I must be honest: I hesitated to write this piece.
ESSENCE specializes in what’s “lit”, as in relevant and exceptional to Black women. Trick Daddy, a Miami rapper whose relevance outside of trap house parties and Dade County, Miami has barely existed since the late 90s, doesn’t qualify. In a recent Vibe round up of “30 Florida Rappers Your Need to Hear Right Now,” Trick Daddy, nee Maurice Young, was not listed as a current artist worth paying attention to.
The last time he was on my radar?
I was in Miami listening to a radio interview where he described how he was diagnosed with lupus, a very serious medical condition that can be fatal, but was choosing to self-medicate with laced marijuana and alcohol. I changed the station.
But Trick Daddy is back in the news. And with his skills as a “rapper” long depleted, he’s pulling out an old trick for attention: bashing Black women. In his desperation to get noticed for somebody’s UnSung, Where Are They Now, or other places where faded stars are remembered fondly, he recently posted a profanity fueled video rant on Instagram. Only because his remarks are about Black women and have received so much attention, am I sullying ESSENCE.com’s bandwidth to address them.
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Instead of promoting an upcoming project like an actual artist, Trick Daddy sought attention by reducing Black women’s worth to their looks and ability to fry chicken.
Yes, I’m serious.
“These Spanish, these white h**s, they just started getting finer than a m*****f****r,” Young said in a video he filmed while operating a motor vehicle (because a man looking at his phone while driving is a man with judgment you can trust). “Y’all black h**s better tighten up. I’m telling you, tighten up. Y’all doing all that extra s**t for nothing. You not achieving nothing, b***h. You get y’all a** done, ya titties done, ya paying $150 to get your makeup done just to go to a local club, b***h. Tighten up, h*e. These Spanish and these white h**s getting very spiffy on y’all. They f**k around and learn how to fry chicken, you h**s is useless.”
I don’t have the psychology degrees to dissect all that’s gone wrong with his mental faculties to have a Black mama and say this mess anywhere. And I don’t have the patience to try, other than to wonder if he’s still mad nearly two decades later that Trina dropped better verses that him on his own song—twice. But what I do know is that someone needs to hand Old Sir a broom and point him to his own front porch.
In 2015, he filed for bankruptcy because in addition to not paying his taxes, he owed over $50,000 in back child support to two mothers of his children. In 2014, he was arrested, for like the billionth time, for possessing a handgun and cocaine. He also rivals DMX for noteworthy shenanigans including the times where he, as a whole grown man post-30, was arrested after he pulled a gun on someone at a basketball game (2003) and the other time when he was fighting in a strip club (2007). And these are just the quickly Google-able arrests that came up when I was looking to see what he’d been up to since the spotlight went off. There’s a longer and more nefarious history before he was famous.
Trick Daddy is out here vlogging while driving and worrying about fine women when I need him to keep his eyes on the road. I need a 43-year-old man to get out the club and stop worrying about what Black women wear in it. I need a man who owes back child support to get off Instagram and get to work, because publicly calling out Black women for the shortcomings he perceives them to have ain’t paying any bills. I need him to stop focusing on what Black women look like and just be happy anyone of any color is still willing to cook for his broke and broken behind. I need him to pay taxes. I need him to abide doctor’s orders and properly treat a serious medical condition. I need him to see a therapist about his obvious self-hate issues.
And more than anything, I need him to take his own advice and “Shut Up.”
Demetria Lucas D’Oyley is the author of Don’t Waste Your Pretty: The Go-to Guide for Making Smarter Decisions in Life & Love. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.