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.”
Can't Interfere With My Money
Gucci Mane Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴
I done shot niggas, been shot at nigga
If you love your niggas you fire for your niggas
Call Waka my nigga, I die for my niggas
Spent seventy-five on this Rollie'
Told her four-five like the police
? ho, come show me
Big Gucci O.G. like Tookie
Then I'mma gonna have to kill a junky
Since Nino snitched at the end my nigga he cannot be my role model
Like Big Meech, like John Gotti
I ain't never told on nobody
Got tear drops, but nobody
Blew your brains out your head to make you think about it
I'm cancerous, on the dangerous
And I don't need no nigga, I can handle this
I got good aim, I don't panic quick
And I have a nigga funeral candle lit
Like Dunk say, you wanna rob nigga, well me and you probably on the same shit
This ain't a lick, and I don't know you
'For I shake your hand, I put a hole in it
You ain't gonna bring me my bread nigga, can't interfere with my money
I'ma put change on your head nigga, can't interfere with my money
Heard you snitching to the feds nigga, they can't interfere with my money
I ain't got time to be playing with ya', can't interfere with my money
Heard you ain't got no money no more, but it can't interfere with my money
Say that you running up on me nigga, but it can't interfere with my money
Fronted you some and you still ain't paid, but it can't interfere with my money
Like I'm a bitch, I'm gon' let you play, but it can't interfere with my money
See the rap game like the trap game, so you can't interfere with my money
Treat these rap niggas like little kids, when you do wrong you get punished
I'm an M.C. but I'm from the street, these fuck niggas ain't one-hundred
Got ? on my handgun, so my nine hold 'bout two-hundred
Seen a YouTube, 'bout a nigga saying that he gon' do me then run it
But the only thing he gon' do is start running when I start gunning
'For I talk to you I'm busting nuts, ? crack your bone marrow
Let your brother be your ? , shoot you in your head like ?
All my niggas got pistols on 'em, all my guns got extensions on 'em
? your favorite rapper turned victim homie
And no witnesses to be snitching on me
Say the nigga died with his pistol on him
Crime scene, taking pictures of him
Had a ? funeral and a shower for him
When you see the nigga, lay a flower on him
You ain't gonna bring me my bread nigga, can't interfere with my money
I'ma put change on your head nigga, can't interfere with my money
Heard you snitching to the feds nigga, they can't interfere with my money
I ain't got time to be playing with ya', can't interfere with my money
Heard you ain't got no money no more, but it can't interfere with my money
Say that you running up on me nigga, but it can't interfere with my money
Fronted you some and you still ain't paid, but it can't interfere with my money
Like I'm a bitch, I'm gon' let you play, but it can't interfere with my money
Gangster as I wanna be, mobbing to the third degree
No nigga gon' fuck with me, I keep them shooters 'round me
And I don't really fuck with nigga, why the fuck they trying me?
My hand where that nine be, two shots through your eyelids
These rap niggas getting distorted, that's why I'm glad I'm a trap nigga
Million dollar strap nigga, brains in your lap nigga
O.G. of my city, check my status nigga
Shooting like John ? nigga
My goons automatic nigga
When it's time to ride out, my niggas don't hide out
Choppers in the hideout, time to break the iron out
We killing for them rubber bands, bombing like Afghanistan
Pull up in a Hummer truck, spit fire out like I'm drummer boy
You ain't gonna bring me my bread nigga, can't interfere with my money
I'ma put change on your head nigga, can't interfere with my money
Heard you snitching to the feds nigga, they can't interfere with my money
I ain't got time to be playing with ya', can't interfere with my money
Heard you ain't got no money no more, but it can't interfere with my money
Say that you running up on me nigga, but it can't interfere with my money
Fronted you some and you still ain't paid, but it can't interfere with my money
Like I'm a bitch, I'm gon' let you play, but it can't interfere with my money
The lyrics to Gucci Mane's song Can't Interfere With My Money depict the rapper's experiences with gun violence, robbery, and loyalty. The first few lines reveal that Gucci Mane has been both a perpetrator and victim of gun violence. He goes on to express his devotion to his friends and how he would sacrifice himself for them. Loyalty is a common theme in gangster rap and Gucci Mane is no exception. The artist then talks about his lavish lifestyle, such as spending $75,000 on a Rolex watch, and asserts his dominance over others who might try to interfere with his money. In the final lines, Gucci Mane warns his enemies that he is not to be messed with, and that he is willing to use violence to protect his business.
The song reflects Gucci Mane's experiences as a young rapper who came from humble beginnings, worked hard to achieve success in the music industry, but still faces danger and opposition from various enemies. The lyrics can be seen as a defense mechanism that he uses to protect himself in the ruthless world of rap music. Additionally, the song's driving beat and aggressive lyrics make it a popular choice for workout playlists and at parties.
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind