Every Day Is 'Kill Mode' For Rapper Trinidad James

There’s the old, well-worn adage that you’re the author of your own story. As soon as you could roll your eyes any time once you hear it right now, Trinidad James doesn’t find this way of thinking to be boring or cliché. Case in point, he’s thoroughly invested once he thinks about his page-turning, eight-year rap career for now. “This chapter is titled ‘Kill Mode,’” he tells MTV News over the phone. “I’m going through one of the real battles that all real creatives go through.”


This skirmish is segment of the war that artists go through to retain relevance. The 32-year-old rapper has been one something of a unspoken figurehead in Atlanta rap for years following his 2012 breakout hit, “All Gold Everything.” Clad in gold chains, gold teeth, and what looked like retro royal high style, he delivered an instantly catchy tune that rapidly became a viral sensation — 32 million views and counting — and secured him a deal with Def Jam worth an announced $2 million that same year. It was the gift that kept on giving. He apparently made $150,000 any time Bruno Mars reached out to use its iconic line "don't believe me, just watch" on a little bit song he'd worked on with Mark Ronson.


“Uptown Funk” became iconic in its own right. However “All Gold Everything” holds the difference for being one of rap’s first viral hits of the 2010s. So started James's battles.


“All Gold Everything” and its high-powered remix featuring T.I., 2 Chainz, and Young Jeezy, were both featured on his debut project Don’t Be S.A.F.E., which peaked at No. 103 on the Billboard 200. His follow-up project, 2013’s 10pc. Mild, didn’t chart. The headlines asked hard questions: Did James have another “All Gold Everything” in him? After, he revealed that he was dropped from Def Jam in 2014.


Eight years soon after “All Gold Everything,” it appears the rapper’s soon-to-be-released new project is going to address the idea of enduring success on his own terms. He’s released seven assignments since splitting with Def Jam, keeping up on a consistent clip as he eats his fanbase. Nevertheless right now, he’s prepared to take the fight right to the front lines.


“For this new project, you’ll visualize what it’s like any time whenever a true artist, a true creative, goes against all the narratives that are airborne and chooses the one that matters the most at the end of the day, which is my own,” he says.


James’s latest has been in the works for years, pre-dating both his Father Figga and Daddy Issues mixtapes. “I worked with a spectacular producer named Young Fyre,” he says. “When we first began four years back, we were just making incredible songs, like 19 for 19. We just clicked. Immediately after two years of putting work in, it got to the point where I thought that we had enough songs to put with each other for an assignment. Then, it all came down to timing — for my narrative.”


An extra two years is a long time to hold something, although it looks like those songs are finally on the way to fans. In January, he released the project’s first single: the James Brown-inspired “Jame$ Woo Woo,” aiming to be every bit as disruptive to the cultural direction as “All Gold Everything” was in 2012. Its sharp barks and staccato lyricism make it sound incomplete however authentic and proper as if he’s freestyling each word as he goes on. It’s not spit out of a melody machine. And that’s precisely why it works.


It’s easy to hear the influence of Brown on “Jame$ Woo Woo,” although James didn’t just pick the legendary soul entertainer to emulate for his sound. “The increasingly that I continue to work and live in the industry, I’ve learned that I was cheating myself because I was labeling myself as just a rapper,” he says. “I realized that the people that I loved most in music are true entertainers, and Brown is one of these that I resonate so well with because he wasn’t the most classically trained guy. He was all about feelings.”


James does his very best Brown impersonation in the song’s wild video that features him in soulful cosplay, leading several tap-dancing girls in a fancy routine. “We came up with that routine and choreography in a little over day as well as a half,” he says. “We began on the idea last year with two other females because the tap dancers nevertheless schedules got conflicted. Tap dancing is a dying art, and we were decided to include that in the visual so we switched things up, as well as the shooting location, to prepare it happen.”


Aside from “Jame$ Woo Woo,” there aren’t also several specifics out nevertheless as to what the project will detail. There won’t be any large features from companions he came up with in the early 2010s, like Young Thug. “It’ll have some local guys from Atlanta because I'm not really big on features if they come with also much stress,” he says. “I owe it to my peers and myself to show them that I don’t need them to be successful.”


As James prepares to release his long-awaited project, he’s all about making sure that this new chapter of his career is much better, and separated, from his last. He’s currently one of the hosts of Sole Collector’s Full Size Run talk show about sneakers and he also made a fast jewelry-store cameo in the Safdie Brothers’s high-stress gambling drama Uncut Gems, where he played himself.


“I’m not living off of clout from eight years ago,” he says between sword jabs. “I’m living off of the real shit that I’m doing a year soon after that. Especially in the last three years because I’ve been making sure that my company is in my own hands.”