Second Round's On Me (Shady, 2006) by Obie Trice

"Meat cleaver, leave a gas in a bitches ass/See her dreams of being an R&B singer diva/Leave her face, cut her from the waist/Ah man what a waste, of a pretty face/And this place ain't just safe, it's just straight gangsta/It ain't just New York or L.A. that pains no more/There's Latin Coun' Kings here/Southside, four, East Side and Gansen/Nuthin but ganglands and, spray paint cans/And when that van rolls up, man they ain't glancing/That window rolls down and that tre-eight's dancing/And them shooters don't miss, homie they hate chancing/Straight for the dome and it's vacate fast and/Get the fuck outta dodge 'fore that blue Dodge flashing/Red and blue lights, no ambulance, you got flattened/And this was not supposed to be no Detroit anthem/But just so ya know, if ya see them D-Boys passing"

-Eminem, "There They Go"

Bottoms Up (Ingrooves, 2012) by Obie Trice

"I don't suffer the whispers of these envious niggas/Mad cuz his nuts not in my Denim/Wanna be him so much the send slugs to kill him/And keep it on the hush not to become a victim/Vicious, niggas I rid them/I spit, piss on the statistics on that bullshit/I pull up muzzle yell, send the bezel berg back to here/I'mma thug, I'mma clap him till he fail and he fall/I'mma ball, I'm a beast, I'm the streets/I'm the reason you a broad, I'mma boss, I'm me/Obie bout that change, get rich fast/The Claude Van Damme of the game: Kick ass/Trapped until a nigg get out of 'Caine/And bounce back like whiplashes/And dump my cigar ashes on you asses/It's still Trice and Mathers all that matters/Call that other madness, past us/This is passion"

-Obie Trice, "Going Nowhere"

The Re-Up (Shady, 2006) by various

If I'm not mistaken, this album was originally intended to be a mixtape.  I think it should have stayed that way.  I say that not because the music is bad, but because it lacks the cohesion of an album.  Eminem does a good job of introducing new Shady artists on the intro, but after that all that tracks seem to have been just thrown together with minimal consideration for sequencing.  Obie's "Pistol Pistol (Remix)" was solid as well as "You Don't Know" which help introduce Cashis to the mainstream.  However, other than Eminem's "No Apologies," there aren't really many standout songs here.  But the fact that Eminem drew the album cover makes up for a bit of it.

Cheers (Shady, 2003) by Obie Trice

I bought this album the the day that it was released.  It opened alongside Outkast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.  I bought that too, but I started with Cheers because I didn't have time at the moment for a double album.  I really liked "Rap Name" and "Love Me" from the 8 Mile soundtrack.  However, I didn't know if he had the endurance for a full album.  After one listen, I knew that he did.  Cheers has very little filler (the only two tracks that I skip over are "Spread Yo Shit" and "Got Some Teeth"), and lyrically I thought that it was even a bit better than 50's Get Rich or Die Tryin'.  I met Obie a few years ago in Detroit, and got a chance to tell him how great I thought Cheers was.  He was real humble about it, and it was a great experience for me, as a writer, to develop my style and approach to conducting interviews.

8 Mile Soundtrack (Shady, 2002) by various

"Lose Yourself" is a history-making song and one of the most popular records of its time.  The title track is actually one of my favorite Eminem songs and I think 50's "Places to Go" should have been his introductory single instead of "Wanksta".  The other song that I go back to a lot on this album is Gang Starr's "Battle".  A movie about hip-hop in the mid-90s without a DJ Premier beat is blasphemous.  Not surprisingly, the music supervision for this film for material that was actually made in the mid-90s is superb.  And truth be told, as a whole, the soundtrack to 8 Mile can't touch More Music from 8 Mile.  However, 8 Mile and its soundtrack helped establish Eminem as a hip-hop icon at the height of his popularity and continued to showcase his untouchable rap skills as well as his ability to find and develop new talent (50 Cent, Obie Trice).