Consumer Guide to Gucci Mane

A Consumer Guide to Gucci Mane: Part 1

From The Trap House and Back (2005-2007)

I want to qualify that the following are assigned grades only as Gucci Mane releases, not as albums or as works of art – which is not to say they aren’t all works of art individually, but that they all have places within Gucci’s singular universe, some of them more significant places than others. The purpose of this project is to brief benighted readers on which of Gucci’s many, many releases they should pursue or spend time. So while Back To The Trap House may not rank among Big Guwop’s “best” efforts, it is more “essential” to the casual listener than, for example, Ice Attack, which is rich with great songs that had already appeared on previous tapes and records, thus “inessential,” and they get the same grade.

Trap House (24 May 2005)

“So Icy,” totem that it is, might as well be re-titled “So Thrifty.” If Gucci, like Jeezy, actually came into the game a millionaire, he doesn’t sound like it on his commercial debut, where he spends as much time sketching a drug-dealing persona as he does crafting Magic City bangers. The latter category of “songs” tends to work better, as would become a trend for the rapper: “Go Head” and “That’s All” are catchy as shit, although “Booty Shorts” might be the worst track ever recorded by a Georgia rapper, inside or outside the Perimeter. The personal sketches are honest and gritty, and they supply the tropes expected from an album that purports to be about trapping, with a bonus evocation of a muggy Atlanta street corner, but such naturalism is Trap House’s downfall – a 25-year-old dope-whipper from Zone 6 calling himself “Gucci Mane” had better either a) be rich enough to afford Gucci or b) be good enough at pretending he can, which would require him to sound like he was actually good at selling drugs. Instead, he forgoes the stories he would later learn to tell for the quotidian banalities of “Lawnmower Man” and “Pyrex Pot.” Despite its shortcomings, there’s a cuteness to the record that, after the fury of Chicken Talk, Gucci could never replicate. A Portrait of the Lion as a Yung Mane. B

Chicken Talk (2006)

The Exile On Main Street of trap-rap mixtapes, it’s also the Elvis Presley – fluid, propulsive, wild messy, and loaded front to back with the classics that would sneak their way onto inferior mixtapes and albums for the next two years, it’s also ground zero for all Atlanta hip-hop to follow. It seems now almost impossible that a talent so prolific yet so spotty could, with his first free tape, churn work so consistently brilliant and forward-looking out of the rumors and the beef and the murder charges that defined Gucci Mane’s titanic mythology from the dawn of his fame, but that mythology is the key to Chicken Talk. Never again would Gucci engage with his image so directly, especially not on a two-hour free mixtape, and never again so honestly. This is the truest extant document of a crucial moment in the city’s trap history only because it sounds true – the beats and the rhymes are within Gucci’s means. They’re also hard as hell. Where Trap House captured the tedium of low-level dealing, this one’s rife with the violent and dangerous excitement the streets provide to a yung mane who can just freshly afford a 745 with a Gucci interior, for whom hip-hop poses a physical threat and sounds correspondingly hazardous. As a bougie white boy who lived OTP at the time of release, it’s my cleanest lookingglass into the tempest of Zone 6. As such I would have qualms about enjoying the danger without the fear, like I would riding a rollercoaster made of human bones, but like riding a real rollercoaster, I know how it ends, and there’s glee in the grit. A+

Hard To Kill (10 October 2006)

Producer Zaytoven’s first sustained success is interrupted by two non-Zay bangers: “Go Head” and “Freaky Gurl,” no less, which means that the strength of Gucci Mane’s best club record belongs as much to Radric Davis as anybody. The beats work in tandem with the idiosyncratically hedonistic rhymes to cast a purple and black cartoon Atlanta nightscape that’s a perfect complement to Chicken Talk’s sweaty streets and uncut grass. He’s still slanging, of course – the songs here are the reward, if you can overlook the moral dilemma at the heart of such a conceit. Nearly every one makes it easy. A-

Bird Flu (Southern Slang) (2007)

Contents: 25 “tracks,” five of them hot; two of those inferior remixes, another two bifurcated Chicken Talk oldies. That leaves just one reason to track down and download this forgotten assemblage of early-Gucci potpourri: “I’m A J”’s flip-phone weed-crunk, a rare comic breather and ad-lib showcase for The Venerable Lil Jon from which Gucci abstains for a full two minutes. The Hot 107 T.I. apology comes early, and it’s the only break from the seamless transitions between tracks that would be appealing if the individual cuts were substantially distinct not to require distinct beginnings and endings, or if, conceptually, the interminable monolith cut from their homogeneity had any of the song-like consistency of its groove. Who needs Philip Glass? B-

Ice Attack (2007)

Not the classic he proclaims it, but it’s got the hitz – “Pillz,” “Alligators,” “Freaky Girl,” “Stupid.” In other words, it’s the overstuffed best-of Hard To Kill and Chicken Talk render superfluous. Find its predecessors and skip it if you can. B

Ice Attack: Part 2 (2007)

Part 1 was no classic, but it had the boon of a handful of older bangers that made the whole worthwhile if you happened not to be in Underground Atlanta circa Chicken Talk and Hard To Kill. Here, though, only “Raining Money,” which hints at an ice-funk upon which an alternate-universe Gucci might have elaborated, and its sax-driven follow-up, “Interlude,” achieve the sublime surprise of the aforementioned full-lengths’ many fine moments. Trap Moses Zaytoven admirably pursues a, how you say, sound, to the ends of monotony and murk, attributes he would eventually abandon for the dynamism of the super-hitmaker. As his producer guns for continuity, Gucci slacks lyrically, leaving us with a mess that’s nowhere near as gripping as earlier messes, and never as beguiling. C+

No Pad, No Pencil (2007)

A more Gucci-centric “I’m A J” doesn’t make the whole less lackluster, nor does “My Kitchen’s” refrain of  “Gucci do the dishes.” If you doubted that La Flare benefits from the pad and the pencil, the holes in his palms are palpable on this half-baked free-form exercise. Gucci’s always been primarily a writer, so the idea here is to flaunt his prosodic prowess, which is comparatively limited, and the seven “exclusive” freestyles render the fact imminently glaring. The beats sound cheap and samey, and I challenge those who would deride Gucci’s entire catalogue as such to compare the originals of “Streets on Lock” and “Freaky Girl” with their totally uncalled for remixes scattered among the basura. The man’s a giant, but this ain’t shit. D

Guapaholics (with Shawty Lo) (2007)

If Gucci and Jeezy are the Stones and Beatles of trap music, Shawty Lo’s, like, the Zombies. I’m file-sharing illiterate and don’t understand torrents, so I can’t get my hands on this one, but Gucci tends to work well in collaboration, so I wager that this is probably pretty strong. If you’re smarter than me, steal the file and send that shit my way. N/A

Trap-A-Thon (11 Oct 2007)

While the Trap God himself, icy fresh in Atlantic’s ivory towers, proclaimed this unauthorized and largely overlooked cash-in by Big Cat extracanonical, an etic compiling hand lends focus and concept to the maddeningly inconsistent deep space of his early-period mixtape material. So of course “Freaky Girl” and “Pillz,” welcome in any universal context, make their fourth appearance in the Gucci galaxy, and thematically they’re light-years from home. Sonically, though, which signifies as conceptually, they feel and smell like the rest of the album, equal parts money and dope this time out. The corporately devised conceit is that dope is money – real money, money that can afford to discourage you from buying the record, money that can afford such conspicuous accouterments as aesthetic and persona and theme. Even as his erstwhile label sheds his shirtless past, ’07 Gucci still lacks the nouveau-riche glitz of ’07 Kanye, so they give him the role of the dopeboy-turned-dopeman who can afford that fishscale and that “Bling Bling Bling Bling” but not that Daft Punk sample. The persona is becoming. The money-grubbers don’t want you to forget where he came from, though: “Product” provides the narrative with the necessary ligature between slanging and spending for those who know that it was the dope and the pillz that blasted him into luxury’s orbit in the first place. “Soon as I finish my ball, might hit the mall,” a younger Gucci muses at the stove. The trap is boomin’, indeed.  A-

Back To The Trap House (11 Dec 2007)

Major-label debuts at the dawn of the Internet age of music discovery would still sound like mixtapes but for the guap, which slots Gucci’s just a notch above such noncommercial releases as Bird Flu. Remember: with Gucci Mane, richer actually tends to mean better. Even so, the wealth is thinner here: the beats are, putatively, pricier than those on Trap-A-Thon, but the bling isn’t, and bling is everything. Part of this dilemma is thematic: he’s roamed the streets, he’s hit the club, he’s been in the studio, now he’s returned to the bando. But why? To cook it again, he explains, but the stove is cool and the product’s weak. B-

WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?? Stay posted for Part 2: Mr. Perfect on Trial (2008-2009).

A Consumer Guide to Gucci Mane: Part 2

Mr. Perfect On Trial (2008-2009)

EA Sportscenter (2008)

With the exception of the hook on “Sun Valley,” which is still the tape’s best track, there’s not a single mention of the trapping that bogged down Gucci Mane’s early efforts on this manic step up, which is intrinsically significant. Far from the most prestigious or beloved of the ATLien’s touted mid-period work, the shift it marks is all that matters – it’s roughly the Chicken Talk of Gucci’s weird and sudden blow-up, and it’s refreshing in its own unique way, like replacing crack with fishscale, as he does lyrically. The product’s still clearly cheap – it’s a mixtape, not an album – but I can attest that it’s also strong for reasons less trivial than its place in history. The freshness is abetted by all new songs and lyrical motifs. No longer whipping dope or pretending to, he’s now using his hard wit to fuck all his eleventh grade teachers, not to mention your bitch, with money on the dresser to impress her and show her he’s successful – rhymes more Latinate but no less forceful than Pimp C’s “drive a Kompressor.” If Back To The Traphouse is Sartoris, this is The Sound and The Fury: the precise point where & when shit gets weird, thus essential. Everything after “King Gucci” is cheating, but the ride up is a tour de force. A

Gucci Sosa (17 Aug 2008)

There’s a chance that Gucci Mane is an actual bad person – bad enough, maybe, that there’s no point in rationalizing anymore and listening to his music, the majority of which is, candidly, not that good either. Anybody undertaking the task of slogging through his shits comes to an existential juncture at this realization – a period of doubt, a challenge to his or her blind and probably misguided faith in the Trap God. Right around getting to Gucci Sosa, I had such a crisis. It was like bad medication, which is to say I have no happy memories of it.  DJ Scream, who has probably the most annoying signature of all time, overshadows Zaytoven, which still doesn’t explain why not a single hook on the tape actually does its job. The content, meanwhile, is all ugly sex and money, which hits me bad in a way that trapping never could. It’s plenty weird, but in the way Caligula was, I guess. Worse, he buys his loafers and sneakers at the Mall of Gwinnett, when everyone knows that real Gucci Men shop at Lenox. What the fuck, G? C-

Mr. Perfect (2008)

Not over the vocational crisis that struck me at Gucci Sosa, I took a break from Big Guwop for a week – my ears needed a break, I told myself – before tackling these 32 fukkin tracks. They did nothing to fortify my faith. Bet your ass not all of them are actually perfect, and with the possible exception of “Sun Valley” (a repeat from EA Sportscenter), none of them are. As always, the Zaytoven-produced numbers triumph: “Cave Man,” for example, picks up the druggy surrealism where EA Sportscenter left it, and towers above practically everything else here. But any 32-track project is statistically likely to succeed at least once, and the successes here are so minor and few that they fade into the winding tedium like drops of promethazine in Sprite. The would-be gritty “Let’s Go To War” is virtually indistinguishable from its vacuous successors, “Floss My Jewelery” and “Fat Ass,” and glib about the presumptive realities of the streets Gucci abandoned for the studio. “Ms. Pacman” appropriates classic G-Funk in the worst possible way. “None Stop Rappin’ No Hook” with its title alone paints a picture of what it’s like to listen to this worthless, forgettable drag. Trust me. I listened to the whole fukkin thing. C+

Definition of A G (with Yo Gotti) (19 Aug 2008)

“Bricks,” “Ridiculous,” “Call The Weedman,” “Get Lotz of Cash,” and “Mo Money” are (I think) the only repeats on this Gangsta Grillz special, except for the line “Gucci do the dishes” on the last of these, of which I’ll never tire. That’s a lot of repeats. But Gucci is right in thinking they were good enough to appear more than once, and they are scattered among a grand total of fourteen tracks – considerably less daunting than Mr. Perfect’s 32, most of the best of which are preserved here. Not much of a collaboration, but worth seeking out for the tracks. Which, you know, you could just download individually. B

The Movie (16 Sep 2008)

Less conceptual or narrative than the title would suggest, Gucci Tarantino turns out another all-time trap classic nonetheless. As busy sonically as EA Sportscenter, it’s considerably darker, floating along on a roaring cold front of icy, bassy beats that lend it a menace that Gucci hasn’t achieved since “745.” Meanwhile, the hooks are complex and – get this – melodic, as Gucci hires support from Trey Songz and Gorilla Zoe to soften what could have been the ugliness of his lyrics, which are virtually an exclusive treatise on his money and occasionally his fame, both of which you can be sure he exploits. Some may tire of the single-mindedness in his materialism; anybody paying attention, though, can overlook it, because at least there’s none of the violence that hindered his earlier work. After all, he’s always been more a rudeboy than a badman, a talented rascal with every right to spend a check on the pretty titties of Magic City if he fukkin wants to. The mixtape’s real asset, though, is its album-like focus. For this, we thank the Trap God. A

Hood Classics (23 Sep 2008)

Like Ice Attack, it’s packed with the hitz – not all of them, inevitably, and not arranged in any logical sort of order. So heavy on Trap House tracks it hurts, the chief problem with any Gucci-authorized Gucci compilation is that determining what actually qualifies the “classics” is a matter of personal taste. I’d recommend making your own and skipping this one. Peep my list: 1. “Icy” 2. “Go Head” 3. “Street Niggaz” 4. “Stupid” 5…. B

From Zone 6 To Duval (2008)

I was reading an interview Gucci gave Complex in 2012, circa Trap God, in which he called From Zone 6 To Duval “one of my hardest mixtapes ever.” That was the first mention of the tape I’d seen, so I don’t know if it’s actually official or not. But the Trap God’s word is scripture, so I gave it a listen. Because very little of the material here appears anywhere else, it’s not, as Gucci attests in a throwaway adlib, “Chicken Talk 2.” But Zone 6 is unique, and the difference between it and some of Gucci’s more conventional works is immediately obvious: Big Rankin’s Jacksonville beats. “Hot Damn” has some of the sparest production I’ve heard Guwop rap over yet, and the triple threat of “Nickelodeon,” “We Got Em” and “Pampers” has a weird Caribbean flavor. Lyrically, this is not much of a step forward, except in the case of “Pussy Puller,” a brilliant song that looks forward to the oversexed grossouts of Bird Flu 2, and which makes its sole appearance here. Track this obscurity down for that if for no other reason. B+

Bird Flu, Part 2 (1 Jan 2009)

No relation other than titular to its mediocre predecessor, this one’s loaded beginning to end with new material – a rarity among Gucci releases. The material itself is just as refreshing: this is Gucci at his weirdest and grossest, and he maintains the giant baby persona throughout the tape from the goofy beats to the obnoxious ad-libs to the lyrics. “Gucci Mane is alien, from another galaxy,” he establishes out the gate, and he’s prepared to back himself up. “I wear Pull-Ups,” he later brags, presumably to catch the shit that normally just falls out of his ass. He’s taking other precautions: “I took a Cialis and now I’m horn(e)y,” the 28-year-old admits. Therein lies the key to Part 2: he’s actively trying to get it up, crafting a persona that is internally consistent and unique to this tape, and, whaddya know, rapping his hardest. Call him “young Jay-Z,” as he instructs us. Or don’t. He’s too busy to care. A-

Bird Money (17 Mar 2009)

The American motherfucker returns to form with another tape that harkens back to Hard To Kill, and it is quite long. It’s not the longest, though, and the music is strong enough to facilitate its play time. Attribute this small success to Zaytoven, whose beats increasingly balance luxury and cheapo minimalism in the same way that Gucci Mane’s lyrics vacillate between trapping, spending, and fucking, albeit sometimes archly or surreally. On Bird Money, the pendulum mostly rests at “spending,” and the celebratory language of his conspicuous consumption is as straightforward as Gucci lyrics get. Wacky and occasionally funky, the tape is above all self-referential – the apparent theme of money and jewelry that pervades nearly every track underlies and circumspectly promotes the image of the neon pimp he half-assedly courted two or three years previously, and the repeat classics – from Chicken Talk’s “Street Smart” to EA Sportscenter’s “Fast Break,” not to mention the intro’s “Freaky Gurl” tease – inspire a nostalgia for Guccis past. An idiosyncratic retrospective. B+

Murder Was The Case (5 May 2009)

As is the case with all great poets, the corpus of Gucci Mane’s work, his mixtapes & albums, forms a narrative parallel to but not necessarily reflective of its creator’s life. The more infrequent albums tend to tell this story better than the tapes. Like Trap-A-Thon, Murder Was the Case is not Gucci-endorsed – again Big Cat just compiled a mishmash of what material was available to them. But in this case their success in crafting a coherent story out of that chaos falters. The lifestyle of luxury Gucci’s floundered in gains dimension – yang to yen, punishment to crime – without advancing his music, and not in a fashion as enjoyable as Trap-A-Thon. From the opening mantra of “this kush is perfect,” Gucci celebrates the spoils of his fame, condones a life of crime when it pays, and mourns his transgressions when they don’t – all potentially interesting, except they’re not, and it’s hard to forget that it’s not Gucci’s own hand responsible for this thematic arrangement. Musically, the only thing distinguishing this sham from the mixtapes is its welcome lack of DJ signatures and contrived song transitions. That is, every song here is quite clearly a song, but few of them are thoroughly strong. Opener “Runnin’ Back” gears listeners up for a momentum on which the rest of the album fails to deliver. “Neva Had Shit” succeeds solely on its drum-lite, horn-heavy instrumental. The ragga toaster on the front end of “Murder For Fun” goes hard as fuck, but combined with the song’s premise of killing pussy niggas for fun, it’s too reminiscent of Buju Banton and the batty boys of “Boom Bye Bye” to be appealing in good taste. Taste is subjective, though; respect is less so. Have some respect and leave the story to the mixtapes. B-

Writing on the Wall (15 May 2009)

Fresh off a brief prison stint à la Hard To Kill, the Mayor returns to work with palpable fury on one of his best and most challenging works. Focused is an understatement – fiercely determined is more like it, and even the multitude of (generally excellent) features can’t distract listeners from the workhorse spirit and semi-Kanyean ambition fully at play here for the first time. “Wasted” is a slightly awkward standout that would become a signature piece in Gucci’s repertoire, and “Game” basically just revamps Murder Was The Case’s “Neva Had Shit” with more gratifying drums, but even in those few cases when they weren’t, these songs sound like they were all recorded at the same time. It’s as if Guwop spent his incarceration dreaming of finally committing every frothing idea he had straight to CD lest he find himself locked up again, which, as we all know, he would. So it’s roughly at this point that we meet the Gucci of Spring Breakers and Creative Loafing cover stories, the psychologically tortured impresario and obsessive-compulsive studio man with a hunger for achievement so intense that it ultimately fucked him up. For those who think Brian Wilson, this is the anti-Smile: the sound of a madcap genius bubblingly eager to put his best foot forward because release, not refinement, is his priority. It sucks that Gucci’s idea of achievement is prolificness over perfection; I doubt the man has ever revised a line or hook in his career, much less a sonic detail. Mr. Perfect my ass. He comes pretty damn close, though. A-

The Movie: Part 2 (The Sequel) (22 Jul 2009)

In most cases, we can count on a DJ Drama-produced Gucci Mane to be inferior to a Zaytoven-produced Gucci Mane. Are we agreed on this? This feature-heavy mixtape is no exception to that rule. But there’s plenty to like here, from the near-peaking snare and hella-catchy Trey Songz hook on “Beat It Up,” to “Gucci,” a more luxurious “Party Like A Rock Star” featuring a shockingly mild Nicki Minaj. Even less a concept album than the first Movie, Part 2 finds Gucci, as we often do, experimenting with new tools at a delicate moment in his career: as he’s poised for widespread pop recognition, with his make-or-break album in the works, it makes sense for him to market test as much material as he can on his true believers, the Atlantans who still have access to tapes like this one at practically any Bankhead convenience store and who will love Gucci unconditionally whether his experiments succeed or not. Lucky for us, they do succeed. One of these experiments is in the rapping itself. Gucci gets ambitious with his flows and thematics, and his free-associative freestyle is practically as quotable as ever: “in my mansion/listening to Marilyn Manson/dancin’” is nearly as bizarre as “where the weed man/Spongebob/part time job rakin’ leaves.” The other new addition to the toolbox is the use of the feature as patchwork: where Gucci’s skills fall short, contributors Snoop Dogg, Shawnna, and Waka Flocka pick up the slack. As per usual, the material on the second half drags. But there’s enough good here to forget about that shit. B+

Wasted: The Prequel (4 Sep 2009)

Opening on “Wasted,” nearly depleted of its initial power yet far from retired in Gucci’s catalogue, Guwop’s first EP is more a prequel to The State vs. Radric Davis than it is the Movie series – a preview of sorts. As a fan of brevity, I have no problem with this strategy. It also helps that every song here is fire. I particularly like the Juelz Santana and Big Boi features on “She Got a Friend.” Who would have guessed – a promotional throwaway at least as good as what it’s promoting. The deluxe edition of Radric Davis appends this EP to the album proper, which is a real treat. A

The Burrprint (The Movie 3D) (10 Oct 2009)

Who names these shits? The man who takes them? It shouldn’t matter, because Gucci’s titles are generally as noncorrelative as couplets like the oft-quoted “popping Cris, think that I need Alcohol Anonymous/45 in the club, I could kill a hippopotamus.” But music this thin calls for some sort of unification, or at least some dimension, as the title suggests but never delivers on. Generally considered to be Gucci’s best mixtape, I’m surprised to find how conventional it is. I hear none of the “sneakily melodic sensibility” that Pitchfork’s Tom Breihan wrote of at the time, and none of the lyrical brilliance of Bird Flu Part 2 or Writing On The Wall, comic or otherwise. What’s more, there’s not a single standout track on an album comprised largely of new songs, and there’s no talk of squad love on the album that gathers Gucci’s Brick Squad in one place for the first time. Also, how damn 2009 is that cover art? C

The Cold War: Part 1 (Guccimerica) (17 Oct 2009)/ The Cold War: Part 2 (Great Brrritain) (17 Oct 2009)/ The Cold War: Part 3 (Brrrussia) (17 Oct 2009)

Three tapes in one day? Goddamn, man. – is what people said when the semi-legendary trilogy dropped in October of ’09. In ‘15, such antics from Gucci Mane are about as shocking as hip shaking from Elvis. All that means is that Gucci (or his management) has found and stuck to a successful strategy – creatively packaging back-catalog material and releasing it periodically to keep the rapper on listeners’ ears while he’s in jail or otherwise creatively incapacitated – and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Unfortunately, nothing on these tapes – which combined are roughly the length of Mr. Perfect on its own – does very much to help those listeners forget that what they’re hearing is beta content. C

The State vs. Radric Davis (8 Dec 2009)/The State vs. Radric Davis (Deluxe) (8 Dec 2009)

Much of the content of this album is so familiar to even the most casual Gucci Mane fan – pretty sure my mom has heard “Lemonade” – that I feel silly summarizing it. As a career move, it’s equal parts All Eyez on Me and Me Against The World, simultaneously post-jail and pre-jail. But since it would not be until 2016’s explicitly All Eyez-channeling Everybody Looking that Gucci’s incarceration would actually engender in him a 2Pac-sized stylistic transformation, it’s better to compare it to the work of a peer: Lil Wayne’s Carter III, another long-awaited commercial album by a consummate mixtape professional who would also soon face jail time and a years-long career slump. Radric Davis’ “Deluxe” edition in particular supports this comparison both in its refusal, despite its title, to deal with the real-life threats Gucci’s career was facing at the time; and in its generous, diverse abundance of content. What’s normally a cynical recoupment strategy is something special here: the album and its bonus tracks, plus the near-flawless Wasted EP, sequenced with no rhyme or reason but the flow the mixtapes promise but rarely deliver. Simply to say that all this coincided with the peak of Gucci’s popularity is not to say that it’s also one of his best creative efforts. But it is. A

Is this the end for the Mayor? The last hurrah for The Rascal King behind bars? Nah, I’ll do it again, in Part 3: Everybody Lookin’ (2010-2012)