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.”
Its Not a Day
Gucci Mane Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
That I don't wanna look in your eye (ah)
Girl you so fine, I might try (ah)
To fuck around and lick you dry (ah)
It's not a day that goes by (ah)
That I don't wanna look in your eye (ah)
Girl you know you got that fiya (ah)
If you don't give it to me ill die (ah)
She so fine it'll make you cry
Make you smile, even make you lie
Make me cum and I don't know why
Got me acting dumb and I don't know why
Some say I'm sprung and I'm young
And I'm dumb, full of cum
I'm a fiend, you the drug
I'm high
Baby so fly, ain't nothing I won't buy
Baby drive
I'm too drunk to drive
Sliding down Ocean Drive
Driving a Lambo like New Jersey Drive
There's two freaks inside
Pull up in a Coastal suicide
I propose a toast
Got a bitch so bad I wanna boast
"Bae lets get sum to smoke"
Everywhere I go my youngin' wanna go
She wanna go
The hoes with the most from coast to coast
A whole brick just a host
Baby lets elope
I buy you a stone bigger than a cantaloupe
Girl you dope as cancer smoke
And I think I'mma overdose
It's not a day that goes by (ah)
That I don't wanna look in your eye (ah)
Girl you so fine, I might try (ah)
To fuck around and lick you dry (ah)
It's not a day that goes by (ah)
That I don't wanna look in your eye (ah)
Girl you know you got that fiya (ah)
If you don't give it to me ill die (ah)
I'll be a lie, if didn't say that you fly
And I ain't lying
Louie carrier, carry on bag
When we flying
I'm supplying all this shit I'm buying
I can keep you high
Private jet, I'm passing Kush out to the pilot when we fly
Ferrari jet, you my copilot when I wanna drive
I do the Driving, then you do the riding
Lets take a ride
You got that wet wet
That water slide, and I wanna slide
We smoking jet fuel
The Kush came in darker this time
In Ya Spine
And hit from behind
And damage the linen
And she came and I came in
That's perfect time
That pussy wet, man its too wet
It got me sliding
I'm a vet
Got a a mean chick
But shawty riding
It's not a day that goes by (ah)
That I don't wanna look in your eye (ah)
Girl you so fine, I might try (ah)
To fuck around and lick you dry (ah)
It's not a day that goes by (ah)
That I don't wanna look in your eye (ah)
Girl you know you got that fiya (ah)
If you don't give it to me ill die (ah)
Gucci Mane's song "It's Not a Day" is an explicit confession of his sexual desire and addiction to a particular woman. The song is all about his infatuation with her and his inability to get her off his mind. In the first verse, Gucci talks about how he is unable to resist looking into her eyes every day and how she is so fine that he may just lick her dry. The chorus reiterates his desire to be with her and pleads with her to give herself to him, as he claims that he cannot live without her.
In the following verse, Gucci Mane describes the effects that the woman has on him. She has the power to make him cry, smile, and even lie. She also has the power to make him climax repeatedly, and he doesn't understand why. He acknowledges that some people might think he's foolish for being so obsessed with her, but he sees himself as a fiend who can't resist her like a drug. He doesn't care about anything else in the world as long as he's with her, and he's willing to do anything to make her happy, including buying her all the things she desires.
The final verse continues on this theme of Gucci Mane's extreme lust for this woman. He talks about their dalliance in a luxury vehicle, driving recklessly and even implying that they may have used drugs while driving. He acknowledges that he's out of control and may be addicted to her, but he doesn't care as long as he's got her. The song ends with a repetition of the chorus lines, driving home Gucci's unquenchable thirst for this woman, whom he sees as the only one whom he can't live without.
Line by Line Meaning
It's not a day that goes by (ah)
Every day, without fail
That I don't wanna look in your eye (ah)
I can't resist staring into your eyes
Girl you so fine, I might try (ah)
You're so attractive, I might attempt to pursue you
To fuck around and lick you dry (ah)
I might even pleasure you to an extreme extent
Girl you know you got that fiya (ah)
You possess an irresistible allure
If you don't give it to me ill die (ah)
I crave you so much that not having you would be unbearable
She so fine it'll make you cry
She's so stunningly beautiful that it may incite emotion
Make you smile, even make you lie
She can elicit a range of emotions and behaviors
Make me cum and I don't know why
She can make me orgasm without explanation
Got me acting dumb and I don't know why
Her presence makes me act foolish, even without reason
I'm a fiend, you the drug
I'm addicted to her and her presence
Baby drive
She's capable and desirable enough to drive me wild
I'm too drunk to drive
I'm too intoxicated with desire to think clearly and drive myself
There's two freaks inside
Both myself and my partner embody a sexual nature
Pull up in a Coastal suicide
We're driving recklessly near the ocean
I propose a toast
I want to celebrate her presence
Got a bitch so bad I wanna boast
My partner is so great that I want to brag about her
"Bae lets get sum to smoke"
Let's consume drugs together
Everywhere I go my youngin' wanna go
My partner wants to be with me wherever I go
She wanna go
She's eager to accompany me
The hoes with the most from coast to coast
From one end of the country to the other, only the finest women are desired
A whole brick just a host
A large amount of drugs are being dealt
Baby lets elope
Let's run away together
I buy you a stone bigger than a cantaloupe
I want to shower my partner with expensive gifts
Girl you dope as cancer smoke
My partner is as addictive and desirable as smoking
And I think I'mma overdose
My affection for her is so strong, it feels overwhelming
I'll be a lie, if didn't say that you fly
I would be dishonest if I didn't admit that she's stunning
And I ain't lying
I'm telling the truth
Louie carrier, carry on bag
I have designer luggage
When we flying
When we travel
I'm supplying all this shit I'm buying
I'm providing everything that we're consuming
I can keep you high
I can provide an enjoyable experience for my partner
Private jet, I'm passing Kush out to the pilot when we fly
I'm sharing drugs with the pilot while we travel
Ferrari jet, you my copilot when I wanna drive
You'll be with me as I race through life
I do the Driving, then you do the riding
I lead and you follow
Lets take a ride
Let's go on an adventure together
You got that wet wet
You're sexually aroused and desirable
That water slide, and I wanna slide
You're wet with desire and I want to fulfill that desire
We smoking jet fuel
We're consuming strong drugs
The Kush came in darker this time
The marijuana we obtained is stronger
In Ya Spine
It feels amazing and overwhelming
And hit from behind
I want to engage in sexual activity from this position
And damage the linen
We're engaging so passionately that we're causing damage to our surroundings
And she came and I came in
We both climax together
That's perfect time
It's the perfect moment
That pussy wet, man its too wet
Her sexual arousal is at a peak
It got me sliding
Her sexual arousal is arousing me as well
I'm a vet
I'm experienced and knowledgeable in sexual activity
Got a a mean chick
I have a desirable partner
But shawty riding
But my current partner is with me and fulfilling my desires
Lyrics © Ultra Tunes
Written by: RADRIC DAVIS, XAVIER DOTSON
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@stallworthgerald
True masterpiece 💯🤦♂️🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
@marshalldogg7019
CERTIFIED HOOD CLASSIC
@TravelwithSacha
LOVE DIS SONG
@kalisemcgee1260
I love it 👍👍👍🙌🙌🙌💁💁😜😜😎
@iGrOwSoLo
this my mf'n shit right here
@oppshopping4012
killed that second verse guwop
@RealKirbysDreamland
FIRE
@Nikko730
Ayy gucci went fed on this!! #AllTruth
@delldolo7314
Classic most don’t know bout
@ksdempire
all gucci n verse simmons song 🔥🔥