TrigNO on SPOOKY: ACT I: Storytelling, Accountability, and the Art of Knowing Who Can Go With You
Columbus artist TrigNO breaks down his most mature project yet, track by track.
By Chanda Davis | The Dreamers Report
When TrigNO dropped SPOOKY: ACT I earlier this year, I put it in my mind to give it a listen.
I reached out on a whim, after listening to the album late one night, thinking, I have to talk to this man. He responded the way you'd hope someone would: warmly, genuinely, like he'd been waiting for the conversation too.
From SpookyTape to SPOOKY: ACT I
"The first Spooky we did on SpookyTape, it was supposed to be Rawest 4M II," TrigNO explained. "But when we was cooking it up, I told Sean, 'This is a little spooky.' I just said that and then he was like, Yeah. And I was like, I'm gonna call it SpookyTape. It was a joke at first."
That joke caught on. TrigNO started noticing people using the word in interviews and in conversation. He started clipping those moments and incorporating them into the project. When SpookyTape dropped in 2020, right after his Identity project, which still ranks as many fans' favorite, it felt like a project that arrived too quickly, without enough space to breathe. SPOOKY: ACT I was his chance to give it its proper due.
“Spooky was something bigger than me. I talk about myself a lot in the music, but I have a lot of stories, just being a fly on the wall, listening to people talk and tell me their business.”
"I've been maturing a lot as a man and with music," he said. "I just had a lot of stories to tell."
If you go back and listen to SpookyTape now, you can draw a direct line to SPOOKY: ACT I.
The Intro
The album opens with a parable, not something TrigNO wrote, but something he's been carrying since he was eleven years old.
"I got that parable from my pastor. Not my current pastor, but my pastor from when I was a kid. He told that story and I was like, dang. It just stuck with me for the rest of my life. I've told that story to so many people."
The parable, which centers on death and worry, and the idea that worry takes far more lives than death ever could, was always going to find its way into his music. It just took the right album to do it.
The lesson isn't abstract for TrigNO. He's been boxing for five years, and something in the discipline of sparring taught him the same thing the parable did: panic costs you more than the hit ever will.
"If you just flinch every time somebody flinches at you, you gonna get clipped. You have to be poised in whatever situation it is. Accept what God has. If it's your time to go, then it's your time to go."
InDanger
The first official track, InDanger, is a flex of structure that most listeners will miss.
"If you look at SpookyTape, I start the project with the heartfelt intro. On this one, it's the heartfelt outro. SpookyTape: in peace. This one starts with in danger."
It's the inverse of its predecessor: where the tape moved from chaos toward stillness, SPOOKY: ACT I moves from tension toward grace.
Features: Relationships Over Transactions
One thing to note about SPOOKY: ACT I is that the features don't feel like features. They feel like collaborators.
"I have a relationship with everybody that I make music with. It's never just a transactional thing," TrigNO said. "One of the biggest things I listen for is the tone of voice. And if we've discussed anything that relates to the topic, then I'm like, all right, cool, I got a record for it."
Keisha Soleil appears on MadeMeThisWay. "Keisha can be hard to work with sometimes, but I enjoy it because she loves it so much. People would look at that and be like, she's a diva. I'm like, nah. She just really wants her stuff together."
Erika Lauren joins TrigNO on Can't Let Go, bringing a vocal presence that deepens the track's themes of dependency and consequence. Her performance matches the weight of the subject matter without overpowering TrigNO's storytelling.
Stock Marley, a Columbus native currently based in Chicago, shows up on a track that could only have been made between him and TrigNO. "Me and Stock, we've done talked for hours about life and death. All types of different things. Because he's actually experienced both. So yeah, he just had to be on that song."
Dev Draper, TrigNO's longtime collaborator and a key production voice throughout the album, also appears on chew my hand, a natural extension of a creative relationship that runs through nearly every corner of SPOOKY: ACT I.
N'shai Iman appears on ProverbsWoman, a track that manages to be both vulnerable and powerful. The deeper reason TrigNO chose her? Her parents show up to every single one of her shows. "I met both of them. They're very cool people and they're always there. That was probably the main thing."
Zabre Ariyana features on A New Day, the track that signals the light at the end of the tunnel, adding a warmth and lift that fits the song's exhale energy.
Atlas, a Dayton poet, features on u never crashed b4, a track that needed exactly what a poet could give. TrigNO asked him to write three poems based on three different scenarios. There are two more pieces the pair has collaborated on that will make future projects. "Atlas has the grief club. Without saying too much, he knows about grief. Current grief. And I've just been a fan for years. Every time I see him, it's like we're picking up where we left off."
CHRIS. closes out the album alongside TrigNO on one day at a time, one of its most emotionally charged records, a tribute to a friend who is incarcerated. "I asked him, do you have somebody that's locked up that you love? And he was like, it's funny that you bring that up." The track, produced by their mutual friend Malcs, became something neither of them planned.
Lamont Hicks and D Mili round out the album on the Heartfelt Outro, helping TrigNO close SPOOKY: ACT I the way it deserves: with people who belong in the room.
EasyMoney and Hell Won't Freeze/Sun Don't Shine Here round out the tracklist as solo TrigNO records, no features needed. Both tracks hold their own weight and speak to why he doesn't always need company in the booth.
MadeMeThisWay: Blame, Accountability, and the Blueprint
If there's one record that sets the tone for the entire album, TrigNO says it's MadeMeThisWay, not just lyrically, but structurally.
"The beat was, low key, the blueprint for the album. The actual entire song was the blueprint for the album. Vocal samples, dark, yeah. When you hear those vocals, it just makes sense."
But the message behind the track runs deeper than the production. It's about holding people accountable while also holding yourself accountable, something TrigNO says is baked into how his family operates.
“If I’m wrong, I’m gonna tell you I’m wrong. It might take me a little second to get it, but when I do, I’ll fix it. That’s why I have good relationships with people to this day.”
"We have a really good family dynamic. My entire family, we're all close, even outside of my mom and dad's house. A part of that is accountability. We don't blame people, but we will tell you: I can do this for you, but this is as far as it goes."
Can't Let Go
One of the most pressing questions going into the interview was how much of SPOOKY: ACT I is autobiography versus observed fiction. TrigNO's answer was honest: relatable, about eighty percent him. Personal, thirty-five to forty.
He was clear about where he's at now. "I was in the streets for a while when I was younger and got firsthand what it's like to experience certain things people would never even fathom surviving. Now that I'm older, I like house music. I like dancing. I like teaching kids how to dance. It's greener over here."
"Somebody who's struggling can hear it and feel like they can relate, which is important. But then they also hear the other parts you take them on through the album. One track isn't just about addiction. It's talking about the highs and the lows."
chew my hand
There's a line on chew my hand that deserves its own conversation: God ain't gotta put you in the best school to test you.
When asked how he came up with it, TrigNO laughed. "It might be God. I can't speak to it. I just be writing. Exercising a pen. But I be meaning it. Everything I write, there's some real attached to it."
The track is about the experience of people extracting from you, taking what you offer and giving nothing back, and making the deliberate choice to cut them off.
"My body just won't allow me to work with somebody who's just not real, not honest, or if we just don't get along. You're not gonna get the best product out of me, and I only wanna do the best product. I don't do things for just money. I gotta really love what I'm doing."
everybody can't go
One of the most creative decisions on the album is the opening verse of everybody can't go, which takes what could easily have been a street narrative and sets it entirely in a corporate office. An employee overcharging customers, skimming off the top, quietly building a scheme that will catch up to everyone around him.
There was an earlier first verse, a street narrative about a rapper whose drug-dealer friends ultimately get him locked up for something he didn't do.
"I wanted people to understand it's not always a street thing. When you're in a job, in a high position, and you put your friends on, it gets tricky. I talked about the streets so much on this project. It felt more necessary."
His collaborator Sean disagreed with the decision. He still does. But the office verse stayed, and it lands harder for what it accomplishes, possibly reaching people who have no street experience but know exactly what it feels like to watch someone at work making decisions that could drag everyone down.
MyGod
MyGod is a record that sounds, on the surface, like a plea, and underneath like a reckoning.
"That record in particular is about being swallowed by your emotions. So much so that you're willing to risk everything you've worked for. For one moment. Just to fulfill a smile that you think is gonna be a smile, but it's not."
“It could be on a surface level or it could be on a spiritual level. You gotta choose.”
TrigNO was careful to add: "That song is not based on a true story, but it's based on current true events."
The record works on two levels simultaneously. The surface-level chaos of a moment where everything feels like it's collapsing, and the spiritual weight underneath.
The Outro
The album closes with a Heartfelt Outro that TrigNO describes as the inverse of the intro he wrote for SpookyTape.
"When I did the heartfelt intro, that was just young anger. This one was more so: if I was to leave this life, I wanted to be graceful. This is probably what I would say in this state of my life right now."
He told the producer, Blaze, that he was going to cry writing it. Blaze told him to let it out. He started getting teary-eyed. Then he dropped the drums, extended the beat to seven minutes, and just rapped until he didn't feel like rapping anymore.
What came out was an album's worth of honesty compressed into a single closing. No score to settle. No bitterness.
"Not everything is a knockout, not everything is a fight. When it's not a fight, I'm gonna just be over here and let you do your thing. That's a part of peace, allowing people to be where they're supposed to be."
What's Next
SPOOKY: ACT II is already in motion, with records that TrigNO describes as too special to sit on. Based on what SPOOKY: ACT I accomplished, there's every reason to believe the second installment will continue where this one leaves off.
For now, SPOOKY: ACT I is out everywhere. If you haven't listened yet, start from the beginning.
The Dreamers Report is a part of the Army of Dreamers' interview series featuring individuals building their own paths.