My Gut Reaction: Obie Trice - Bottoms Up (April 3, 2012)

Obie Trice III, a couple of years removed from his, er, voluntary removal from the Shady Records roster, released his third full-length solo album, Bottoms Up, in the spring of 2012. Sticking with the theme of getting blackout drunk that all of his projects’ titles have followed (including his actual third “album”, the MoSS collaboration Special Reserve), Bottoms Up finds our hero trolling the streets of Detroit looking for problems, women, and, as I’ve noticed after having listened to this album roughly a year ago but am just now writing the opening paragraphs for this review, an explanation as to why he was treated so poorly by the Shady/Aftermath/Interscope machine.

Not entirely certain he’ll ever get an answer for that.

Trice started in the Motown underground, striking gold after having impressed fellow Detroit rapper Marshall “Eminem” Mathers enough to warrant a recording contract. Jumping to a major label straightaway did wonders for the man’s confidence, in that he saw it as proof of his value to our chosen genre. He even managed to sell more than five hundred thousand copies of his debut, Cheers, literally striking gold at a time when people still bought CDs on a regular basis. But with the failure of his sophomore effort, Second Round’s On Me, Trice found his career in limbo: although he found the support system he required in both Eminem and Em’s own boss, Dr. Dre, there was nothing coming from the actual label. Promotional efforts had long been discontinued for Obie Trice, as though Interscope had lost faith in their artist.

Which, of course, they had, since Trice wasn’t exactly blowing up the charts like Marshall’s other major signee at the time, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson.

So Obie took the only action available to him that allowed him to maintain his dignity: he requested a release from his Interscope contract, walking away to form Black Market Entertainment, an interesting choice of name considering how Dre had wanted to call his post-N.W.A. label Black Market Records but couldn’t, due to another company already owning the name, which led us to the Death Row Records we all know today. While our hero still takes issue with Interscope’s Jimmy Iovine for his forced resignation, he seems to harbor no ill will toward Marshall nor Andre, which is a smart move on his part, since going at those two directly could only lead to spontaneous career failure. Both Dre and Em even gave the man beats for Bottoms Up, although the vast majority of the project is handled by relative unknowns, not simply because Trice wanted to use his third album as a way to showcase lesser-known talent, but because he likely just didn’t have the money to pony up for A-list production values.

Obie Trice recently pled guilty to a gun charge for an incident where he drunkenly, if inadvertently, shot his girlfriend’s son in the groin during a domestic altercation that caused his arrest during the holiday season in late 2019. It’s strange going back to read through my notes, trying to reconcile Trice’s attempts at boasts and bravado with his real-life actions, although, obviously, I don’t know all the details. But I think we’ll all agree that it’s best for me to trash Bottoms Up independent of the man’s personal affairs, because the music is what matters on HHID.

1. BOTTOMS UP / INTRO

A combination of a rap album intro and an actual song, two extremes Obie Trice vacillates between as the monotonous Dr. Dre prescription, which he was apparently allowed to keep after the separation from Shady, plays in the background. The two verses are among the weakest I’ve ever heard from the man, which concerns me about the project as a whole, but the “introductory” part wasn’t bad: although he sounds like he’s paying lip service to the folks at his old label, he still thanks his fans in a fairly heartfelt (for hip hop) manner. But can the goodwill he’s gained from his prior affiliations carry him through Bottoms Up? That’s what we’re here to figure out, dummy.

2. GOING NO WHERE

My feelings of concern run through Bottoms Up’s first real song, “Going No Where”, on which a pretty good Marshall Mathers instrumental is forced to participate in a group project with some asinine verses and a ridiculous chorus (one that at least explains why the word “nowhere” is split in two in the track’s title), and the beat decided to do all of the work just to make sure the group as a whole receives a decent grade, because the beat knows those other motherfuckers will fuck up its GPA otherwise. It would appear the days of Obie Trice being an alright rapper, one with technical proficiency and workmanlike tendencies behind the mic who was still enjoyable to listen to on occasion, ended shortly after “Cry Now” was first recorded. Sigh.

3. DEAR LORD

“Dear Lord”, fake Dr. Dre-esque K & Square beat and all, sounds like it should have been the first actual song on Bottoms Up, as Obie Trice spends his three verses reminding listeners of his allegedly violent nature outside of the studio and warning adversaries not to fuck with him, and all that seems like the perfect fodder for a proper reintroduction to the man, am I wrong? Trice’s bars are delivered in a matter-of-fact cadence, which doesn’t ever translate to “overly entertaining” here since the never-changing loop underneath his vocals imitates some of the more generic prescriptions Andre ever had the gall to affix his name onto after, I don’t know, Scott Storch or Mel-Man finished them up, and the man himself seems to lose interest in “Dear Lord”, his third verse only running half the length of the two previous. This was certainly a song, all right. Unfortunately for me, the mere title isn’t an apt descriptor of my feelings toward the track, hence the lengthy paragraph.

4. I PRETEND

I’m not sure who the vocalist is that provides the hook, but the performance is hilariously awful and over-the-top. Obie uses “I Pretend” as a way to waste three verses boning imaginary girlfriends, which is already a little bit weird and incel-like, but he then spends the outro running down a list of celebrities he’s like to pretend to fuck, and this recitation of his spank bank is just fucking awkward, even if you have personal crushes on any of the women mentioned. Thankfully, “I Pretend” isn’t a decent enough song where one has to pretend to give a shit about it, so you two can easily go about your merry way. Also, Obie caps the outro by saying the album’s title out loud, which makes me believe “I Pretend” was once sequenced as the final song of the project, which, honestly, would have made a little bit more sense, really. Because by that point the listener wouldn’t really mind outright silliness, right?

5. RICHARD (FEAT. EMINEM)

It isn’t a new phenomenon for Marshall Mathers to completely ruin a song with a shitty cameo verse: why, here’s an example that happened way back in 2012 on Obie Trice’s “Richard”, a Statik Selektah-produced exercise in extreme misogyny and outrageously dickish behavior (not for nothing is the song titled “Richard”) that wasn’t very good to begin with, but the presence of our host’s former label boss discovers heretofore unknown depths in mediocrity. Statik’s instrumental isn’t boom bap-esque at all, a surprising choice that ultimately tanks the listening experience for me, and our host’s two verses are middling at best. But motherfucking Eminem, a man who loves the sound of his own voice almost as much as his daughters, layering internal rhymes atop internal rhymes like he’s building a Dagwood sandwich, sucks all of the life from the song with a truly shitty, asinine, violently sexist, multi-syllabic mess of a cameo that makes me question if I ever actually liked the man’s music in the first place. (For the record, the answer is “yes” – in fact, Em and Obie still have at least one collaboration in Cheers’ “Lady” that is essentially the same song as “Richard”, but sounds much better.) I get why our host would use Marshall’s name to drum up interest in Bottoms Up, but fuck, man.

6. BME UP

There’s quite a bit to catch up with on “BME Up”. First off, Phonix Beats’s faux-Dre prescription merely reminds listeners of the major label support our host once had in his back pocket, but also serves as a peek into the man’s limited worldview, where securing a Dr. Dre beat, regardless of quality, was considered a pinnacle of success, as though Obie Trice had never listened to any other rap artists in any region ever. (That statement obviously isn’t true, but at the same time, explain why Trice absolutely had to keep the Dre beat he kept hidden from his former boss for the intro to Bottoms Up. I’ll wait.) Our host’s crooning during the hook also mimics his former labelmate 50 Cent’s shitty singing voice, which could trick the listener into believing this song was a leftover from the Shady hard drives. Which is honestly can’t be, since “BME Up” is literally all about Trice’s vanity label, Black Market Entertainment, on which he is the only artist signed, apparently, as he is the only motherfucker to appear on here. Whatever. “BME Up” approximates the type or radio-friendly gangsta piffle Curtis Jackson and the G-Unit Players managed to sneak onto playlists nationwide, and I understand why Obie Trice felt the need to release something accessible to promote his business venture, but as a rap song, this was dull as shit.

7. BATTLE CRY (FEAT. ADRIAN REZZA)

Without a doubt, the best part of this song comes in at the very beginning, when guest Adrian Rezza, sans context, sings the phrase, “Battle cry!”, before even getting to his, um, battle cry. It made me laugh, anyway, which is a good thing, since the rest of “Battle Cry” is faux-inspirational horseshit. Obie Trice seems to be under the misguided impression that he still should have hit it big (well, relatively speaking) without the Eminem co-sign, as though there aren’t several other Detroit-based artists who could outperform him at the drop of a hat. (*cough* Royce da 5’9” *cough* Danny Brown *cough* almost every single Michigan rapper except maybe Big Sean and definitely Kid Rock *cough*) The instrumental, from Lucas Rezza (Adrian’s brother, with whom he forms the duo 80Empire) leans heavily into self-help mode, and Trice isn’t convincing enough an artist to prove to the average listener that he is capable of overcoming adversity on a regular basis. This was just bad.

8. SECRETS

Yet another entry into the catalog of songs where rappers use women as sperm receptacles and little else takes a turn that, believe it or not, is somehow even more misogynistic than everything that came before it: on “Secrets”, our host brags about being your girlfriend’s side dick until he gets sick of her talking about her actual man. What the fuck? I’d think that’s something that shouldn’t concern Obie at all, unless he’s seeking out a real relationship, which, judging by this terrible K & Square production, he most certainly is not. Trice merely comes across as a dude who doesn’t know what he wants, foregoing happiness by choosing instead to pass the time by inserting his penis into as many ladies as possible, and based on “Streets”, he doesn’t deserve to be happy, either. True fact.

9. SPILL MY DRINK

In keeping with what has become the theme of his overall career, drinking and (apparent) alcoholism, “Spill My Drink” believes the titular phrase to be interchangeable with “stand in the way of my dreams”, which is a reach, but Obie Trice commits to the bit, which I can respect. This NoSpeakerz production finds our host drinking himself into a reflective state, contemplating his past while questioning both his present and future, which is a fine concept for a rap song (and for Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol), but Trice doesn’t quite stack up to the subject matter. Although he gets in a bit of disturbing imagery while admitting that he tries to block out the memory of his mother’s many boyfriends visiting the family home while he was younger, his most blatant shot at a “serious” song misses the mark, and not just because the chorus sounds too close to that of Jay-Z’s “Regrets” (among other tracks). The beat is also at fault here. A remix could clear up some of these underlying issues, though,. Think about it, Obie.

10. SPEND THE DAY (FEAT. DREY SKONIE)

Apparently our host is the type of person that does things in a very precise manner: when he raps about spending a day boning whoever the fuck his love interested is supposed to be on “Spend the Day”, he very literally means using up no more than “one thousand, four hundred and forty minutes with you, baby.” So that was silly. This NoSpeakerz production, however, isn’t bad, rating amongst the finest Bottoms Up has offered up thus far, so while it’s a shame that it was wasted on ridiculous sex raps, at least Obie Trice isn’t trying to take anything seriously here. Guest crooner Drey Skonie’s hook isn’t the most memorable, in that I honestly couldn’t describe to you two anything about his performance, but it could have been worse, I guess?

11. PETTY

Utter garbage, but a puzzling, whimsical type of garbage, as Obie attempts to branch out to a wider audience by dropping multiple brand names and celebrating materialism over a shitty, radio-ready instrumental. If you were to look up the word “miscalculation” in the dictionary, well, you wouldn’t find this song, because it’s still quite a strain on the animators’ wrists to include sound files in a hard copy page of text, but maybe in the online version, sure? “Petty” was, if you haven’t yet picked up what I’m tossing aside, fucking terrible. And yes, I may be playing right into our host’s hand by sounding so “Petty” about this song. So be it, this shit is bad, and Obie Trice is bad for having made it in the first place.

12. MY TIME

It’s pretty obvious to me that Obie Trice recorded “My Time” after having just listened to fellow Motown spitter Danny Brown, because, I mean, listen to the song. You’ll hear what I’m talking about. Pity that the clout-chasing hasn’t resulted in an interesting song, however. The Geno XO instrumental is pretty mid, and our host’s three verses traipse throughout the music while listing the various reasons why he believes he should be the next household name out of Detroit even though he’s no longer signed to Shady Records (a topic of discussion that Obie brings up a lot on Bottoms Up) – it’s as though he felt he was wronged, but kept trying to convince himself of an alternate version of the story so he would feel better). “Mr. Michigan” Obie Trice surely isn’t, at least not on “My Time”.

13. UPS AND DOWNS

An unsettlingly bouncy instrumental that sounds like something Eminem surely would have tried to talk his former employee into using sets the stage for “Ups and Downs”, a song on which Obie Trice dissects his hatred for anyone that dares to deliberately obstruct his road to success, whether they be former peers, gold-digging opportunists, or anyone on the executive side of the music industry, although the chorus betrays him, revealing that his contempt is mostly aimed at “hos”, whom he doesn’t “trust”. Sorry ladies, but if Obie Trice doesn’t think enough of you to not lump an entire gender together like that, any chance of a blossoming romance is shot, regardless of how he might have felt on “Spend the Day”. (Also, if you’re a man with effeminate qualities as defined by our host, he doesn’t trust you either, as evidenced by the jarring homophobic comments during the first verse that sounded out of date even by 2012 standards.) Only the third verse is mildly interesting, as Obie takes a potshot at famed industry head (and BFF to Dr. Dre) Jimmy Iovine while dismissing the work of A&R’s in general, admitting that it’s rather difficult for artists to turn a profit with their projects but blaming the labels for not allowing enough time for albums to find their audience before labeling the artist (read: “Obie Trice”) a failure. He’s clearly got some issues he’s trying to work through here, and who could blame him? But he can do that somewhere else, because “Ups and Downs” sucks.

14. HELL YEA

Quite possibly one of the absolute saddest fucking songs I’ve ever heard. Not because of the topic at hand – Obie spends this audio track talking about why he shouldn’t be counted out just because of the lack of major label backing to guide him in his quest. He’s mentioned that quite a bit during Bottoms Up. It’s fine. No, “Hell Yea” is embarrassing and awkward because our host insists on making his points by… using sound bites from both Eminem and Dr. Dre (the latter of which gives the song its title), thereby showing his audience that he hasn’t yet moved on from that situation and, quite likely, believing that if he just pretends the breakup didn’t happen, then he’ll suddenly wake up in the Shady Records offices, this experience having been nothing but a lengthy, detailed nightmare. The fact that all of this takes place over a NoSpeakerz instrumental that plays as a soundalike Dre prescription adds to the overall humiliation. How Obie Trice saw fit to not just record “Hell Yea”, but to consider it good enough to make the goddamn album, is a mystery I don’t have time to investigate. Wow.  Just… wow.

15. CRAZY (FEAT. MC BREED)
Let me be clear: “Crazy” is not very good. But it may be the closest Obie Trice has gotten to providing listeners with an honest-to-goodness song on Bottoms Up. Producer Witt is half of the duo Witt & Pep, who gave Obie the best track of his entire fucking career (Second Round’s On Me’s “Cry Now”), but while he doesn’t quote carry the wright when left to his own devices, the beat on here wasn’t bad, and the uncredited R&B hook wasn’t terrible. My issue is with our host’s boasts-n-bullshit, while delivered confidently enough, aren’t the most believable, and the guest rapper, the late MC Breed, pops in at the end of our host’s second verse more as an afterthought than as a true collaborator. This one won’t stick to your ribs.

The final song on Bottoms Up is marked as a bonus track.

16. LEBRON ON

Not sure why “Lebron On” isn’t considered a part of the album proper: given its subject matter alone, it fits in with the rest of Bottoms Up quite easily. What subject matter is that, you ask knowingly? Obviously our host is still pissed about being asked to leave Shady Records over this NoSpeakerz instrumental. At least Obie switches up his perspective here, though: “Lebron On” finds our host comparing his situation to “switching jerseys” for that of another team, not unlike what Lebron James did when he moved from Cleveland to Miami…and then back to Cleveland… and again when he moved to Los Angeles. Alas, the Obie Trice story won’t end with him playing for whatever record label is considered to be equivalent to the Lakers, coasting off of name brand recognition alone without exerting any more effort than absolutely necessary (so Def Jam, maybe?), because our host believes that he essentially went from being a clutch player at Shady (sure, bro) to an owner at Black Market, the latter part of which is technically true, but absolutely none of the journey chronicled in audio form on Bottoms Up would ever convince anybody to continue checking up on Obie in the future. “Lebron On” isn’t bad, but I can’t imagine aby situation where you’d ever end up listening to it in the first place. Unless you’re writing your own review, in which case, you poor, senseless bastard. Welcome!

THE LAST WORD: So yeah, anyway, Bottoms Up sucks. I will say that, for his first go-round as project manager, Obie Trice gave his all to his album: although most of the beats on here are questionable in quality (especially the overwhelming majority that sound like off-brand Dr. Dre prescriptions), every track on Bottoms Up sounds fully realized, which is something one can’t say about a lot of rap albums. It’s just that “fully realized” doesn’t mean “good” or “has a right to exist”. Trice’s boasts-n-bullshit are delivered with a somewhat tired and exasperated flow, as though the recording sessions for Bottoms Up doubled as the therapy he clearly sought out after being dicked over in the majors, and he spends a lot of the time not entirely convinced of his own talents, which, in turn, makes him sound less than convincing to the listener.

Which is a motherfucking problem when Bottoms Up is being sold as your typical rap album and not a somber exploration of the man’s tortured psyche.

The hints of promise located on Second Round’s On Me and (especially) Cheers are missing in action on Bottoms Up, a generic rap album with no point of view, a concern that I could easily look past if literally anything about the music or the lyrics was engaging at any point. Which they are not. As such, there will be no need to address this one any further, unless I choose to move forward with Trice’s discography as a part of the ongoing project. Which I may or may not do: my interest in Trice tapered off after Special Reserve, so I hadn't listened to Bottoms Up until this very review, so the rest of his catalog is officially up in the air for me. 

Hip hop heads, Detroit music lovers, and Eminem stans: proceed at your own risk.

-Max

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