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.”
Giant
Gucci Mane Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
It's seven days of the week, seven different bentleys
I'm sittin on ourvis, six plus twenty,
I'm looking very pretty in my S550
My 80 carat chain got me something like fifty
This multicarat chain got me looking p. diddy
It's Young Gucciracci, come and smoke ten wit me,
And imma X ya off, cuz ya know I got plenty
Them outta town boys get diyon wit it
I'm sittin so high that I'm looking at pigeons,
And its a car show everytime I hit Visioin
I'm standin on sixes, should I say set?
I'm sqautting on rims, but should I say limpin'?
454 thats a real big engine, how much I spent on it?
Nigga that ain't yo business
Humongous, enourmous, Gucci ridin' jurassic
26 inches beatin' hard in traffic
Windows tinted, bubble kush we pass dat
All my bitches keep thrax we match dat
[Chorus]
I'm a giant
Ya see how I'm ridin'
I'm 26's glidin', let 'em know that I'm a giant
I'm a giant
I'm on a giant high
I'm ridin' giant fly
I'm 26's in the damn sky
I'm a giant
Ya see that I'm a giant
I'm 26's glidin' let 'em know that I'm a giant
I'm a giant
I'm on a giant high
I'm riding giant fly
I'm 26's in the damn sky
I'm a giant
I'm going to my oldschool
From bumper to bumper fool
Dropped a hundred stacks now it cost more than pickin' hummers do
Just like diamonds my cars are so colorful
Rims pimped out what the fuck I need Xzibit for?
Change lanes then change hues, from light green to donk blue
Yeah the paint chameleon so they swagger and they change too
Shine harder, grind harder, Air Ones look like tap water
Chrome wheels look like silver quarters and my see-through top like bathwater (damn)
26 inches and the rims look like pickle juice
26 inches sittin' on the skirt tails y'all, look, really not difficult
Jumped in the hot tob, shawty off the bentley coupe
Inside look like blood and the guts like tomato soup
[Chorus]
Yeah, I'm Gucci Mane La'Flare, Call me Delta Airlines 'cause I'm sittin' in the air
Like I'm standing on a chair, the rapper of the year got 'em ridin' in my leer here
With diamonds in my ear, and plus I smoke that purp, so check my footwork
Sixes on the skirt, I already done mounted it
Million dollars worth of notes already done counted it
Man that fuckin' paint job Gucci good Lord
Swerve on 'em shawty, work it work it real hard
When shawty rolled up he was sittin' on some deuces
Gucci rides sixes offset snoopy
Then a nigga throw up money like Huey
6,000 pounds of purp coming in tuesday
Dammit man I'm shinin' I always get loaded
He asked me for a brick like I got the shit on me
[Chorus]
In Gucci Mane's song "Giant," he boasts about his wealth and success. The lyrics showcase his expensive taste in cars and jewelry, with references to different Bentley cars and chains with carat weights in the tens. He also mentions his love for smoking, specifically "bubble kush," and his ability to buy and sell drugs with ease. The chorus emphasizes his status as a "giant," riding on 26-inch rims and sitting high in his cars. The second verse features even more car references, with Gucci talking about his chameleon paint job and his convertible top. He continues to flex his wealth by mentioning a million dollars in cash and his ability to purchase large quantities of drugs. The song ends with Gucci celebrating his success and shining brightly like a star in the sky.
Line by Line Meaning
My inside ostrich, outside candy,
I have luxurious items, like ostrich material inside my car and a flashy paint job on the outside.
It's seven days of the week, seven different bentleys
I have a different Bentley for every day of the week.
I'm sittin on ourvis, six plus twenty,
I am sitting on a custom-made chair and have a large amount of cash.
I'm looking very pretty in my S550
I look good in my Mercedes-Benz S550.
My 80 carat chain got me something like fifty
My 80 carat chain is worth about fifty thousand dollars.
This multicarat chain got me looking p. diddy
I look like P. Diddy with my expensive chain.
It's Young Gucciracci, come and smoke ten wit me,
I, Young Gucciracci, invite you to smoke ten joints with me.
And imma X ya off, cuz ya know I got plenty
I will stop associating with you because I have many other friends.
That Larry Byrd yay for the kyshaun tickets,
I have expensive drugs to offer in exchange for expensive basketball game tickets.
Them outta town boys get diyon wit it
Visitors to my city enjoy themselves to the fullest.
I'm sittin so high that I'm looking at pigeons,
I am sitting high up and looking down at pigeons on the ground from my car.
And its a car show everytime I hit Visioin
Whenever I drive to Vision, a car show seems to happen.
I'm standin on sixes, should I say set?
I am standing on 26-inch rims, should I say the whole set of rims?
I'm sqautting on rims, but should I say limpin'?
I am crouching on my large rims, but should I say limping instead?
454 thats a real big engine, how much I spent on it?
My 454 engine is very large, but how much I spent on it is none of your business.
Nigga that ain't yo business
That information is not your concern.
Humongous, enourmous, Gucci ridin' jurassic
Gucci is riding in a very large car.
26 inches beatin' hard in traffic
My 26-inch rims create a loud noise in traffic.
Windows tinted, bubble kush we pass dat
My car windows are tinted and we pass around bubble kush.
All my bitches keep thrax we match dat
My girlfriends all wear Thrax to match my style.
I'm a giant
I am a powerful and successful person.
Ya see how I'm ridin'
You can see how I am riding in my car.
I'm 26's glidin', let 'em know that I'm a giant
My 26-inch rims make me stand out and show that I am a giant.
I'm on a giant high
I am extremely confident and happy.
I'm ridin' giant fly
I am driving a very flashy and luxurious car.
I'm 26's in the damn sky
My 26-inch rims make my car look like it is flying.
I'm going to my oldschool
I am going to an older model car.
From bumper to bumper fool
The entire car is customized and upgraded.
Dropped a hundred stacks now it cost more than pickin' hummers do
I spent over a hundred thousand dollars on my car, which is now more expensive than buying multiple Hummers.
Just like diamonds my cars are so colorful
My cars are as bright and colorful as diamonds.
Rims pimped out what the fuck I need Xzibit for?
My rims are already upgraded, I don't need Xzibit from the show Pimp My Ride to do it for me.
Change lanes then change hues, from light green to donk blue
When I change lanes, the color of my car changes from light green to dark blue.
Yeah the paint chameleon so they swagger and they change too
My paint job is like a chameleon, making my car and my swagger change along with it.
Shine harder, grind harder, Air Ones look like tap water
I work hard and want to shine even brighter, my Air Ones look dull in comparison.
Chrome wheels look like silver quarters and my see-through top like bathwater (damn)
My chrome wheels resemble silver quarters and my transparent roof is a light blue color.
26 inches and the rims look like pickle juice
My 26-inch rims have a unique color like pickle juice.
26 inches sittin' on the skirt tails y'all, look, really not difficult
My 26-inch rims are sitting comfortably and it's nothing unusual for me.
Jumped in the hot tob, shawty off the bentley coupe
I jumped into the hot tub with my girlfriend who arrived in a Bentley coupe.
Inside look like blood and the guts like tomato soup
The inside of my car looks like blood and the seats are red like tomato soup.
Call me Delta Airlines 'cause I'm sittin' in the air
People call me Delta Airlines because I am sitting so high up in my car.
Like I'm standing on a chair, the rapper of the year got 'em ridin' in my leer here
It feels like I am standing on a chair because my car is so high up, and everyone wants to ride in it because I am the rapper of the year.
With diamonds in my ear, and plus I smoke that purp, so check my footwork
I have diamonds in my earrings and I smoke purple weed, so check out my dance moves.
Million dollars worth of notes already done counted it
I have already counted and have a million dollars in cash.
Man that fuckin' paint job Gucci good Lord
My paint job is amazing and impressive, good Lord.
Swerve on 'em shawty, work it work it real hard
I want to impress others by swerving in my car, and I want to dance hard to the music.
When shawty rolled up he was sittin' on some deuces
When my girlfriend arrived, she was driving a car with 22-inch rims.
Gucci rides sixes offset snoopy
I am driving with 26-inch rims that are offset, like Snoopy.
Then a nigga throw up money like Huey
I threw up money like Huey from the cartoon The Boondocks.
6,000 pounds of purp coming in tuesday
I am expecting a large shipment of purple weed that weighs 6,000 pounds on Tuesday.
Dammit man I'm shinin' I always get loaded
I am shining bright and always getting high.
He asked me for a brick like I got the shit on me
Someone asked me for drugs as if I carry them with me all the time.
Contributed by Oliver R. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
@lorenkelly222
🗣️2023 still here beating hard in traffic💯💪🏾💪🏾💪🏾
@jamaalcurry8990
Original Gucci was too versatile for the industry
@brooksjackson9791
I miss dis gucci
@virgojenkins876
Still banging Gucci 12s moving 🔊 🔊. Let’s goooo 2020 💯
@damarkusloyd3304
Dorm room days 2007-08 smoking and freestyling all damn day
@PierreSalgado-yn7mc
High school days ditching cruising doing the same
@onyebuchiotikpo7469
Banga 🔥🔥🔥, always on repeat, I miss the old Gucci Mane. Can't stay a day without listening to this song 🔥🔥🔥🔥
@NatureHeadSupreme
Aww man the memories in the Cutlass good ole days
@ammonakinseye3949
Blew the windows off the trap,
@zellyzell1993
Hood classic 🔥🔥🔥