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Performer of the WeekTrapper the RapperLarry Johnson, a.k.a. Trapper the Rapper, says he's first and foremost a fan of fellow local rappers--producer Big Keys, prolific 607, and rap princess XXzotic--but when you get him on the subject of what sets him apart from other Arkansas rappers, he's quick to crown himself the state's lyrical king, a distinction he supports on his recently released album Home Improvement, when he says: "Homie, we are not the same/Mainly 'cause I use my brain/I'm trying to start a movement here/You're just trying to maintain/I'm a let you drink your drink, keep thinking what you think/I'm real without the wheels or the grill/I put mine in the bank." Born in Eudora, Arkansas, a small Delta town bordering Mississippi and Louisiana, Trapper and his family moved to Texarkana, Texas, when he was a boy. As soon as he learned how to write, he began crafting songs about growing up poor. He attended school in Texas and spent Friday nights at high school football games rhyming to the beat of the drum corp. After a stint in the Army, he began working for the postal service, a gig he says he took because as a kid the only men passing through the hood were mailmen and dope dealers. In 2000, he started his own record label, Naked Eye Entertainment, and put out his first full-length album, Man of the House, selling more than 5,000 units hand-to-hand out of the back of his truck after shows. On his latest full-length, the second in a planned trilogy about the A-state, Trapper keeps his message close to home, rapping about the grind of the local music business and about the people trying to keep him down. His lyrics, delivered with a slight Southern drawl, often take a socially conscious path, venturing into territory others ignore or want no part of. On the controversial track "Southern Pride," he tries to bring understanding (but is sure to bring more heat) to an issue that has divided Southerners for decades, the Confederate flag, which graces the cover of the album. He embraces the flag as part of his Southern heritage, and in the first verse of the song, he beats critics to the punches he's likely to endure for it: "Picked up my album, looked at the cover and shook his head/ Like what is he trying to prove with this Confederate flag/Is he trying to find pride in a culture that isn't his/He was raised in the South he know better than this/He gotta know that this cross it represents no fears/A battle flag of a war that's embarrassed us for years/ Just a sight in the South brings so many mothers to tears...I'm a wear my flag and I don't care what anybody say/American made/Southern by the God and his grace/I got something they can never take away, my Southern pride." Stay tuned for the third part of Trapper the Rapper's trilogy, Family Reunion . |
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