Trae Tha Truth speaks on new lawsuit against Radio One, nine-year music ban
He asks that the major media company “make it right.”
With the birth of his new daughter on the horizon in June, and his continuous efforts to aid Houston’s Hurricane Harvey victims still under way, Trae Tha Truth has a lot on his plate. There is one thing he would like to put to rest though: his decade-long dispute with Houston’s The Box 97.9 (KBXX) and its owner Radio One.
“One thing about it is everybody knows I’ve been banned for the last eight or nine years. It’s not a secret,” Trae told REVOLT TV during an interview at the silent listening party for his newest release, Hometown Hero. “Everybody knows a lot of wrongdoing that was done and how it was handled, but at the end of the day, whatever’s meant to be will be.”
The “ban” he is referring to follows a shoot-out that took place on the Houston natives’ annual festival “Trae Day” back in 2009. Shots were fired and eight people were wounded. Shortly after, The Box radio personality Nnete Inyangumia insinuated that the fault was in Trae’s hands due to the violent lyrics he spits and image he personifies. The H-Town MC then took to the music, as a lot of artists do, to vent his frustrations releasing diss track “Uptown.” On the track, Trae can be heard rapping, “The world hating on me like Nnete’s fat ass.” Naturally, Radio One didn’t respond the song so well, ultimately leading to the alleged radio ban against the Texan MC.
“Watching me and my kids be stripped of everything, at that time, I didn’t have time to wonder what and why. I just had to adapt and find ways to feed my family,” said Trae. “And that’s what I’ve been doing for the last eight or nine years.”
In 2010, a previous lawsuit filed by Trae against Radio One Inc. was dismissed. Trae filed his second lawsuit against Urban One, Radio One of Texas LLC Inc., and Houston’s 97.9 The Box’s program director Terri Thomas for “gross negligence, defamation, and tortuous interference with prospective relations by an on-going ban against Trae Tha Truth from all things Urban One/Radio One,” on January 17, 2018, according to the press release.
When asked if there was one thing he wanted the people named in the suit to know, the “Slugs” rapper kept it simple: “Make it right.”
“I’m only standing to fight for what’s right,” he said.