Radric Davis (born February 12, 1980 in Birmingham, Alabama), better known … Read Full Bio ↴Radric Davis (born February 12, 1980 in Birmingham, Alabama), better known by his stage name Gucci Mane, is an American rapper and CEO of 1017 Brick Squad Records. In 2005 he released his independent debut album, Trap House, which featured the successful single "Icy" that he recorded with Young Jeezy. He has since released a further three albums including 2006's Hard To Kill, 2007's Trap-A-Thon and 2007's Back To The Trap House. His sixth studio album, The State vs Radric Davis, was released in December 2009, just weeks after he was sent back to prison for 12 months for violating his probation. He was released in May 2010 and will now release his seventh studio album, The Appeal: Georgia's Most Wanted, sometime at the end of 2010.

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.”

Ice Cold
Gucci Mane Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

(Hook 1)
Baby I don't mean to stare cuz yo n***a right there
I suggest you f**k with me cuz baby I'm a bigger player
If yo man is a square then you shouldn't f**k with squares
I suggest you call yo girl cuz I f**k b*****s by the pair
From the bed to the couch, fuckin all over the house
If yo man don't pay yo rent then I suggest I put him out
I suggest you invest in a n***a with some clout

I suggest that you put a real n***a off in yo mouth

(Hook 2)
You know I'm ice cold, yea yea yea…
Ice cold, yea yea yea…
You know I'm ice cold, yea yea yea…
Ice cold, yea yea yea…
You know I'm ice cold, yea yea yea…
Ice cold, yea yea yea…
You know I'm ice cold, yea yea yea…
Ice cold

(Verse:)
I'm so cold when it come to hoes
Think my heart is made of cold
If you watch my mama though she'll say my heart is made of gold
But my Rollie made of gold and my heart been turned to stone
And my boss a rolling stone and where he lay his head home
Baby girl I'm freezing, take me out the freezer
If you don't believe me I can make you a believer
My motor had a heart attack, my truck it had a seizure
All this gold around my neck, they think I come from Asia
Gucci Mane got stupid grown so you can fire that weed up
Go on and call yo hairdressed cuz I'mma f**k yo weave up
Diamond rings all on my fingers, I look like a preacher
Losers keepers, you can keep er, I just want a freak

(Hook 1)
Baby I don't mean to stare cuz yo n***a right there
I suggest you f**k with me cuz baby I'm a bigger player
If yo man is a square then you shouldn't f**k with squares
I suggest you call yo girl cuz I f**k b*****s by the pair
From the bed to the couch, fuckin all over the house
If yo man don't pay yo rent then I suggest I put him out
I suggest you invest in a n***a with some clout
I suggest that you put a real n***a off in yo mouth

(Hook 2)
You know I'm ice cold, yea yea yea…
Ice cold, yea yea yea…
You know I'm ice cold, yea yea yea…
Ice cold, yea yea yea…
You know I'm ice cold, yea yea yea…
Ice cold, yea yea yea…
You know I'm ice cold, yea yea yea…
Ice cold

(Verse:)
Coldhearted, I got mo money than a gold artist
They say rappin make you money, I keep buyin mo Rarris
Strangers talk when they walk by me then say sorry
And if a n***a touch me shutdown the whole damn party
Drinkin Rose out the bottle, like a ice cold vodka
They say you bought her the D but you just start ballin
I used to run up on the scene but I got no degree Shawty
N****s don't gotta f**k with me long as these b*****s keep callin
I'm a stone cold killer, load my shot Glock 40
You got a problem fore you walk, don't be no deadmad walkin
Tried to be a humble n***a but my bread started talkin
Tried to tell my dogs to stop but them choppas start barkin
I say what the f**k I wanna say like my n***a Charles Barkley
How you gon play ball with n****s when you n****s not ballin
Tried to sneak me in the joint, had to stomp em to the floor
I ain't goin' back no more cause it's ice cold in the hole

(Hook 1)
Baby I don't mean to stare cuz yo n***a right there
I suggest you f**k with me cuz baby I'm a bigger player
If yo man is a square then you shouldn't f**k with squares
I suggest you call yo girl cuz I f**k b*****s by the pair
From the bed to the couch, fuckin all over the house
If yo man don't pay yo rent then I suggest I put him out
I suggest you invest in a n***a with some clout
I suggest that you put a real n***a off in yo mouth

(Hook 2)
You know I'm ice cold, yea yea yea…
Ice cold, yea yea yea…
You know I'm ice cold, yea yea yea…
Ice cold, yea yea yea…
You know I'm ice cold, yea yea yea…
Ice cold, yea yea yea…

You know I'm ice cold, yea yea yea…
Ice cold

Overall Meaning

The song "Ice Cold" by Gucci Mane featuring Verse Simmonds is a classic example of trap music, known for its hard-hitting beats and lyrics that glorify money, power, and sex. The lyrics of the song revolve around Gucci Mane's lifestyle and his relationship with women. He boasts about his wealth, his diamond rings, and his cars. He also speaks to the women, telling them that they should choose him over their current partners. He suggests that he is a better player and that he can provide more luxury and excitement in their lives.

Gucci Mane's lyrics also showcase a cold and ruthless attitude towards his foes. He talks about his enemies and the steps he takes to protect himself. He says that he carries a shot Glock 40 and that he is not afraid to use it. He also talks about his time in prison and how he has hardened himself to the point where he is "ice cold" and unforgiving.

Overall, the song "Ice Cold" celebrates the materialistic and hedonistic lifestyle that is often associated with the trap music scene. It speaks to the listeners who are looking for a sense of empowerment and a way to escape their everyday problems.

Line by Line Meaning

Baby I don't mean to stare cuz yo n***a right there
I am not trying to disrespect you or your man but I am interested in you.

I suggest you f**k with me cuz baby I'm a bigger player
You should choose me because I am more experienced than your current partner.

If yo man is a square then you shouldn't f**k with squares
If your man is not adventurous, then you should explore your options.

I suggest you call yo girl cuz I f**k b*****s by the pair
You should call your friend so that we can have a threesome.

From the bed to the couch, fuckin all over the house
We will have sex everywhere in the house.

If yo man don't pay yo rent then I suggest I put him out
If your man does not contribute to your household, then you should kick him out.

I suggest you invest in a n***a with some clout
You should be with someone who has influence and power.

I suggest that you put a real n***a off in yo mouth
You should perform oral sex on a real man.

You know I'm ice cold, yea yea yea…
I am callous and indifferent to others' feelings.

Ice cold, yea yea yea…
I am heartless and have no sympathy.

Ice cold
I am emotionally distant and detached from others.

I'm so cold when it come to hoes
I am emotionally detached when it comes to women.

Think my heart is made of cold
My heart is made of ice and is incapable of feeling love or warmth.

If you watch my mama though she'll say my heart is made of gold
Those close to me may think I have a heart of gold but it is not apparent to the people I encounter in my music business.

But my Rollie made of gold and my heart been turned to stone
Although I have a gold watch, my heart has become cold and hardened.

And my boss a rolling stone and where he lay his head home
My manager is always on the move and has no fixed home base.

Baby girl I'm freezing, take me out the freezer
I have become numb and need someone to thaw me out emotionally.

If you don't believe me I can make you a believer
I can prove to you my callousness and lack of emotions.

My motor had a heart attack, my truck it had a seizure
My car and truck had mechanical issues, signaling my lifestyle and business are out of control.

All this gold around my neck, they think I come from Asia
I wear a lot of gold and people may believe I am of Asian descent due to my gold jewelry.

Gucci Mane got stupid grown so you can fire that weed up
I have matured and am more experienced now, so let's smoke weed.

Go on and call yo hairdressed cuz I'mma f**k yo weave up
Go get your hair done, but I will ruin it because we will have rough sex.

Diamond rings all on my fingers, I look like a preacher
I have a lot of diamond rings and may be mistaken for a preacher.

Losers keepers, you can keep er, I just want a freak
I am only interested in sex and do not want a relationship.

Coldhearted, I got mo money than a gold artist
I am ruthless and have a lot of wealth.

They say rappin make you money, I keep buyin mo Rarris
Although rap music is profitable, I keep spending my earnings on sports cars.

Strangers talk when they walk by me then say sorry
People may feel intimidated or frightened of me as they walk by but then apologize for no reason.

And if a n***a touch me shutdown the whole damn party
If anyone touches me, I will start a fight and ruin everything for everyone.

Drinkin Rose out the bottle, like a ice cold vodka
I am drinking Rose wine straight from the bottle like it is a cold, hard liquor.

They say you bought her the D but you just start ballin
People may think you had sex with a woman due to your success and wealth.

I used to run up on the scene but I got no degree Shawty
I used to be involved in illegal activity but I did not receive any formal education.

N****s don't gotta f**k with me long as these b*****s keep callin
People may not want to associate with me but women will always be interested in me.

I'm a stone cold killer, load my shot Glock 40
I am capable of murder and carry a handgun to prove my toughness.

You got a problem fore you walk, don't be no deadmad walkin
Do not start trouble with me or you will end up hurt or dead.

Tried to be a humble n***a but my bread started talkin
I tried to be modest but my wealth and success spoke for itself.

Tried to tell my dogs to stop but them choppas start barkin
I attempted to tell my friends to stop their reckless behavior but they persisted.

I say what the f**k I wanna say like my n***a Charles Barkley
I speak my mind freely and without filter like my friend, the former basketball player Charles Barkley.

How you gon play ball with n****s when you n****s not ballin
How can you compete with me when you do not have the same level of wealth and success?

Tried to sneak me in the joint, had to stomp em to the floor
Someone tried to trick me and I had to physically retaliate.

I ain't goin' back no more cause it's ice cold in the hole
I refuse to go back to jail because the environment is harsh and cold.

Contributed by Bailey N. Suggest a correction in the comments below.

To comment on or correct specific content, highlight it

TRACKS