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.”
Dead Man
Gucci Mane Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
But call me Jessie James when I hold this damn pistol
You can call me Gucci gu-ap when I do a song with you
But don't walk up on me homes, I ain't finna blow no strong with you
Got them young shooters with me they don't get along with you
If you ain't get no money nigga what is wrong with you
And I can't tell your own thing must have gone wrong pitcher
I'm in the whip sippin' lean, with this very long swisher
If you knew that you wouldn't do that I swear you would not kiss her
Yous a Nicky Barnes ass nigga tryin' to tell on Guy Fisher
If a snitch was to die today I bet his hood would not miss him
Yous a dead man, playing games with the bread
Yous a dead man, I put that pistol to your head man
Dead man you're playing games with my bread
You in the red man, fuck around and be a dead man
Dead man, dead man, yous a dead man
Dead man, dead man, yous a dead man
Dead man, I put that pistol to your head man
Dead man, I put that pistol to your head man, dead man
Five deuce, 4 tray 6 A
8 watches, 4 chains 6 rings
Pot forks, dope at a high cost
From coast to coast, I set numbers on the dope
Remix it yo, you know I can sell you both 16-5
Prices lower then Shawty Lo, when I drive
Got my seat leanin', low bricks inside
Got 'em stash in the door, always road running
Me and Gucci getting money bands yeah keep comin'
Tractor trailer in the morning won't stop jugging
Every month I make 4 hundred, I'm a street nigga
I got rich off of junkies
Yous a dead man, playing games with the bread
Yous a dead man, I put that pistol to your head man
Dead man, you playing games with my bread
You in the red man, fuck around and be a dead man
Dead man, dead man, yous a dead man
Dead man, dead man, yous a dead man
Dead man, I put that pistol to your head man
Dead man, I put that pistol to your head man, dead man
What the fuck is you thinking? Lil bitch you must have been drinking
This chopper had got me feeling like Harley
If I let it ride you bound to be stinkin'
I'm a asshole I do what I like to
Old shit that's made for you to fight to
I don't give a fuck bitch I don't like you
Got that fire bitch I might light you
Bitch I am the streets you just look tough
Couple bricks of snow like I was on bluff
Call me the master like Sho'Nuff
Bad boy for real, no Puff
If a nigga pussy I don't pimp mine
Just keep your distance don't play with mine
Stay in your place fall out the line
Have them young niggas all in your head to pay a fine
You can find me in the hood what a hood don't go
Heard you're somebody the hood don't know
If a nigga turn up, tell 'em watch this show
Money never sit still so I don't blow
King of the streets just call me sire
On my thrown ain't no one higher
T.R.U.T.H. no liar
Real street nigga I won't retire
Yous a dead man, playing games with the bread
Yous a dead man, I put that pistol to your head man
Dead man, you're playing games with my bread
You in the red man, fuck around and be a dead man
Dead man, dead man, yous a dead man
Dead man, dead man, yous a dead man
Dead man, I put that pistol to your head man
Dead man, I put that pistol to your head man, dead man
The lyrics of Gucci Mane's "Dead Man" revolve around the street life and the dark side of making money. The first few lines of the song talk about the two different sides of Gucci Mane's personality. He wants to be called Gucci Mane on stage, but when holding a gun, he wants to be called Jessie James. This shows his versatile personality and how he adapts to situations. He makes it clear that he doesn't waste his time with people who don't have money or are not willing to work to earn it. He also mentions that he has young shooters with him who don't get along with everyone.
The second verse describes the life of a drug dealer. It talks about how he sets prices and makes a profit by selling drugs. He emphasizes that he has become rich by selling to junkies. The chorus of the song warns people not to mess around with his money or else they will be a "dead man." The third verse highlights his violent side, where he talks about how his chopper makes him feel like Harley, and he doesn't mind using violence to maintain his reputation.
Line by Line Meaning
Call me Gucci Mane when I'm on the stage with you
Address me as Gucci Mane during a performance
But call me Jessie James when I hold this damn pistol
Refer to me as Jessie James when I have a gun
You can call me Gucci gu-ap when I do a song with you
Use the nickname Gucci gu-ap when collaborating on a track
But don't walk up on me homes, I ain't finna blow no strong with you
Don't approach me looking to smoke some weed together
Got them young shooters with me they don't get along with you
The people with me are armed and don't have a good relationship with you
If you ain't get no money nigga what is wrong with you
If you're not earning any money, then something is wrong with you
And I can't tell your own thing must have gone wrong pitcher
I can't determine your situation, but you must be facing some issues
I'm in the whip sippin' lean, with this very long swisher
I'm inside a car and drinking a cocktail of cough syrup and juice, smoking a long cigarillo
I'm drinkin' promethazine and codeine and this apple juice mixture
I'm drinking a concoction of codeine and cough syrup, mixed with apple juice
If you knew that you wouldn't do that I swear you would not kiss her
If you had knowledge of something, you would not pursue it
Yous a Nicky Barnes ass nigga tryin' to tell on Guy Fisher
You are a snitch, like Nicky Barnes, trying to give information on Guy Fisher
If a snitch was to die today I bet his hood would not miss him
If a snitch were to pass away today, their community would not mourn their loss
Five deuce, 4 tray 6 A
Referring to a specific street intersection
8 watches, 4 chains 6 rings
Listing off various jewelry pieces I have
Pot forks, dope at a high cost
References the illegal drug business
From coast to coast, I set numbers on the dope
I'm making profits from selling drugs across the country
Remix it yo, you know I can sell you both 16-5
I can sell either drugs or music to you at a certain price
Prices lower then Shawty Lo, when I drive
My prices for drugs or music are lower than Shawty Lo's
Got my seat leanin', low bricks inside
I'm driving with drugs stored in the car
Got 'em stash in the door, always road running
The drugs are hidden in the car door and I'm constantly on the move
Me and Gucci getting money bands yeah keep comin'
Gucci Mane and I are consistently making a profit
Tractor trailer in the morning won't stop jugging
I'm busy trafficking drugs using a tractor trailer
Every month I make 4 hundred, I'm a street nigga
I'm earning $400k every month and I'm from the streets
I got rich off of junkies
My wealth comes from selling drugs to addicts
What the fuck is you thinking? Lil bitch you must have been drinking
What are you thinking? You must be under the influence of alcohol
This chopper had got me feeling like Harley
Having a gun makes me feel powerful
If I let it ride you bound to be stinkin'
If I use my gun, you'll be dead
I'm a asshole I do what I like to
I'm not nice, I do what I want
Old shit that's made for you to fight to
Old-school rap music was made for fighting
I don't give a fuck bitch I don't like you
I don't care about you and I don't like you
Got that fire bitch I might light you
I'm carrying a gun and I'm willing to use it
Bitch I am the streets you just look tough
I'm a representation of the streets, while you're simply trying to look tough
Couple bricks of snow like I was on bluff
I have a couple of bags of cocaine, to seem strong
Call me the master like Sho'Nuff
The reference to a character in the movie The Last Dragon
Bad boy for real, no Puff
I'm a real criminal, unlike Puff Daddy
If a nigga pussy I don't pimp mine
I don't associate with people who are weak
Just keep your distance don't play with mine
Stay away from me and my things
Stay in your place fall out the line
Stay in your designated social status and don't try to break the mold
Have them young niggas all in your head to pay a fine
I'll have my crew threaten you for money
You can find me in the hood what a hood don't go
I can always be found in the inner city
Heard you're somebody the hood don't know
I'm hearing that you're not known in the inner city
If a nigga turn up, tell 'em watch this show
I'm warning people to watch out if someone acts out of line
Money never sit still so I don't blow
I don't waste money because it's always in motion
King of the streets just call me sire
I'm viewed as the leader of the inner city
On my thrown ain't no one higher
I'm the top dog and no one else can overcome my power
T.R.U.T.H. no liar
I always tell the truth
Real street nigga I won't retire
I'm a legitimate member of the streets and I'm not leaving anytime soon
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: RADRIC DAVIS, YOUNG SCOOTER, METRO BOOMIN, FRAZIER THOMPSON
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@OsamaOsama-wv7xr
This track hit hard if you got a sound system in the car 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥💯💯💯💯
@iwantStifflersMom
I got a car in my sound system...
@vasilbutrakov7330
@@iwantStifflersMom i got car system in my sound
@bbemadddawgmusic
Naw fr tho
@micheallockamy5311
I have 2 15s and 2 12s in my trunk and this mf hit
@22don30
Ong my cousin used too bump this everyday in his car
@santyrocks123456789
damn he was walkin through hell when he made this Beat
@Incompatiblej
LMAO
@mauricemcghee834
Naw facts he said it in his interviews
@williampalerme8759
Maurice Mcghee what interview please ?