flying through the car,” Trice said.
One of those bullets struck Trice in the back of the head. Yet he continued driving.
“I tried to keep focused on the road and there was blood everywhere,” Trice said. “When I got to a specific area I became unconscious and my truck jumped the curb.”
Fortunately for Trice, the police happened to be in the area and rushed to the scene of the crash.
“They rolled up on me right away, smacking my face, keeping me awake and took me to the hospital,” Trice said.
He would eventually make a full recovery from the incident, but the bullet that struck him remains lodged inside his head.
“It was a blessing that it didn’t hit my daughter’s mother,” Trice said. “It changed my family. It changed my perspective on life.”
Fast forward nearly 10 years and Trice has not let the incident hamper his career.
The Set Up singer now has his own record label, Black Market Entertainment and he just released his fourth album, The Hangover earlier this month.
“I just wasn’t ready to quit,” Trice said.
On Saturday (Aug. 22) Trice will be performing at the Queen’s with Merkules and others as part of his Cheers to The Hangover tour, which promotes his new record.
“I am looking forward to it, you know. I always love B.C.,” Trice said. “I love the looks out there. It’s real peaceful.”The Hangover is the Michigan native’s first record since 2012. The album contains 14 tracks and features guest artists Young Buck, Estelle and others.
“It is a pure hip-hop album. I got some club bangers on there. It brings that essence of the hip-hop culture back,” Trice said.Story continues below
Above: Obie Trice's newest single, Good Girls.Trice's pathway into the rap and hip-hop world began when he was a young boy. He first started singing into a karaoke machine and became introduced to the hip-hop world by his older brother.
“I fell in love with the culture,” Trice said.
By the time he was a teenager, Trice was attending rap battle sessions hosted by D12’s Proof at the famous Hip Hop Shop in Detroit.
“That was my way of going to play basketball or hitting the YMCA or just getting my recreation on,” Trice said.
He explained that it was the birth of his daughter in 1998 that motivated him to get serious with his music career.
“When you have that first child it changes your outlook on things. I didn’t even believe that I would be around, let alone have a beautiful daughter,” Trice said. “I started focusing on the music and taking my hustle money and the things I was doing on the street and putting it into the studio.”
At the time of the shooting, Trice was in the prime of his career.
Two years earlier he rose to fame after releasing his platinum selling debut album, Cheers, which featured some of the industry’s biggest names such as Dr. Dre and Eminem.
Despite growing up in Detroit, Trice never imagined being gunned down, especially in his hometown.
“I was a little surprised that it happened when I was at the height of my career and that it happened in my own city,” Trice said.
The Detroit native is grateful to be alive and loves being able to perform to his fans on a nightly basis.
“Being in those intimate types of atmospheres where the actual fans know your lyrics verbatim, that is like winning a championship every night,” he said.
Trice performs at 8 p.m. Tickets are $30.
For more information, please visit http://on.fb.me/1OOjteu. You can also follow Obie Trice on Twitter @RealObieTrice.
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