It’s said that art mirrors life. In hip-hop’s case, there’s always been a deliberate entanglement of perception and reality. Fans demand their MCs be real…but never too real. Successful hip-hop is about the hint of the danger, the tease of it, the mystique. Hip-hop is about balance.
Gucci Mane is an artist striving for that balance, volatility versus musicality. Controversy, including a feud with former collaborator Young Jeezy, has grabbed the headlines, with insufficient regard paid to his considerable mic skills, raw talent, and business acumen. Gucci is looking to wrest his name from public speculation and let his own words do the talking.
“I wish everybody well who’s making money in this rap game,” the Atlanta-raised rapper says, dismissing the controversy that followed him in the past. “My own rap game is going so good, I’ve got so many things on my plate at my label, that I don’t got time for other people’s business.” With a deal with Asylum Records as the boss of his own label, So Icey Entertainment, Gucci does indeed have a full schedule with no time to dwell on the past.
“I live my life with no regrets. I just wish that a lot of things never happened, but anybody can wish,” says Gucci. Sounds like a man with his eyes on the prize. And you’d expect nothing less from an artist who ground his way to the top via the hustle of independent records. Signing to Big Cat Records in the wake of his local single “Black Tee,” he dropped his debut record, Trap House, in May 2005. The independent album moved an impressive 140,000 units, largely on the strength of the “Icy” single, featuring Jeezy. Clamor over song rights sparked dispute, and the resulting rift grew.
Controversy notwithstanding, Mane’s independence was cemented: “I was on the independent scene for about two years,” he recalls. “It’s crazy! You gotta go into your own pocket to support your craft. You need other avenues to have money coming in, to support your stuff. You might win, you might lose, and it’s a gamble out there with the independent circuit. One thing you’d better have is good music because without that, you go downhill fast in the independent game.”
Good music firmly in hand, Gucci was fast approaching stardom when more tragedy befell him. But let’s backtrack; how did the man born Radric Davis in Bessemer, Alabama, become Gucci Mane, mouthpiece for Atlanta stuntin’? Mane remembers little from his time in Alabama, just that it was rural, and that it’s changed dramatically since he left at the age of nine. “I gotta shout out Alabama though, because they holdin’ it down,” he affirms. “Every time I go there to do a show, I’m impressed with how hip-hop culture has taken root.”
Mane’s identity coalesced when he moved with his mother to Atlanta. “I lived all of my adolescent and adult life in Atlanta,” he explains. “I’m from East Atlanta Zone Six; it was hard, man, it was real rough. I grew up in the Starter jacket era: they’d take your Starter jacket, your 8Ball jacket, they’d take your hat, your shoes. It was just no holds barred on the streets, dog eat dog. If you missed the bus, you had to be crewed up or you’d get jumped. It was wild when I came up.”
It’s a bleak portrait. When asked to describe his home life more vividly, Mane offers a look into his contemplative side, a side honed as a schoolyard poet. “I was just a young dude in a single parent house most of my life. I can’t complain that much. I would guess it’s like any black child growing up in a single parent household. There are a lot of people who know how that is. I didn’t have a lot coming up; but what I did have, I appreciated. I was blessed to have a caring mother to raise me right and to help me with my business ventures; she’s been there through the whole struggle. There’s a lot that goes along with that; it made me who I am today.”
A stepfather would enter the picture during Mane’s adolescence, introducing not only a male figure, but also inspiration for Mane’s unusual moniker. “My father came in, the original Gucci Mane; that’s what people in the neighborhood called him, and that’s where I get my name from. From then on, I grew up the son of a hustler and a schoolteacher; it was the best of both worlds because I was educated twice.” Drawing inspiration from a pantheon of rappers before him –Big Daddy Kane, LL Cool J, Ice Cube, the Beastie Boys, N.W.A—Mane went on to release Trap House, a lethal brew of his signature sound: “I call my music straight Gucci: going hard and whatever beats you make you for me, if I’m feeling it, if I’m rocking with it, I’m gonna crush it. When you hear me, you hear a lot of pain, a lot of hood; you hear what’s going on in the inner city in Atlanta.”
Unfortunately, Trap House was ill timed; the month of its release, Gucci was accused of murder and jailed for two days. Eventually deemed to be acting in self-defense, and without sufficient evidence to hold him, Mane was exonerated. But the ordeal left an indelible imprint on the man. “I learned to keep better company, watch where I go, and be mindful of my surroundings at all times,” he reveals. “Watch what I say, watch what I do and how I do it, just keep myself out of the wrong crowd.”
“I always stand up man,” he continues. “I’m one of the toughest guys I know. It’ll take a lot more than that to break me down.” Undeterred, Mane was back in the studio, preparing 2006’s eerily apropos Hard To Kill. The buzz from Hard To Kill vaulted Gucci Mane from regional commodity to national treasure, and major labels responded accordingly: “There was a bidding war going on, and I liked Atlantic’s approach. They made it known that they wanted me, they felt where I was going and that I could grow with them.”
Asylum/Atlantic Records welcomed Gucci Mane in early ’07, granting him his own imprint, So Icey Entertainment. With it comes an entire stable of artists, the So Icey Boyz. As the Boyz ready for their own exposure –“I got them in training; they be in the weight room, pumping iron, doing pushups, shopping at the mall, buying ice”—Gucci is focused on his magnum opus, Back to the Trap House. “I started working on the album, and by the third song, I was like ‘This is going back to the Trap House.’ I started feeling the same way I did when I made my first album. It had the same feel to it, the same freshness. And I had the same hunger and desire I had when I first started rapping.”
“Since I went major, I want everybody to know I’m still keeping it street, keeping it hood,” Gucci maintains. “I’m trying to take it back to all my fans that I had when I first started my career. And at the same time, I’m trying to open up my new album to a new fan base. So it’s a mix for everybody coming together, like my first album was.” Gucci has always prided himself on his innate ability, and his refusal to let guest appearances dictate the tone of his records. “I just want people to know I’m a great songwriter, man,” he asserts. “I’m passionate about what I do, and it’s choreographed strategically when I do it. I bring a lot of experience, creative wordplay, and a crazy style. And my albums, I record most of the songs without writing them down; it’s a God-given gift and I just get paid for it. It come from God, it’s like wondering what makes a bird fly. He made me a poet like the great poets of the past.”
But don’t mistake Gucci’s confidence for self-absorption. The vicissitudes of his career have dictated a longer view. Lyrics aside, he’s less preoccupied with visible means and more so with acting as an emissary from his under-repped block. “I’m not the one to glorify what goes on in the hood,” he insists. “We have everything there, the whole range from violence to people getting on the bus and going to work. There’s a lot more to the hood than just drugs. It’s a bigger story, there’s a big picture. I went to school in that neighborhood, I worked there, I trapped there, I hustled there, and I got my name there. I’m proud to be from East Atlanta Zone Six, and I claim there. I hold that on my back and carry that, to be the first one from there to really rock.”
And Gucci’s professional aims have matured as well. While other rappers stress platinum plaques, Gucci hasn’t forgotten the route he took to stardom. “I made a lot of CDs on my own. People fucked with me and supported me, and just made me the man I am today. That’s my blueprint right there, and I stay mindful of it. So now, my only concern is that people feel my music; at the end of the day, I do it for people to feel it. If one person feel it, two people feel it, I feel like my job’s been done.”
Fortunately for Gucci, he should be prepared to welcome an army of new fans with Back to the Trap House. But longstanding fans shouldn’t fear; they’ll recognize “Freaky Gurl,” reprised from its previous appearance from Hard To Kill. Luda, upon hearing the joint, asked for a guest spot on the remix. Said remix now appears as the lead single on Back to the Trap House, following in Gucci’s theme of mating old and new. Over a bouncing, meandering beat from Cyber Sapp, the two cook up the requisite concoction of whips, chips, and chicks. Also look out for “Bird Flu,” the album’s number two single, laced by New-York based Supa Sonics. Elsewhere, firm guest verses from Rich Boy and Pimp C of UGK round out Gucci’s regional flavor, while Bay-area producer Zaytoven (of “Icy” renown) locks down Gucci’s West Coast appeal.
Gucci Mane has something for everyone, and with the struggles of the past in his rearview, Gucci is settled in for his ride to the top. “I’m best known for controversy but I’m trying to gain respect as a songwriter and entertainer. I plan to hit them so hard with this album; who knows what the future will bring. I’ll be banging them out till I can’t bang no more.”
Big Cat's Home
Gucci Mane Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
[knocking three times] [buzzing doorbell]
I ain't gon' lie [BUZZ, BUZZ BUZZ]
That shit was some good weed nigga why you bullshittin?
[buzzing again] I need me some more of that
(Who is it?) Magic! (Hold on)
(Cat!) "Yo" (Magic at the do' for ya)
"Fuck you tellin me that for? Let Magic in man he family"
'Bout to go holla at the big boy man
Just came home fresh, seems proper, feel me? {Yup}
Stay right here, I gotta holla at him, y'know?
Just some one-on-one shit, chill out
{Ah, al-alright, alright, alright, yeah, yeah, yo}
[Magic (Big Cat)]
Big boy, what's good?
(Yo Magic, whassup dawg? I ain't seen you in a minute)
Ain't shit man, y'know
Been out here in the street (yeah?)
You see I ain't dead y'knahmean or in Hell y'know?
(That's whassup my nigga but check it out man)
(What's been goin on, man I've been gone for minute, what's poppin?)
You know we've been hittin the streets hard man
Y'know I, I been hearin a lot of bullshit
But y'know I laugh at bullshit y'know
(Yeah I know what you talkin about y'knahmayin?)
(That ol' Gucci Mane situation but I tell you what)
(We ain't gon worry 'bout that shit right now, y'knahmsayin?)
(That nigga makin us money - we eatin off this nigga dawg!)
Cheah hold up hold up hold up I got'chu man
Now that you see what we worth [drops bag on table, unzips it]
(What'chu got dere?) Courtesy of Coochie Man and Atlantic Records
(Ohh man, OOH, shit~! Ain't seen this many hundreds in a...)
[slaps money down] (Boy, that's what I'm talkin about baby)
That's right (that's all for me?)
Yeah man y'know that's for you man (OOOH! .. yeah)
That's better than a visit man (that's what I'm talkin about)
(Good lookin dawg, good lookin)
Know you was wonderin why I ain't come see you man
But you know I couldn't come see you caged up
(I see you I see you was busy handlin business and shit)
(Gettin shit right) Yes sir, yes sir
(Yeah that's what I'm talkin about but check it out Magic)
(It's all about that music shit right now)
(We gotta chill out on the other shit y'knahmsayin?)
(It's too many bodies poppin up, too many niggaz talkin)
(Y'knahmsayin? And we ain't with allathat)
(We gon' fly under the radar right now, and fuck with this music shit)
(Y'knahmsayin? That's where the real money at, y'knahmsayin)
I feel you my nigga, I I heard it was money there y'know?
I seen niggaz gettin money in there, y'knahmsayin?
I need some of that (shit it's your time baby)
(Just don't forget, motherfuckin Coochie Mane)
(We ain't worryin about him right now)
(He dissin the motherfuckin family, or tryin to.. do what he doin?)
(We ain't worryin about him, cause we eatin off him)
(Let him live my ya dig?)
And you know how much I love money nigga [echoes]
(That's right!)
The beginning of Gucci Mane’s song "Big Cat" sets the scene with someone, likely an associate or friend, coming to his residence to score some good weed. It’s a familiar scenario - the doorbell's being heavily buzzed, while someone inside is asking who it is, and then finally opening up the door allowing the arrival of the guest. The atmosphere suddenly changes to what sounds like a conversation between Gucci himself, and another person named Magic. Magic has just returned from being away and it appears that they have a lot to catch up on.
Gucci reveals the success of their endeavors over the past few months, as he drops a bag of money from Atlantic Records and Coochie Man. Gucci makes sure that Magic understands the importance of this journey, and how music is the key to all of their current successes throughout the conversation. But, there’s a clear warning to his tone, as he talks about flying under the radar currently, and stepping away from the violence and ill-talk between them and Coochie Man. Through this, he puts forth the message of not taking any ratting or backstabbing anymore. Gucci and Magic are now onto other goals and aspirations.
**Interesting facts about "Big Cat":**
* "Big Cat" is produced by Zaytoven.
* The song appeared on 10 of Gucci Mane's mixtapes, including "No Pad, No Pencil," "Bricksquad Mafia,” “East Atlanta Memphis,” and "Trapology."
* In "Big Cat," Gucci talks about wanting to get off of the streets and making money in the music industry.
* The phrase "big cat" is considered to be an accolade, as it represents someone with notable authority and often symbolic of someone with a significant amount of financial security and success.
* The song was released in 2015 on YouTube, where it got over 13 million views.
* With over 1.7 million streams on Spotify, the song quickly became one of the artist's most popular tracks.
* Magic, who features in the song, is a close friend and associate of Gucci Mane.
* In "Big Cat," Gucci talks about his time in prison and the difficulties he faced while he was locked up.
* The song is built around a sample of The Temptations' 1967 hit, "Runaway Child, Running Wild."
* Since its release, "Big Cat" has been remixed by several popular rappers, including Lil Baby and Pooh Shiesty.
There's no available version of the chords for "Big Cat."
Line by Line Meaning
Aiyyo make sure you get the backwood off the puff my nigga
Make sure you remove the excess leaves from the tobacco leaf we use to wrap the marijuana.
[knocking three times] [buzzing doorbell]
The sound of someone arriving at the door knocking three times and ringing the doorbell.
I ain't gon' lie [BUZZ, BUZZ BUZZ]
I'm telling the truth when I say that the marijuana we smoked earlier was really good.
That shit was some good weed nigga why you bullshittin?
The marijuana we smoked earlier was high-quality, so why are you trying to act like it wasn't?
[buzzing again] I need me some more of that
Someone is at the door again, and they are asking for more of the good marijuana we just smoked.
(Who is it?) Magic! (Hold on)
Someone named Magic is at the door, and we need a moment to let him in.
(Cat!) "Yo" (Magic at the do' for ya)
Someone is at the door, and it turns out to be Magic.
"Fuck you tellin me that for? Let Magic in man he family"
Why are you telling me who is at the door? Let Magic in, he is family.
[door opens and shuts]
The door is opened and then closed once Magic enters.
'Bout to go holla at the big boy man
I am about to go talk to someone who is in a higher position of power.
Just came home fresh, seems proper, feel me? {Yup}
The person I am about to talk to just got out of prison, and they appear to be doing well.
Stay right here, I gotta holla at him, y'know?
You need to stay here while I go talk to the person in authority.
Just some one-on-one shit, chill out
This is just a private conversation between two people.
{Ah, al-alright, alright, alright, yeah, yeah, yo}
Expressions of agreement and acknowledgment.
[Magic (Big Cat)]
Magic is also known as Big Cat.
Big boy, what's good?
Hello, what's going on with you?
(Yo Magic, whassup dawg? I ain't seen you in a minute)
Hello Magic, what's up? I haven't seen you in a while.
Ain't shit man, y'know
Been out here in the street (yeah?)
You see I ain't dead y'knahmean or in Hell y'know?
Nothing much has been happening, I have been out in the streets. As you can see, I'm not dead or in jail.
(That's whassup my nigga but check it out man)
(What's been goin on, man I've been gone for minute, what's poppin?)
That's good to hear man, but let's catch up. I have been out for a while, what's been going on?
You know we've been hittin the streets hard man
Y'know I, I been hearin a lot of bullshit
But y'know I laugh at bullshit y'know
(Yeah I know what you talkin about y'knahmayin?)
We have been actively participating in street life, but I've been hearing a lot of negative talk. I don't let it bother me, though. (Yeah, I understand what you're saying.)
(That ol' Gucci Mane situation but I tell you what)
(We ain't gon worry 'bout that shit right now, y'knahmsayin?)
(That nigga makin us money - we eatin off this nigga dawg!)
I know what you're talking about regarding the situation with Gucci Mane, but we won't worry about that right now. He's making us money, and we are profiting off of him.
Cheah hold up hold up hold up I got'chu man
Now that you see what we worth [drops bag on table, unzips it]
Hang on, I have something to show you. (Drops bag on table, unzips it.)
(What'chu got dere?) Courtesy of Coochie Man and Atlantic Records
(Ohh man, OOH, shit~! Ain't seen this many hundreds in a...)
[slaps money down] (Boy, that's what I'm talkin about baby)
That's right (that's all for me?)
Yeah man y'know that's for you man (OOOH! .. yeah)
That's better than a visit man (that's what I'm talkin about)
What do you have there? (Courtesy of Coochie Man and Atlantic Records.) Woah, that's a lot of money! (Slaps money down.) That's what I'm talking about - this is for you. (That's better than a visit.)
(Good lookin dawg, good lookin)
Know you was wonderin why I ain't come see you man
But you know I couldn't come see you caged up
(I see you I see you was busy handlin business and shit)
(Gettin shit right) Yes sir, yes sir
Thanks, man. You were probably wondering why I didn't visit you when you were in prison, but I couldn't bring myself to see you behind bars. (I understand, I see you were busy handling business.)
(Yeah that's what I'm talkin about but check it out Magic)
(It's all about that music shit right now)
(We gotta chill out on the other shit y'knahmsayin?)
(It's too many bodies poppin up, too many niggaz talkin)
(Y'knahmsayin? And we ain't with allathat)
(We gon' fly under the radar right now, and fuck with this music shit)
(Y'knahmsayin? That's where the real money at, y'knahmsayin)
I agree with you, Magic. Right now, music is where it's at. It's too dangerous out there in the streets, too many people are dying and there's too much drama. We need to lay low and focus on making money through music instead.
I feel you my nigga, I I heard it was money there y'know?
I seen niggaz gettin money in there, y'knahmsayin?
I need some of that (shit it's your time baby)
(Just don't forget, motherfuckin Coochie Mane)
(We ain't worryin about him right now)
(He dissin the motherfuckin family, or tryin to.. do what he doin?)
(We ain't worryin about him, cause we eatin off him)
(Let him live my ya dig?)
And you know how much I love money nigga [echoes]
I hear you, man. I've heard that there's a lot of money to be made in the music industry. I want in on that. (It's your time baby.) Don't forget about working with Coochie Mane. (We're not worrying about him right now, he's earning us money.) Let him be. And you know how much I love money, right?
(That's right!)
Agreement and acknowledgment.
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Written by: RADRIC DELANTIC DAVIS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind