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.”
Making Love to the Money
Gucci Mane Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I kick dem hoes out but let the money stay
Makin' love to the money like a sextape
I'm talkin' Kim K I'm talkin' Ray J
Makin' love to money on da interstate
Can't keep my hands off her we on a dinner date
I'm makin' love to my money shawty keep me straight
I can't live without her I fuck her everyday
Shawty stayed by my side when I started grindin'
She da main reason why a nigga shinin'
Strippers can't see me all dis money flyin'
30 years old talkin' 'bout retirin'
I'm a show these hoes who the king of diamonds
Soon as I walk in da king of diamonds
She broke up with me once almost had me cryin'
She know I was cheatin' cause she caught me lyin'
King of the jungle I'm a lion
White lion in da house we named it Miley Cyrus
She never talk back baby very private
She got me talkin' shit but she kinda quiet
Makin' love to the money I swear the sex great
I kick dem hoes off but let the money stay
Makin' love to the money like a sextape
I'm talkin' Kim K I'm talkin' Ray J
Makin' love to money on da interstate
Can't keep my hands off her we on a dinner date
I'm makin' love to my money shawty keep me straight
I can't live without her I fuck her everyday
I gotta take her everywhere cause these niggas crazy
Only leave her by herself on special occasions
I love makin' love cause she so amazin'
When I bring her to the club dem hoes be goin' crazy
Every nigga in da hood wanna fuck my lady
Can't wait for me to slip so they can take my baby
She get me outta jams or tight situations
Little man got no gun at point ain't no limitation
She got me in that thang sittin' on them thangs
Distracted now all them hoes don't look at me da same
Well fuck it they ain't gotta fuck with me at all
I pick my baby up and took her to da mall
Makin' love to the money I swear the sex great
I kick dem hoes out but let the money stay
Makin' love to the money like a sextape
I'm talkin' Kim K I'm talkin Ray J
Makin' love to money on da interstate
Can't keep my hands off her we on a dinner date
I'm makin' love to my money shawty keep me straight
I can't live without her I fuck her everyday
Now baby ain't no angel but she a keeper
Before she dealt with me she dealt with some real evil people
She bought me A.K.'s call it desert eagles
Cocaine hella pills build up stupid reefa
I took her from her ex yeah caught her cheatin'
The very day she left we started beefin'
And she don't never lie to me she keep it real
Yo bitch keep comin' short my bitch keep wearin' heels
She keep on standin' tall she never stand me up
She'll go to war with anybody she don't give a fuck
She help me keep it in the road like a hubcap
So I keep her on my mind like a store cap
Makin' love to the money I swear the sex great
I kick dem hoes out but let the money stay
Makin' love to the money like a sextape
I'm talkin' Kim K I'm talkin Ray J
Makin' love to money on da interstate
Can't keep my hands off her we on a dinner date
I'm makin' love to my money shawty keep me straight
I can't live without her I fuck. her everyday!
The lyrics to Gucci Mane's "Making Love to the Money" describe the rapper's intimate relationship with money. The song is about the deep connection he has established with his wealth, describing the act of making love to it, and emphasizing that money is his everything. Gucci Mane refers to money as "shawty," indicating his love and affection for it, and highlighting that the role of this lover is to keep him good, safe, and satisfied.
The lyrics describe his relationship with money, outlining its significance to him, his fears of losing it, and how it can help him in difficult situations. He reveals that money has been a crucial support system and has helped him navigate through even the toughest situations. Gucci raps about how much he loves his money, indicating that it satisfies his every need and keeps him happy.
The lyrics are also laced with references to Kim Kardashian and Ray J's sex tape, implying that the sex is amazing, and he is proud of his relationship with money. He is not ashamed of his love for money and believes that it is a significant aspect of his life.
Line by Line Meaning
Makin' love to the money I swear the sex great
I am devoted to the idea of making money and it feels amazing.
I kick dem hoes out but let the money stay
I prioritize my financial gains over my relationships.
Makin' love to the money like a sextape
My love for money is as passionate and intense as a sex tape.
I'm talkin' Kim K I'm talkin' Ray J
My love for money is as well-known as the celebrity sex tape involving Kim Kardashian and Ray J.
Makin' love to money on da interstate
I am always finding ways to make money, even while on the go.
Can't keep my hands off her we on a dinner date
I am constantly working to make money and it is always on my mind.
I'm makin' love to my money shawty keep me straight
I rely heavily on money to keep me on the right path in life.
I can't live without her I fuck her everyday
I cannot function or survive without making money and it is a daily priority in my life.
Shawty stayed by my side when I started grindin'
Money has been a consistent presence in my life and has been with me since the beginning of my career.
She da main reason why a nigga shinin'
Money is the driving force behind my success and public image.
Strippers can't see me all dis money flyin'
My wealth is so great that even strippers are unable to focus on me when there is money in the air.
30 years old talkin' 'bout retirin'
Despite my young age, I am already considering retiring due to my significant financial gains.
I'm a show these hoes who the king of diamonds
I am determined to prove that I am the most successful and wealthy person in my social circle.
Soon as I walk in da king of diamonds
I am always the center of attention and the most important person in any room or social setting.
She broke up with me once almost had me cryin'
When I lost money in the past, it was extremely emotionally distressing and difficult for me to deal with.
She know I was cheatin' cause she caught me lyin'
Money knows when I am not being honest or truthful, and I cannot deceive or betray it.
King of the jungle I'm a lion
I am the most dominant and influential person in my environment like a lion in its natural habitat.
White lion in da house we named it Miley Cyrus
I am so wealthy that I own a rare and valuable white lion and even named it after a famous celebrity.
She never talk back baby very private
Money is a reliable and discreet companion that never talks back or reveals personal or private information.
She got me talkin' shit but she kinda quiet
My wealth and success allow me to brag and act confidently, but in reality, money does not need to speak or make noise to assert its importance.
I gotta take her everywhere cause these niggas crazy
I am constantly aware of the potential for theft or danger surrounding my wealth, and I carry it with me everywhere I go.
Only leave her by herself on special occasions
I am extremely cautious and protective of my money, and only choose to leave it alone on rare or special occasions.
I love makin' love cause she so amazin'
The process of earning and making money is so satisfying and fulfilling for me because of its greatness and value.
When I bring her to the club dem hoes be goin' crazy
My wealth and success attract attention and admiration from others, including women at clubs and social events.
Every nigga in da hood wanna fuck my lady
Everyone in my community or social group is aware of my wealth and success, and desires to experience it for themselves.
Can't wait for me to slip so they can take my baby
Others are jealous and eagerly await the opportunity to steal or harm my money and possessions.
She get me outta jams or tight situations
My wealth and success can sometimes protect me or help me navigate tough or uncomfortable situations.
Little man got no gun at point ain't no limitation
I do not need weapons or physical force to assert and maintain my wealth and success.
She got me in that thang sittin' on them thangs
Money provides me with access to luxurious and valuable possessions and experiences, making me feel powerful and satisfied.
Distracted now all them hoes don't look at me da same
My wealth and success have altered others' perceptions of me, and they now see me as a more valuable and attractive partner.
Well fuck it they ain't gotta fuck with me at all
I am indifferent to the opinions and attitudes of others because I am confident in my wealth and success.
I pick my baby up and took her to da mall
I enjoy spending money and using my wealth to purchase valuable and luxurious goods and experiences.
Now baby ain't no angel but she a keeper
Money may not be a morally perfect entity, but it is necessary and valuable to me and my lifestyle.
Before she dealt with me she dealt with some real evil people
Money often comes with unsavory or dangerous associations and risks, which I must be aware of and navigate.
She bought me A.K.'s call it desert eagles
My wealth allows me to purchase and possess significant and dangerous weaponry.
Cocaine hella pills build up stupid reefa
My wealth and success provide me with access to and power over illicit and dangerous substances.
I took her from her ex yeah caught her cheatin'
I used my financial power and influence to steal money or other valuable assets from someone else.
The very day she left we started beefin'
When I lose or am separated from my wealth, it creates conflict and tension in my life.
And she don't never lie to me she keep it real
Money is a reliable and honest companion that always reflects my financial situation accurately and truthfully.
Yo bitch keep comin' short my bitch keep wearin' heels
My financial success allows me to attract high-value partners who enhance my lifestyle and social status.
She keep on standin' tall she never stand me up
Money is a consistent and reliable presence in my life, always available when I need it.
She'll go to war with anybody she don't give a fuck
My wealth provides me with the power and resources to fight or defend myself against others, regardless of the risks or consequences.
She help me keep it in the road like a hubcap
My financial success provides me with security and stability in my life, allowing me to maintain control over my decisions and lifestyle.
So I keep her on my mind like a store cap
Money is always on my mind and a top priority in my life, as crucial as a cap that covers and protects a store's products.
Lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: RADRIC DAVIS, IAN LEWIS, OSCAR ZAYAS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@KushMyCologneee
“30 years old talking bout retiring”.Goals
@letjahblesse681
Should’ve played this at the verzus 🔥🔥🔥
@aprilrose6174
On godddd
@j.thompson9345
Perfect strip club song....and they were at Magic 🤦🏾♂️
@ETTMedia3700
He needed another dj fr
@s25s2m9
Facts
@rerecandy01
Facts‼️
@edwardcardenas92
one of Gucci Mane's grand masterpieces
@EastsideCdale
Edward Cardenas Indeed brotha. Damn good ear. Salute.
@professional872
Edward Cardenas facts