Artist Spotlight: T’trotta of the Merc Boyz

In this week’s artist spotlight, I had a chance to sit down with up and coming rapper T’Trotta. He is most known famously for the Merc Boyz (Big Hurt and T’trotta) smash hit “One O’clock”  and his solo single “I Feel So Good”.  T’trotta has dropped numerous of singles and mixtapes with his other half, Big Hurt. On January 1, 2011, T’trotta made his solo debut with the alias titled mixtape “Key 2 Da Streetz”.  T’trotta is expected to drop his second solo project in February entitled Campaign Musik and his album entitled “Key 2 Da Streetz - Da Lock-Up.” Check out the interview below!

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RS: Tell the people a little bit about who you are and where you from.

Trotta: Well you know Im T’trotta, also known as “Key 2 Da Streetz (K2DS)”. I am a Southern artist associated with Lil T601 and his Hustle Hard Campaign enterprise. I was born in Clarksdale, MS, then later moved to Greenwood, MS at the age of 17.

RS: Clarksdale, MS, that’s straight down 61, home of the blues and artists like Rick Ross and actor Morgan Freeman. That’s whats up. How did you earn the alias “Key 2 Da Streetz” or K2DS?

Trotta: “Key 2 Da Streetz” was a name that was given to me by a fellow Hustle Hard affiliate meaning if the streetz are on lock then, I got the key. I liked and decided to use it.

RS: What is  #CampaignMusik and Hustle Hard Campaign?

Trotta: “Campaign Musik” is the name of my second solo mixtape. I named it “Campaign Musik” because for one, it originated from the company, Hustle Hard Campaign; and two “Campaign”  is like your election, your promotion. The things you do to put you on the top. The “Hustle Hard” part speaks for itself.

RS:  When and how did you become interested in rap music?

Trotta: I was always into music and free-styling, but I recorded my first track in 2003 called “Shake Something” with da Dirty South Sluggers.  We got that song circulating around the town, the people started listening and that’s how we got started.

RS: I remember that track Shake Something, it was a southern club banger! Didn’t realize you was in the mix dawg.  What do you think it will take to put Mississippi on the Map as a competitor for hip hop artists or do you feel Mississippi is properly represented?

Trotta: No. I feel that it is not nearly enough unity in this state. I also feel that the only way for this state to compete with the “big dawgs” is to form unity.

RS: Do you think hip hop is headed in the right direction?

Trotta: No!

RS: Who are your musical influences?

Trotta: (laughs) Lil T601

RS: Let me get back to your style of music specifically. What separates your style of rap from other rappers and makes your music unique?

Trotta: Because I’m unique, and I rap about me, u feel me?! I created my own style based on me and my everyday life.

RS: If you could work with an artist right now, who would it be and why?

Trotta: I would work with anybody serious, independent or mainstream. This is what I do and if you serious, let’s get it.

RS: Tell me Trotta, where can your music be purchased or downloaded?

Trotta:  You can download my music is off www.hustlehardcampaign.com but you can find me on other sites such as datpiff, Itunes, etc.



RS: How can people interested in your music reach you? (facebook, twitter, youtube, reverbnation, websites)

Trotta:  You can follow me on twitter @T_trotta, look me up at Facebook.com/Ttrotta   Subscribe to me on youtube at  Youtube.com/mercboyz43 http://www.datpiff.com/profile/mercboyz43, http://www.hustlehardcampaign.com/, Or by email, TtrottaHHC@gmail.com

RS: Do you have any upcoming album releases, mixtapes or events coming up?

Trotta:  Yea, I got that “Campaign Musik” mixtape scheduled to drop in February and my album “Key 2 Da Streetz - Da Lock Up”  dropping late 2012.

RS: Trotta I wanna thank you for taking time out of your schedule to do this interview with me. Man, best of luck in the music game and we look forward to hearing more from you. Do you have any shoutouts u want to make?

Trotta: Yea, shoutouts out to  Hustle Hard Campaign man. Shoutouts to all the artists gringind and campaigning to be on the top. Shoutouts to the whole "Sipp" (Mississippi) my nigga! #Campaign

Tornadoes devastate South, killing at least 280

PLEASANT GROVE, Ala. – Firefighters searched one splintered pile after another for survivors Thursday, combing the remains of houses and neighborhoods pulverized by the nation's deadliest tornado outbreak in almost four decades. At least 280 people were killed across six states — more than two-thirds of them in Alabama, where large cities bore the half-mile-wide scars the twisters left behind.
The death toll from Wednesday's storms seems out of a bygone era, before Doppler radar and pinpoint satellite forecasts were around to warn communities of severe weather. Residents were told the tornadoes were coming up to 24 minutes ahead of time, but they were just too wide, too powerful and too locked onto populated areas to avoid a horrifying body count.
The storms seemed to hug the interstate highways as they barreled along like runaway trucks, obliterating neighborhoods or even entire towns from Tuscaloosa to Bristol, Va. One family rode out the disaster in the basement of a funeral home, another by huddling in a tanning bed.
In Concord, a small town outside Birmingham that was ravaged by a tornado, Randy Guyton's family got a phone call from a friend warning them to take cover. They rushed to the basement garage, piled into a Honda Ridgeline and listened to the roar as the twister devoured the house in seconds. Afterward, they saw daylight through the shards of their home and scrambled out.
"The whole house caved in on top of that car," he said. "Other than my boy screaming to the Lord to save us, being in that car is what saved us."
Son Justin remembers the dingy white cloud moving quickly toward the house.
"To me it sounded like destruction," the 22-year-old said. "It was a mean, mean roar. It was awful."
At least three people died in a Pleasant Grove subdivision southwest of Birmingham, where residents trickled back Thursday to survey the damage. Greg Harrison's neighborhood was somehow unscathed, but he remains haunted by the wind, thunder and lightning as they built to a crescendo, then suddenly stopped.
"Sick is what I feel," he said. "This is what you see in Oklahoma and Kansas. Not here. Not in the South."
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley said his state had confirmed 194 deaths. There were 33 deaths in Mississippi, 33 in Tennessee, 14 in Georgia, five in Virginia and one in Kentucky. Hundreds if not thousands of people were injured — 600 in Tuscaloosa alone.
Some of the worst damage was about 50 miles southwest of Pleasant Grove in Tuscaloosa, a city of more than 83,000 that is home to the University of Alabama. A tower-mounted news camera there captured images of an astonishingly thick, powerful tornado flinging debris as it leveled neighborhoods.
That twister and others Wednesday were several times more severe than a typical tornado, which is hundreds of yards wide, has winds around 100 mph and stays on the ground for a few miles, said research meteorologist Harold Brooks at the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.
"There's a pretty good chance some of these were a mile wide, on the ground for tens of miles and had wind speeds over 200 mph," he said.
The loss of life is the greatest from an outbreak of U.S. tornadoes since April 1974, when 329 people were killed by a storm that swept across 13 Southern and Midwestern states.
Brooks said the tornado that struck Tuscaloosa could be an EF5 — the strongest category of tornado, with winds of more than 200 mph — and was at least the second-highest category, an EF4.

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