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.”
Bricks
Gucci Mane Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Gucci Mane La Flare
My nigga Ralph in here
Zaytoven on the beat, nigga
And it's a street-nigga holiday
My nigga DJ Holiday, gyeah!
Bricks!
Off-white bricks
Light-tan bricks
Just hit a lick for 50 more bricks
Balling like a bitch with all these bricks
Bricks!
36 zips
That's a whole chick
Want a bad bitch? Gotta have bricks
Yeah that makes sense
Yeah, I make hits
But I still take bricks
So Icy C.E.O., I'm a fool with the snow
They think I'm putting VVS jewels in the coke
My watch a cool hundred, paint-job a cold 20
And after this flip, I'm quitting the trap cold-turkey, psych!
The pack in and I'm working
Drought season in, charged your ass a whole 30
But right now you can get it for a low number
This fish scale white, same color my Hummer
Zone-6 polar bears never see Summer
It's Winter all year 'cause the birds fly under
95 Air Max 'cause I'm a dope runner
I'm ballin' like an athlete but got no jumper
Bricks!
All-white bricks
Off-white bricks
Light-tan bricks
Just hit a lick for 50 more bricks
Balling like a bitch with all these bricks
Bricks!
36 zips
That's a whole chick
Want a bad bitch? Gotta have bricks
Yeah that makes sense
Yeah, I make hits
But I still take bricks
I'm like a waitress in the trap, I've got something to serve
That's 16 bars, same price for a bird
What you need, a bird? Or a couple pounds?
I'm on Cleveland Ave, you know my side of town
So many bricks I can build my own apartment
You better check when you come in my department
Yes I break 'em down and I sell 'em whole
Try me, watch your whole crew fall like some dominoes
I got a trap house and a trap car
100,000 off a cap, that's a trapstar
All this smoke got me feeling real nauseous
Riding with them bricks got me feeling real cautious
Bricks!
All-white bricks
Off-white bricks
Light-tan bricks
Just hit a lick for 50 more bricks
Balling like a bitch with all these bricks
Bricks!
36 zips
That's a whole chick
Want a bad bitch? Gotta have bricks
Yeah that makes sense
Yeah, I make hits
But I still take bricks
Tony Montana: "All I have in this world"
Is my 100-round chopper and my white girl
Oil-based bricks, shit hard to cook
Call the plug back, tell him he got took
Know what that mean, the shit free
That means none for him and more for me
I took something, I'm gutter bitch
Don't trust me dogg, this that North Memphis shit
Old-school, new Porsche
Couple choppers just in case they wanna go to war
Bricks, A.K.A. my best friend
28 inch rims, call 'em "grown men"
Dope stepped on, call it "step-child
I got that Slim Shady, we call it "8 Mile"
I'm from North Memphis, Watkins and Brown
Gotti Street and nigga, that's my brick house
Bricks!
All-white bricks
Off-white bricks
Light-tan bricks
Just hit a lick for 50 more bricks
Balling like a bitch with all these bricks
Bricks!
36 zips
That's a whole chick
Want a bad bitch? Gotta have bricks
Yeah that makes sense
Yeah, I make hits
But I still take bricks
"Bricks" is a song by Gucci Mane featuring Yo Gotti. It is a trap music anthem and an ode to drug dealing. The lyrics include numerous references to bricks of cocaine and how they play a crucial role in the rapper's street life. The song is a celebration of their success in the drug trade, with repeated mentions of the different colors of the bricks that they sell. The chorus of the song is simple yet catchy and is a repetitive chant of the word 'bricks' that sticks in the listener's mind.
The song starts with Yo Gotti's voice, before Gucci Mane takes over, and then the two trade verses throughout the song. There are references to Tony Montana, from 'Scarface', and the movie's infamous "Say hello to my little friend" line is also included. The lyrics are explicit and give an insight into life in the trap, the drug-dealing culture, and the lingo associated with the drug trade. It is a song that is targeted towards the streets and those who can relate to the lifestyle.
Line by Line Meaning
It's your boy Yo Gotti, gyeah!
Yo Gotti introduces himself with enthusiasm
Gucci Mane La Flare
Gucci Mane's name and nickname are mentioned
My nigga Ralph in here
Someone named Ralph is present
Zaytoven on the beat, nigga
The name of the music producer, Zaytoven, is mentioned
And it's a street-nigga holiday
The atmosphere is highly celebratory
My nigga DJ Holiday, gyeah!
DJ Holiday is recognized and greeted with excitement
Bricks!
The word bricks is used as a metaphor for drug selling
All-white bricks
A type of uncut drug sold
Off-white bricks
A type of uncut drug sold
Light-tan bricks
A type of uncut drug sold
Just hit a lick for 50 more bricks
The singer acquired drugs via a robbery
Balling like a bitch with all these bricks
The singer is having great success selling drugs
36 zips
36 ounces of drugs
That's a whole chick
A reference to earning enough money to purchase a nice car or another luxury good
Want a bad bitch? Gotta have bricks
The singer believes the key to attracting women is possessing money and extravagance
Yeah that makes sense
The singer sees his logic as reasonable
Yeah, I make hits
The singer has a successful music career
But I still take bricks
The singer still sells drugs despite his music career
I'm like a waitress in the trap, I've got something to serve
The singer is available and willing to sell drugs
That's 16 bars, same price for a bird
The price for drugs is fixed per quantity
What you need, a bird? Or a couple pounds?
The singer offers a variety of drug amounts available for purchase
I'm on Cleveland Ave, you know my side of town
The singer is indicating the location where he is selling drugs
So many bricks I can build my own apartment
The singer has an excessive amount of drugs
You better check when you come in my department
The singer warns people to be cautious when approaching him
Yes I break 'em down and I sell 'em whole
The singer sells drugs in both small and large amounts
Try me, watch your whole crew fall like some dominoes
The singer warns potential rivals of his power to destroy them
I got a trap house and a trap car
The singer has a place to sell drugs and transportation for drug deals
100,000 off a cap, that's a trapstar
The singer considers himself very wealthy due to selling drugs
All this smoke got me feeling real nauseous
The singer is high from the drug smoke
Riding with them bricks got me feeling real cautious
The singer is nervous when he is carrying the drugs
Tony Montana: "All I have in this world"
A reference to the lead character in the film "Scarface"
Is my 100-round chopper and my white girl
The singer has a gun and cocaine, the "white girl" reference indicating the latter
Oil-based bricks, shit hard to cook
The drugs the singer sells are made using a difficult process
Call the plug back, tell him he got took
The singer tricks his drug supplier
Know what that mean, the shit free
The singer received free drugs by cheating his supplier
That means none for him and more for me
By cheating his supplier, the singer has more drugs for himself
I took something, I'm gutter bitch
The singer is a negative figure and is proud of being in the underworld
Don't trust me dogg, this that North Memphis shit
The singer appears threatening to others and associates with dangerous people
Old-school, new Porsche
The singer has an expensive car
Couple choppers just in case they wanna go to war
The singer is prepared to fight others with guns if needed
Bricks, A.K.A. my best friend
The singer's life revolves around selling drugs
28 inch rims, call 'em "grown men"
The singer has modified his car with large wheels
Dope stepped on, call it "step-child
The drugs the singer sells are mixed with other substances
I got that Slim Shady, we call it "8 Mile"
The singer has drugs he associates with Eminem and the film 8 Mile
I'm from North Memphis, Watkins and Brown
The singer is from a particular area in Memphis, TN
Gotti Street and nigga, that's my brick house
The singer lives on "Gotti Street" and considers his location to be his own place of business
Lyrics © Ultra Tunes, BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Royalty Network, Songtrust Ave, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: XAVIER DOTSON, RADRIC DELANTIC DAVIS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@BBBBBBBBBBBX
This era Gucci was something else, yall kids got no idea
@Gonja808
Zaytoven going crazy on the church organ 😂🔥🔥🔥
@DBOThomas
Faxxx he got a strong sound
@cmb6087
Ayyyyyyyyy
@christinam2423
I loved this era of Gucci’s music 🎵
@DBOThomas
Faxxx straight gutter shit
@louweez84
Man the best time of my life !!!!
@motiman2466
Me too
2006-2011 Gucci
@moneyonfleek305
@@motiman2466 12-2014 was a new era “Guwop” Trap back
@amandagold31
Absolutely