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.”
Jump The Line
Gucci Mane Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Jyeaaa
Jyeaa
Jyea
Yeaaa
We pull up to the club
Fresh up off the grind
Me and my lil buddies
And we finna Jump the line
Jump the line every time
You know we jump the line
Fresh up off the grind
And we finna jump the line
We pull up to the club
Fresh up off the grind
Me and my lil buddies
And we finna jump the line
Jump the line every time
You know we jump the line
Fresh up off the grind
And we finna jump the line
Your mane is my name
Gucci is what they call me
Six months i lost it
Now bitch i ball it
Twenty-eight inches
Got me standin' really tall man
Tearin' up the mall
This is just the way i ball man
Cocaine ounces
Blue and yellow wristband
Chain look iceland
Watch my breitling
Niggas think ice can
Gucci think island
Niggas think charger
Gucci think 'rrari
-sorry,
Murcialago i park it
Inside peanut butter
Outside change it
Now outside
Get it inside stranger
Diamonds look mustard
S 600
We pull up to the club
Fresh up off the grind
Me and my lil buddies
And we finna jump the line
Jump the line every time
You know we jump the line
Fresh up off the grind
And we finna jump the line
We pull up to the club
Fresh up off the grind
Me and my lil buddies
And we finna jump the line
Jump the line every time
You know we jump the line
Fresh up off the grind
And we finna jump the line
I enter to the club
Im lookin for a girl
She lookin for a thug
Like im lookin for a pull
I bought a pack of bullets
I showed her lot of jewels
I gotta lot shows, see
I really gotta know
But i aint gotta know
I'm standing real low
I'm backin out my auntie
How she says she doesnt know
She put at the house
And i'm back in the drought
And it made me feel real good
When i came back with that phat
We pull up to the club
Fresh up off the grind
Me and my lil buddies
And we finna jump the line
Jump the line every time
You know we jump the line
Fresh up off the grind
And we finna jump the line
We pull up to the club
Fresh up off the grind
Me and my lil buddies
And we finna jump the line
Jump the line every time
You know we jump the line
Fresh up off the grind
And we finna jump the line
Im south beach in miami
Ready in my ferrari
Officer shinin' rounds
On my 07' astin martin
Baby got a jaguar
But i like his 'rarri
Watch by jaeger
But my shoes are made by 'marri
Stepped on your boyfriend
Didnt say sorry
Licky licky licky
Heres comes gucci
Stepped on your boyfriend
Didnt say sorry
Licky licky licky
Heres comes gucci
We pull up to the club
Fresh up off the grind
Me and my lil buddies
And we finna jump the line
Jump the line every time
You know we jump the line
Fresh up off the grind
And we finna jump the line
We pull up to the club
Fresh up off the grind
Me and my lil buddies
And we finna jump the line
Jump the line every time
You know we jump the line
Fresh up off the grind
And we finna jump the line
In Gucci Mane's song Jump the Line, he raps about pulling up to the club after working hard and being ready to skip the line with his friends. He brags about his success and wealth, mentioning his name and nickname, Gucci, and how he lost money for six months but now he's balling. He talks about his big chain and watch, and how his car is a Murcialago, which he parks inside peanut butter. He mentions a girl he's interested in and how he's willing to show off his jewels to impress her. He describes his luxurious lifestyle, living in South Beach and driving a Ferrari, while also referencing his competition and how he's not sorry for stepping on their toes. Gucci Mane's lyrics reflect his success and confidence, as well as his determination to be at the top of the music industry.
Line by Line Meaning
We pull up to the club
Arriving at the club
Fresh up off the grind
Just coming from hard work
Me and my lil buddies
Gucci Mane and his friends
And we finna Jump the line
They are going to skip the line
Jump the line every time
This is something they often do
You know we jump the line
Everyone knows they skip the line
Your mane is my name
Gucci Mane is his name
Gucci is what they call me
Everyone knows him as Gucci
Six months i lost it
He was in jail for six months
Now bitch i ball it
He is now successful
Twenty-eight inches
Referring to his rims
Got me standin' really tall man
The rims make the car look tall
Tearin' up the mall
Spending a lot of money
This is just the way i ball man
This is how he enjoys spending his money
Cocaine ounces
He deals cocaine
Blue and yellow wristband
He wears blue and yellow jewelry
Chain look iceland
His chain is full of diamonds
Watch my breitling
He wears a Breitling watch
Niggas think ice can
People think diamonds can make them cool
Gucci think island
Gucci thinks owning an island is cool
Niggas think charger
People think owning a Charger car is cool
Gucci think 'rrari
Gucci thinks owning a Ferrari is cool
sorry
Apologizing for getting it wrong
Murcialago i park it
He parks his car
Inside peanut butter
His car is brown like peanut butter
Outside change it
He has expensive rims on his car
Now outside
Currently
Get it inside stranger
People want to be his friend because of his money
Diamonds look mustard
His diamonds are yellow like mustard
S 600
Referring to his Mercedes-Benz S 600 car
Im lookin for a girl
He wants to meet a girl
She lookin for a thug
The girl is looking for a tough guy
Like im lookin for a pull
He is looking for someone who finds him attractive
I bought a pack of bullets
He carries bullets with him
I showed her lot of jewels
He shows the girl his jewelry
I gotta lot shows, see
He performs many shows
I really gotta know
He wants to know her better
But i aint gotta know
He is not serious about a relationship
I'm standing real low
He is not popular in this area
I'm backin out my auntie
Leaving his aunt's house
How she says she doesnt know
His aunt does not know him very well
She put at the house
His aunt let him stay at her house
And i'm back in the drought
He is back to not being popular
And it made me feel real good
He is happy to have money
When i came back with that phat
When he returned with a lot of money
Im south beach in miami
He is in Miami
Ready in my ferrari
He is driving his Ferrari
Officer shinin' rounds
The police are following him
On my 07' astin martin
He also owns an Aston Martin
Baby got a jaguar
His girl owns a Jaguar
But i like his 'rarri
He prefers his Ferrari over her Jaguar
Watch by jaeger
He wears a Jaeger watch
But my shoes are made by 'marri
He wears expensive shoes
Stepped on your boyfriend
He took her girlfriend
Didnt say sorry
He has no regrets
Licky licky licky
He enjoys oral sex
Heres comes gucci
Here comes Gucci Mane
Contributed by Isabelle F. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Derek Patton
This song should have more views and comments
hollow productions
I drun lean to this 5am. Strongly recommended.
Twiznizzlenore
me & my lil buddies fresh up off the grind an u know we jump da line :D
peaceeeeee made me feel real good when i came back wit dat sack lol
woogie boogie
What does it mean
Ohio Mack
@woogie boogie jump the line at the club jack.
Phil S
stepped on your boyfriend didnt say sorry, looky looky looky, here comes gucci
Twiznizzlenore
Story of my life
V Woneyw
Winna wump wa winew !!!!!