He used to be called Trick Daddy Dollars, but maybe people should start calling him Trick Daddy Scholar.

Miami's shiniest star — at least when he opens his mouth and reveals that gold-plated grill — said his knowledge of history helped him with creating his current smash, "In Da Wind."

"We Geechies," he explained recently. "[The black people that] migrated to this country — we came in through Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and the Carolinas — we call them Geechies. We ate different. We ate collard greens because they were from the earth and 'cause we were able to grow our own food. Those are the Geechie people that I went and did this song with. They was on my level — Big Boi from Outkast and Cee-Lo from Goodie Mob. We put the Florida and Georgia thing together and we made it nationwide so [everyone] would be able to understand it."

"Drop the top and let sun shine in/ Work your wood grain and let the Twinkies spin," Cee-Lo sings on the track's hook. "Get you a glass/ Mix the Coke and the Hen/ It's quite all right, put the dro in the wind."

"I went in the studio that night," Cee-Lo remembered, "the beat was hot, the hook just came right to me. I had that verse."

"In Da Wind," the first single off of his recently released Thug Holiday, originally had a different title, but Trick fell back with the original name because he didn't want any controversy.

"I really titled it 'Trick Loves the Kids,' " said Trick, who repeatedly says the phrase on the cut. "Then on my second verse I was talking about how I was a rude-ass n---a. I don't want nothing for nobody to nag me about. I'm for the kids, but I also teach the kids, 'I'm an adult, so I can say or do adult things that you can't do. You are a child. ... I will give you anything, do anything for you. Show me a report card with an 'A' on it and I'll give you a few dollars. But don't think that I'm gonna let you curse, use drugs, smoke or drink around me. ... A child should stay in a child's place.'"

As he did with "In Da Wind," Trick opted for a triple-threat approach for '70s funk track "Gangsta," which features Scarface and Baby.

" 'Gangsta' was one of the hardest songs I ever did," Trick said. "This album I really went at it. I went at the thugs, I went at the politicians, I went at the corrections, I went at the whole prison system, the ghettos. I talked about the struggle as well as the good times. I didn't just talk about money, cars and women, because there's more to life than that."

Especially when you weren't born with a silver spoon in your mouth. Trick talks about an impoverished life on "Ain't No Santa." "And it damn sure ain't no Santa Clause/ 'Cause if it was a Santa/ What happened to Thanksgiving dinner? .../ I was born in the struggle/ Eight or nine stepdaddies/ Me and my mother and 10 others."

The title track, which features former Xscape member LaTocha Scott, is a plea for peace and another shout-out to those who know what it is to struggle — soldiers at war, lost children and prison inmates among them.

"This album is basically what we've been going through for the last couple months," Trick explained. "Everybody who's living in America, whether you're full-blood American or not, we are the people, so we've got to stick together."