Today in Hip-Hop — October 28: Jeezy’s Trap or Die 3 Turns 10, and Shawty Redd Lays the First Brick Again

October 28, 2016. Jeezy closes out the trilogy that named a genre. Trap or Die 3 turns 10 today. Here’s the jewel: the first beat on the album belongs to Shawty Redd. He’s the producer whose cold, horror-movie synths built Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101 back in 2005, and he produced the opener “In the Air” plus “G-Wagon” and “U Kno It.” Eleven years after the blueprint, Jeezy brought the architect back to lay the first brick.

The Snowman Closes the Loop

The rest of the album sounds like 2016 Atlanta. D. Rich handled the bulk of the boards, and Mike Will Made It and 30 Roc teamed up on “Recipe.” Yo Gotti, French Montana, Lil Wayne and Plies all stop through. The album still sounds like Jeezy, though: the ad-libs, the rasp, and the refusal to chase a sound he’d already outlived. AllMusic’s Andy Kellman said Jeezy “attacks just about every track with intense focus and ferocity.” That’s about right for a veteran who never needed to reinvent himself.

The heaviest record on it is “All There.” The guest is Bankroll Fresh, the Atlanta rapper who was shot and killed at a studio in the city on March 4, 2016, at 28. The video premiered October 6, three weeks before the album. It turned Fresh’s biggest look into a posthumous one. On a project titled Trap or Die, that track says the quiet part out loud.

The numbers held up. Trap or Die 3 debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 89,000 units, 73,000 of them pure sales. It edged out Kenny Chesney’s Cosmic Hallelujah after the two albums traded the lead all tracking week. It was Jeezy’s third No. 1. For the full origin story, from the Snowman to the scale, see our Jeezy birthday piece from last month.

Also Today in Hip-Hop

• 1997: Hot Boys’ Get It How U Live!! (29 years). This was the debut of Juvenile, B.G., Turk and a 15-year-old Lil Wayne. Mannie Fresh produced every track, Pen & Pixel did the art, and Bun B dropped in for a verse, so peep the UGK Ridin’ Dirty tee. Cash Money was still fully independent then, running the playbook we traced in our Rap-A-Lot Records deep dive. The Universal deal came in March 1998.
• 1997: Mase’s Harlem World (29 years). It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with nearly 273,000 copies in week one and went 4x Platinum by October 1999. The Neptunes and Jermaine Dupri are in the credits, and “Feel So Good” rides Kool & the Gang’s “Hollywood Swinging.” Before all that, Murda Mase ran with Killa Cam and Big L in Harlem’s Children of the Corn. Big L’s side of that story is on our Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous tee.
• 1997: Psycho Realm’s self-titled debut (29 years). Brothers Sick Jacken and Big Duke came out of Pico-Union, L.A., with B-Real co-producing alongside Jacken. It’s dark, Latino, conspiratorial and way ahead of its time. If that Soul Assassins-era smoke is your lane, the Cypress Hill tee is the uniform.

Stay creative — The Custom Creative Team

Jon Jones