SouthFlorida.com | City Link Magazine

People are screaming. The phone has supposedly been passed to Trick Daddy, but for a moment, the only sound coming from the other end of the line is commotion. Then, a voice answers, "Yeah, yeah."

But just as suddenly, he's gone. It sounds as if he has tumbled to the ground. The screams have been replaced by squeals. It would be one thing to report that we tried to reach Trick Daddy and heard screams. But squeals? Nobody who has worked this long and hard in the realm of street hop, fought and clawed his way to respect, emerged from Liberty City with a song titled "Scarred," released six albums in as many years and considers himself a true thug wants to get caught squealing during an interview.

"OK, OK, I'm wit' ya," Trick Daddy finally says. "I just � "

He's gone again.

The sound of chaos returns, and Trick disappears into the background. It sounds as if someone has him pinned to the floor, with thick mitts on skinny wrists. But then, it sounds as if he has pulled one hand free and is fighting his way to the phone.

"Nigga garbage. Nigga garbage," he says, trying to relay what's going on. It's hard not to hear the refrain without wondering that if he went into a studio, had Lil Jon hump out some beats and started recording, they'd have a crunky party hit for Atlantic Records in, like, 10 minutes: "Nigga garbage! Nigga garbage! Garbage, nigga!"

"Get off me, I'm doing an interview, dog," Trick Daddy says as the phone fades in and out. "Mad, Mad--" he says, trying to catch his breath.

Oh, this explains everything. Madden 2005. Just a little friendly game of PlayStation and � "Shit, man. My defense ain't even set yet. Come on, get away from me," he says to someone in the room with him.

Maybe we should just go ahead and continue the story without him.

"Packed with more bang than an ass full of hemorrhoids," reads a press release announcing Trick Daddy's new CD, Thug Matrimony: Married to the Streets. The first single, "Let's Go," features Twista and Lil Jon, includes an infectious sample of Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train" and lives up to the hype. The song is a pounding party starter: "If you want it/You can get it/Let me know/Let's go!"

"Yeah, I felt a good vibe on that one. When we were � " Trick says before addressing one of his Madden opponents. "Man, that's just wrong. Cheatin' dog. You can't even keep it real, dog."

"Let's Go" might make longtime observers think Trick is all about the party now. But he doesn't totally buy into Lil Jon's philosophy of simply giving fans something that will shake their asses.

In the past, he has called out the president on songs such as "Ain't No Santa." On Thug Matrimony, he continues to comment on social issues; "Trapped" addresses the plight of young African-Americans in prison.

"With the new album, I wanted to continue to show that I can get down on different topics and different aspects of the game. I'm gonna keep knockin' at society's problems," Trick Daddy says, suddenly giving us his full attention as if someone just pulled the plug on the PlayStation.

Trick may be forever tied to his 2001 breakout hit, "I'm a Thug," an identity he still embraces. He is a thug. "But I'm not the problem. I'm here to solve the problem," he says. "I'm here to make the streets better, not worse. But I don't leave my people behind. That thug life's forever. And thank God for the thugs, too."

Trick's music has certainly evolved. The new album offers everything from funky, electric piano chords on "Forever" to acoustic country guitar on "Sugar on the Tongue," a song he says he wrote for the kids. Despite the fruity, double-entendre lyrics -- "Orally, I speak the truth/Blacker the berry/The sweeter the juice" -- Trick says children can sing the song on the school bus. "Gotta have something for the kids," he explains.

After all, he has two children of his own now. He also has 26 siblings. "My momma got 11 children from 10 different men. My daddy got 16 sons from all kinds of women," he says.

Trick is dressed all in white on the cover of the new album, symbolizing his vows to the hood. As far as real marriage goes, he looks to Ozzy Osbourne's relationship with wife Sharon as a major role model, because, he believes, wives need to let their husbands do whatever the hell they want to do. "If my mama and daddy would've stayed together," he says, "one of them would've been dead, and the other would have been locked up for it."

The rapper's music may change with a producer's whim, but Trick says his work has always been about one thing: "It's about the struggle."

Trick Daddy has gone from throwing down food stamps to get in a dice game to drinking Cristal, but he insists he's more connected to the streets now than he has ever been and doesn't look at it as a place that will ever get better or worse. "People can go up or down the ladder out here," he observes, "but the street is always the street."

On the street, people always complain that Miami artists who break out don't stick around and help other acts. But Trick Daddy has given his support to acts such as Pitbull and the up-and-coming Rick Ross, the self-described "underground mayor of Miami."

"You gotta help out, and a lot of these acts are well on their way. It'd be stupid to ignore the scene in Miami," Trick says. "But if I help you get a deal, you gotta be my homeboy -- my dog. You gotta have good stuff. You go wrong, and I look bad."

Although his career first blew up in Atlanta, associating him with the Dirty South sound, he gives credit to the regional respect he earned in Florida. "Jacksonville, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Gainesville," Trick says, "they showed me my first love."

In fact, Trick's main residence is still in Miami, with its Scarface room and boxes and bubbles in the driveway. He raps about Beemers and Benzes, but he clings to his 1973 Chevy Impala and classic '75 Caprice convertible. "I never get tired of them, but I might redo one," he says, "different candy, different sound system."

Trick doesn't keep a low profile in Miami. He can often be seen Jet-Skiing, shooting pool and hanging out in strip clubs such as Club Diamonds and Take One. A serious sports fan, he's often seated courtside at Miami Heat games. "All we got left in South Florida is the hope of Shaq now," he says. You can almost hear him hang his head when discussing his beloved Dolphins. "Ricky let us down."

When the news of Ricky Williams' retirement broke, Trick declared on MTV that the running back had left the country with the Dolphins' money. "He fell in love with Lenny Kravitz," he told MTV News. "They plan on getting married somewhere where they can do it."

But given the Dolphins' current dismal record, he's no longer laughing. "I knew it was going to be hard, but this � Everybody's blaming Wannstedt, but he's not even getting to coach. He calls what they tell him to call. It's all coming from upstairs," he says. "I feel for my good players -- Jason Taylor, Sam Madison, Zach, Junior, Chris Chambers. Man, they're still playing their hearts out."

Trick is always looking for heart, and he knows that's what his fans are after, too. "Keeping it real just comes from the heart. People gotta believe in you -- not just 'cause you been around the game for several years. New artists blow up, but it's because they're showing something true," he explains. "You can't tell the audience anything no more. They make up their own assumptions by what you're showing them."

He says he didn't want to let his fans down with "some phony crap � fantasy rap" since it took him two years to follow up his previous album, Thug Holiday. "I need to come across on my records. Need people to know this is serious," he argues. "It is hip-hop rap music that we're doing, but these days, rap just ain't rap anymore. A lot of cartoon characters are rapping now. They need to do animated videos for some of these characters. They're not real."

Fantasy has no place in Trick Daddy's world. "Rappers tend to use words sometimes that just rhyme and don't really mean nothing," he says. "I tell it like it is. I tell it like I see it. I tell it like I envision it. I tell it like I live it."

Years ago, Trick rapped, "This is the life for me." Now, he says, "That's in stone. This is how it was written. This is how it was meant to be for me."

Well, we appreciate him taking a break from PlayStation to �

"Oh, I didn't stop playing," he interrupts. "I just turned it down so you couldn't hear it."

So what team is he playing with?

"The Dolphins," he says. "With Ricky."

Check out Trick Daddy online at www.thug.com.