Juvenile Readies Tour, Re-Release
New Orleans rapper Juvenile, whose latest album, Reality Check debuted at Number One last month and has since hit gold, will embark on a series of live dates May 8th in Anaheim, California, through June 3rd, as a warm-up for a summer tour.
“First, I’m going to take a House of Blues tour across the country, just to be light,” he says of his dates with fellow Southern rapper Bubba Sparxxx, “and then I’m going to do something big in the summer time. Something real big.”
The thirty-one-year-old rapper, born Terius Gray, was ready for his seventh effort, Reality Check, to hit stores last August when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. With his city — and his newly built house — destroyed by the storm and flooding, Juvenile delayed the album to lay down new tracks. The single, “Get Ya Hustle On,” told his fellow N.O. natives to survive by any means possible.
“We mad, we real angry about it,” he says, living in Atlanta while his house is rebuilt. “But, you know, it’s like being in lock and chain: You can’t do nothin’ about it. All you can do is talk about it and try and do as much press as possible.”
As he prepares to take his message on the road, Juvenile wants to get another Juvenile/Skip/Wacko project off the ground “closer to the end of summer,” building on the success of the 2004’s “Nolia Clap,” off
The Beginning of the End . . . He is also launching a clothing line, Stacks and Bundles. “It’s basically getting a bunch of celebrities to wear the clothes first,” he says. “I want to make it real significant before I come to the stores with it.”
But more importantly, expect an expanded Reality Check to hit stores in the near future, with additional songs. “That how I like to do it,” says Juvenile, whose 1998 album 400 Degreez was also released in two versions, one completely solo and another with guests including Jay-Z.
“There’s so much more to talk about,” he adds, “so much controversy surrounding me and my city and what’s going on right now. What I’m trying to do to give my people the lift that they need to come back home.”