First Day Out

After spending three years in jail on home invasion charges, Detroit native Terry Wallace drove back home to Motor City and headed straight for the studio on the day he was released. Not even bothering to change out of the clothes he'd left his Kentucky prison in, Wallace immediately recorded "First Day Out" - a song he'd first started working on behind bars back in April 2015. Released under his performing moniker of Tee Grizzley, Wallace's debut single and its accompanying video quickly went viral, earning him a deal with 300 Entertainment in early 2017. He told Genius: "I started on it in April of 2015. It didn't take that long to write. But that's when I started it. I left it alone. Kept coming back to it. Kept updating it. It ain't really take no time limit, because I could've did it all in the same day. I didn't even think the song would go as far as it did. It was just another song that I wrote. I think the build-up played a big part. And what I had to say. Them the two factors. What I had to say, how I said it, and the build-up of it. Because it affected people."

The song provides an insight into Wallace's state of mind as he languished in jail. He said: "What happened in Kentucky was I had committed a crime, and when they sat me down, I felt like I wasn't never goin' to get out. Kentucky jails got a way of making you feel like them doors ain't gone never be open. I remember thinking like, 'I ain't never gone make it up out of here.' No matter how much time they tell you, the conditions are so terrible down that you feel like you ain't never gone come home."

Meek Mill jumped on the song's remix. Tee Grizzley told MTV News correspondent Gaby Wilson how the collaboration happened. "I always wanted to do something with Meek anyway, because he inspired the 'First Day Out' song,' said Grizzley. "You know, it's like the 'Dreams and Nightmares' type of feel. We end up doing that song. I had reached out to him. He had hit me. We was just kicking it for a minute. We met up in Atlanta at a studio. I really was just coming to listen to [Meek's album] Wins and Losses, and then he's like, 'Man, pull some beats up. Let's do something.' I end up getting the 'First Day Out' instrumental."