The hip-hop artist known as Lom Rudy is sitting inside of Royal Oak’s Northside Audio studio texting, returning calls, and preparing to hop behind the mic. Dressed in all black and a pair of white Nike Air Force 1s, he’s talking to the studio engineer about a verse for a feature he wants to record and other songs.
Over the last 24 months Rudy has been one of the most consistent and creative emcees emerging out of Detroit’s ever evolving hip-hop scene.
“I treat music like I treat the streets as far as networking and using resources,” he says confidently. “I gravitate more towards people that’s being productive and doing their thing. I really don’t want to be around muthafuckas that’s bullshitting and not doing nothing.”
Rudy, 31, grew up in Inkster, a small suburb that sits on Detroit’s doorstep with around 25,000 residents. Much like Detroit, Inkster shares a poverty rate that’s a pinch over 30% and has battled the challenges of a high crime rate that comes with it.
“It’s just like a mini Detroit forreal,” he says. “Everything that’s going on from the westside to the eastside [of Detroit] is going on in Inkster. People making money, people getting killed, literally everything.”
His parents both faced their own separate challenges in navigating street culture which left him no other choice than to move in with his aunt midway through high school. Eventually Rudy found his own lane into the streets. “I got turned on to a lot of stuff early, probably more so than most people did,” he says. “My dad was in prison and my mom lived in the city so I was like staying with family members.”
Rudy found solace in hip-hop, growing up on Detroit mainstays Doughboyz Cashout and Team Eastside, and by high school he was part of his own hip-hop group, L.O.M. (Loyalty Over Money). But penning bars and hitting the studio with his crew took a backseat to the easy access of fast money. “I was getting a lot of money in the streets so I wasn’t thinking about music,” he says.
Participating in Detroit’s economic underbelly is risky, no matter someone’s chosen street trade, popularity, low profile, or intentions. For every enemy known there are 10 incognito, and you become targeted by them and police the more your (perceived) monetary status ascends. Even comradery among fellow hustlers is nonexistent or superficial at best. In 2013, Rudy had just left the Crazy Horse gentlemen’s club and was shot in the stomach while driving on I-94 in Detroit.
“Somebody pulled up on the side of me and shot the car up … everything happens for a reason,” he says with a nod. “I’ve always been in the streets so I kind of know what comes with it.”
Rudy made a full recovery and jumped back into his street lifestyle while treating music as a part-time job. But in 2016 he was indicted by the United States of America and the State of Michigan for access device fraud and manufacturing over 50 grams of heroin. Rudy was incarcerated in 2016 and released from prison in 2018.
Upon release he felt like he was fully ready to focus on music. His group had peacefully parted ways to pursue solo ventures and Rudy needed a plan filled with attainable and legal goals.
“When I was in prison I thought, ‘Damn, I don’t wanna come back to jail. So what am I going to do when I come home?’” he says. “So when I came home in 2018, that’s when I really started focusing on the music and I noticed you can’t do both.”
Rudy’s first offering was 2019’s Chess not Checkers. The project was powered by street narratives like “Make It Back” and “Headed to Texas.”
“That was my first solo project,” he says. “I just wanted to see how it did forreal, and I got a good response. It felt good, it made me want to keep going and put more effort into it forreal.”
However tragedy struck again in 2021 when Rudy was shot four times while leaving the Seaside Lounge in Houston, Texas. “I was walking to the car, some niggas ran up on me with masks on trying to take my watch,” he says. Rudy was shot in his mouth, neck, chest, and leg.
“That was the first time where I felt like I almost died,” he says. “That gave me a wake-up call. I thought being out of town, I was good, but shit can happen anywhere.”
Rudy was able to make a full recovery and released Second Chance shortly after. The project was helped with guest bars from fellow emcees Courtny Bell on “I Can Tell” and Baby Money on “Keep Hustlin.” Although the project had already been in the works prior to Rudy’s near-fatal shooting, he expedited the release — as the idiom goes, “turning a negative into a positive.”
“I started noticing that more people were paying attention to me after that Houston shit happened,” he says. “People wanna see you damn near die. I felt since I had all these eyes on me and all this attention I might as well capitalize on it and I dropped that and it did better than the first tape did.”
A year later, on April 20, 2022, Rudy was yet the victim of another attack. He was shot four times in Detroit. Video from the aftermath of the shooting was posted on social media.
“I was somewhere I didn’t have no business being and I knew that while I was in there,” he confesses.
Rudy had to learn how to walk again during a rehab stint after the incident, which also left him blind in his left with a vertical scar underneath. He also aggressively started recording more music which resulted in God’s Favorite, a body of work that he calls his “favorite album.”
“The majority of God’s Favorite was about the incident. It was more like real life experiences in that one. That project was way more personal,” he says.
On “My Life” off of God’s Favorite he raps:
“I then sent some shit and hit some shit I know karma real
Had to teach myself to walk again I know how it feel
I then took 3 of em to the face so I know how it heal”
And on “Checkmate” he’s more cocky and witty:
“I went from in the hood to continents
Toasting to our accomplishments
Selling bows like condiments
IG bitches wit compliments
they keep boosting my confidence”
Rudy’s brushes with death have left just as many emotional scars as physical scars, with PTSD is comparable to a soldier returning home from war. He’s wary of large crowds, skeptical of people he doesn’t know, and is still getting used to taking selfies with fans. He’s humble, self-aware, and is not a provocateur in any way. He sees his trio of shootings as more “wrong place, wrong time” situations, not street karma coming back at him.
“I’ve never been the person just to be doing something to a person. So I don’t need to be watching my back. Stuff be coming my way, it was people trying to take shit from me,” he says.
Musically Rudy has already had a productive 2024. He collaborated with heavyweight emcee Allstar JR to release Casino Bag and Casino Bag 2. “We socially sound good together. We sound like we’ve been making music together for a long time,” he says. In July he took a major pivot and dropped “Hey There,” an interpolation of pop rock band Plain White T’s 2006 mega-hit “Hey There Delilah” with a trap twist. Rudy states he had the original version stuck in his head for weeks and on whim, decided to record a verse one day in the studio.
“[That] shit sounded good!” he says. “I posted that shit and it did good, so I was like, ‘we gonna put this shit out forreal.’”
The song has grown Rudy’s following with new fans outside of his normal trap supporters. His next album Checkmate is complete and set to be released this month along with a documentary about the 2022 shooting.
Rudy is two years removed from the last attempt on his life and his perspective has grown sharper with each passing day. He’s a father of four children under the age of 8 and he uses their love and support to keep him focused.
“I got four other people that I have to take care of,” he says. “I gotta put them first. It keeps me structured and keeps me balanced.”
Rudy is still independent but says he’s willing to listen to what any record label is willing to offer him as long as he maintains some creative control. “I feel like my creative process is a big reason why I am where I am,” he says, adding, “I ain’t stoppin’ no time soon.”
