Trick Daddy’s Unlikely Second Act: Celebrity Chef

It’s been an up-and-down decade for Trick Daddy, one of the defining southern rap stars of the last 25 years. His musical output has slowed, and he’s dealt with a maelstrom of problems including a continued battle with lupus, legal trouble, and even bankruptcy. But it turns out the rapper known for his commanding baritone and signature snarl has a deft hand in the kitchen, and a string of well-received Instagram and Facebook Live videos has turned into I Got My Pots, the YouTube cooking that’s becoming Trick’s second act.

The show, which recently released its 16th episode with Trick’s longtime Slip-n-Slide Records co-star Trina, has quickly found an audience. Multiple episodes have been viewed over half a million times, and while those aren’t quite Emma Chamberlain numbers, it’s impressive for a musician working with a new medium. The series is rough around the edges–it was originally titled Bitch I Got My Pots, after all*–*but that’s likely key to its appeal as counterprogramming to the over-stylized food content on both network television and social media.

As Trick settles into his hosting role, the episodes are getting longer–the one where Trick and Trina make lobster pasta clocks in at just under an hour–and it all hinges on his ability to keep the viewer engaged. On camera, Trick is characteristically gruff and occasionally abrasive, at times making an off-color joke or referencing his ex-wife in a way that makes his guest’s eyes widen. But his passion for food is infectious–nothing on the show is pre-cooked, so we see the entire process–and he holds court on the set like a natural host who’s been doing this for years, leading to conversations that rarely feel canned. As a vocalist, Trick never minced words, and his appeal as a culinary companion is similar.

The 47-year-old Floridian, who also owns a Miami restaurant called Sunday’s Eatery, has ambitious goals for I Got My Pots, and acknowledges that he’ll have to tone down some of his brashness in the process. “Once we make it to TV, I know I’m gonna have to censor my language a little bit. I do tend to go there. I’m gonna have to be careful with my topics,” he says. “But what I mainly want, as my guests, I would prefer the culture. Rap, sports.”

GQ spoke to Trick Daddy about the success of I Got My Pots, his plans for a culinary empire, and his thoughts on contemporary hip-hop.

I’m from the New York area, but because I got into hip-hop in the early 2000s, all my favorite rappers are from the South: Scarface, you, Chamillionaire, UGK.

I appreciate you appreciating us. But you know, we could never make it if people from the East Coast didn’t accept our music. That was our problem, that’s why we wasn’t able to be global and international artists, as well as nationwide artists, because we couldn’t get radio play on the East Coast before 2000.

UGK had one [song] that we were crazy about in Miami called “Pocket Full of Stones.” I played it in New York, actually. I played it for the A&Rs at Atlantic Records around ‘98, ‘99, and they had no idea who the hell that was. You’ve gotta remember, the wave that I came through with, the Twistas, Mystikals, Juvenile and the whole Cash Money movement, No Limit, OutKast and the Dungeon Family and Goodie Mob, we were the last of the Mohicans, where we really did music that mattered. We really did music that you could visualize without the video, and once you put the video to it, then it became a sensation.

It does feel like there was a uniqueness to you and your peers that hasn’t quite been replicated.

Because we had our own styles. We were all unique in our own ways and we were fans of one another. We didn’t do features to say “Hey, I got a feature with this guy and he’s got a large fan base, so I’m gonna do this with him so his fans can know who I am.” No, we did features so our fans could say, “Oh shit, he’s got a song with Twista.” Or “Oh shit, he’s got a song with Juvenile or Mystikal.”

Then there came social media, and artists started falling out of all the trees and off all the roofs. The whole music game became saturated so quickly to where you didn’t even really get time to learn the songs. We learned our songs, our songs grew. Nowadays, if your song is not a hit, you can forget about it ever growing, because they won’t give it a chance since there’s another artist coming out tomorrow. You gotta hit a home run, you can’t hit to first base and hope that the next batter brings you in. You’ve got to hit that bitch out the ballpark now and as hard as we had to work, I think the new wave of musicians has it way easier. But my question [to them] is “How long will they last?” How long from now will we still listen to today’s hip-hop and R&B? How long before we say, “That’s an old song?” Now, it’s like six months to a year and you don’t hear the song anymore. Around the third or the fourth month, was usually when our second single would drop off the album and that second single carried you to the main status that you were going for. Back in my era, your biggest record couldn’t be your first single, because it threw off the fans when you have a record that’s amazing as your first single and then all of a sudden the second song off the album comes out and it’s like “Ah, that’s [just] okay.”

A perfect example of a song of yours that really grew is “Let’s Go.” I remember when that record came out and it was on TRL, it was on BET and VH1, and it became universal, now it’s in movie trailers to this day.

And it’s that “Crazy Train” sample. Songs like “Take it to the House,” “Sugar,” “I’m a Thug” a lot of those records weren’t my favorite records. I won’t lie to you. But those were records that [my team] said, “Okay, this is your second single.” And I was like, “What the hell do you mean? Because I’ve got a song called ‘Bout My Money,’ and I’ve got a song called ‘Straight Up.’” And they were like, “No, this is your second single.”

Where did the initial idea for I Got My Pots come from? The food obviously looks good, but there’s a really fun hangout feel to the program that keeps the viewer invested even though the episodes are long.

My executive producer is C.O. C.O. has probably been around me from day one as a labelmate at Slip-n-Slide Records. C.O. was like, “Bro, when you cook on Instagram and Facebook, my sister loves it. My wife loves it. You ought to do some type of cooking show.” So, for years, we were trying to find studios to do the cooking show. Finally C.O. says, “Fuck it.” Him and our boy EJ said, “You know what, we got it. We’re gonna find you a studio.” I said, “Okay, well good luck with that.”

They took part of EJ’s studio and built the damn kitchen. They were like, “Okay, we got the kitchen. When are you gonna be ready to shoot?” So of course, they’re not cooks, they don’t understand that it doesn’t just go like that. I gave them a list of stuff we needed: pots, pans, utensils, seasonings. It’s gotta have the vibe. People gotta feel like they’re a part of something, that they’re comfortable. And so we shot the first show and then every week [since] we shoot two shows. It’s been working fine.

You’ve lined up a very fun group of guests, including longtime friends of yours like Trina, Rick Ross, and DJ Khaled. Has it been easy to get people to do episodes?

The more shows we do, the more artists we have willing to come appear on the show. It’s to the point now where I actually have to turn people down or reschedule. As far as talent, we got enough that’s on standby for a year worth of national television. I’m waiting on them to come with that bag so I can really put on. Once we make it to TV, I know I’m gonna have to censor my language a little bit. I do tend to go there. I’m gonna have to be careful with my topics. But what I mainly want, as my guests, I would prefer the culture. Rap, sports. I think it’s very important that I explain to the younger generation that’s watching that the culture is bigger than going to strip clubs and funerals.

Our culture defines the struggle and everything ain’t peaches and cream on our side. I’m always interested in interviewing the people who have a story to tell. I have no problem, I am not jealous of those kids that were born in a house with their momma and their daddy, they had an allowance, a nanny, a maid or a cook, a chauffeur or a butler, a godparent, an auntie, a live-in grandma. I’m not jealous of you, but that’s not my background. My background was me and my momma and my sisters and brothers with one bed, one shower. We’re all we got, us against everybody. I just want the kids to know that the things we do for our kids and the reason why we do ‘em, it’s because our parents weren’t able to do for us. I want to teach morals and values.

So that’s what we’re at with it now. Hopefully, we get a nice deal and take it to another level. I told C.O. we gotta slow down, because I’m cooking every fucking day. There ain’t gonna be nothing to cook when we make it to TV.

People often say that one of the most meaningful gestures you can make for somebody is to cook for them. You’ve talked about it on the show in the Cee-Lo episode, specifically what cooking and what the kitchen as a space means to you.

A lot of these parents talk about “My kid doesn’t eat asparagus. My kid doesn’t eat string beans.” What? We ate whatever they cooked! And, you stay outta my kitchen. The only people allowed in my kitchen are the people who I invite in my kitchen. The kitchen is the next best thing to the master bedroom.

That’s why the episode with you and Radio Big Mack is so funny [in which Trick clearly gets fed up with Mack’s interjections], because everyone knows the type of person who always wants to meddle when someone else is cooking.

People were asking me, “Were y’all playing?” Hell no, I wanted his ass outta there.

I don’t play in the kitchen.

Are you actively in talks to turn this into a television show?

Yes. I’m in talks with a couple of networks for a cooking show. And actually, we had Fox Soul air short versions of a couple of the first episodes. We were waiting for them to get back at us, but we haven’t heard from them yet. I’m sure they like it, because it’s real, it’s authentic, it’s natural. We’re not trying too hard and we’re not doing too much. Plus we give our top five favorite songs of all time. If it’s somebody’s birthday that day or that week, we’ll pay homage to them by giving their top five greatest songs of all time. Different stuff like that.

You said in one segment that you had a trick to keep your seasonings from burning where you cooked the meat halfway through on each side and then you season and finish cooking. What are some other techniques that you’ve figured out over a lifetime of cooking that aren’t necessarily common knowledge?

So rubs and stuff like that, they’re more for barbecue grills. But when you’re cooking out of skillets and pans and there’s all this seasoning, it falls off. That’s where the soot in the bottom of the pan comes from. It easily burns and that’s where the burning taste and smell come from. So, I want to cook that for as little as possible. If I’m looking for a seasoning deep in my meat, then I’ll marinate it a couple hours or the night before. Then that flavor is already in there. So that’s how I deal with that situation.

When I cook, the only thing you would probably have to grab, maybe a little salt and pepper depending on your tastes, but the only thing you’ll have to grab beyond salt and pepper is hot sauce. Don’t bother pouring all that different shit across my rice. You don’t need all that. You’re gonna make it salty. I season my food. I’m a southern cook. This is what I do.

Presumably, if you’re watching someone cook for hours at a time every week, you trust what they’re doing. So before you go and add a bunch of condiments and seasonings, you should probably at least try the food first.

Try it the way you saw them doing it. When I’m at my restaurant, Sundays, I see a lot of girls that ain’t from the south. I tell them, “Take a little bit of your cornbread and put it on top of your collard greens. Now grab it with a fork and eat it together and see how that tastes.” They’ll be like, “Oh, I never ate it like that.” When I’m cooking, I always tell people that sugar don’t go in grits. Sugar goes in porridge, it goes in oatmeal. Sugar don’t go in no goddamn grits. But I tell people, when you make scrambled eggs–black pepper goes on top of eggs, whether that’s sunny side up, runny, or they’re cooked through. If you’re making scrambled eggs and you put black pepper in it, then it’ll look like a bunch of roach eggs in your shit.

People been doing a lot of weird things lately. [I met] a girl who likes to mix her baked beans with her macaroni. Why would you do that? I need all my stuff to have its own unique tastes. Those are what you call sides. It ain’t a side if you put it with another side. That’s like suicide. Two sides together is suicide. You don’t do that.

As a lifelong Floridian, what’s a Florida dish or type of cuisine that you think is generally underappreciated by people from other parts of the country?

It would have to be conch fritters. And besides conch fritters, it’d be fried ribs. Fried ribs are our no. 1 seller at Sundays Eatery. Fried ribs are something I came up with a couple years ago and they love it. Bone-in, baby back ribs.

It’s been really interesting to see artists who are your peers develop these new paths in entertainment. Fat Joe and Remy Ma guest hosted The Wendy Williams Show. Rick Ross has co-authored several books. N.O.R.E.’s podcast is tremendously popular. You’re part of that too now with the show. Why do you think it is that you are all having this success in these different lanes?

We’re more identifiable. You can be on your phone and you hear us and you go “Wait a minute, that sounds like Trick Daddy.” I think our work ethic [matters], too, because I think we try harder. We work harder, we try harder. We’re not scared of failure. And also I don’t come in with any jealousy or bias. You’ve got to be willing to accept whatever comes your way in a responsible, respectful way. Everybody is not gonna like your music. Everybody is not gonna like everything we do. Everybody is not gonna like what I stand for. I can’t make ‘em like me, there’s no way possible.

Is there anything else you want people to be aware of that’s on the horizon for Trick Daddy?

I just want the people to know that the pot collection is coming real soon. Pots and cooking utensils. If you’re ever in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area, check out Sunday’s Eatery, located one mile south of the Miami football stadium. I am the Daddy Dollars, CEO and President of the Eat a Booty Gang, and I approve this message.