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.”

Move Me
Gucci Mane Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

I'm a real street nigga, I don't see it that way (nah)
I bought a Rolls Royce, 'cause bitch, I want my roses today (yeah)
Y'all been hidin' from the truth, but y'all gon' listen today (you gon' listen today)
I'm the head coach, so know what position to play (huh)
Gas bag shawty, yeah, I gotta fly to the Bay
Knock the meat out your rib, I got tape on the K
She a goddess of the trap, angel white like the yay (angel)
She so motherfuckin' thick, you let her know where you stay (woo)

Like a cartoon, lil' bitch took a pie to the face
Ice Cube, cold game, it's one hell of a day
She got a real pretty face, you like, "Where is her waist?" (where?)
Took that bitch to the place and she like, "Where is the safe?" (huh?)

Looking in my pockets, it's filled with blue hundreds (blue)
Don't nothing move me but the goddamn money
Drop a bag, make the room clear, run, run, dear (run)
The stick long as a broom, it can kill a reindeer (yeah)
Before you came here we was sellin' 'caine here (skrrt)
Since Gucci Mane left, it just not the same here (nah)
Then I make a false step 'cause he yellin', "Help, help" (help)
Wet him up like Mike Phelps, dead in seatbelt (belt)

Gambling with the trap god, better not welch (welch)
He brought it on his own self, he caused his own death (graow)
Tryna make a death threat with a weak rep (huh?)
Uphill battle, runnin' up some steep steps (Wop)
Ballers on the right (right), haters on the left (left)
Money make these bitches can't keep they hands to they self (well, damn)
Way this money comin' in, shit, I'ma need some help (help)
East Atlanta Santa and y'all all Santa elves (hoe)
Buckin', used to pull it, nigga, I was just 12 (huh?)
You still ain't got no straightening, nigga, you just took an L (sack)
If I do a feature, it's gon' cost like fifty bales (fifty)
I need an endorsement, I'm the poster boy for scales (skrrt)
Took a million risks, I took the train, I took the mail
Most you niggas shell, I sell water to a whale (shell)
Tried to break me in the cell, I'm too strong, I still prevail
Smoke one for Aaliyah, nigga, turn this up a lil' (Wop)

Looking in my pockets, it's filled with blue hundreds (blue)
Don't nothing move me but the goddamn money
Drop a bag, make the room clear, run, run, dear (run)
The stick long as a broom, it can kill a reindeer (yeah)
Before you came here we was sellin' 'caine here (skrrt)
Since Gucci Mane left, it just not the same here (nah)

Then I make a false step 'cause he yellin', "Help, help" (help)
Wet him up like Mike Phelps, dead in seatbelt (belt)

Overall Meaning

The lyrics to Gucci Mane's song "I Move Chickens" depict the story of a man who is struggling to make ends meet and pay his rent by cooking and selling chickens. The repetition of the phrase "I'm moving chickens" emphasizes the man's relentless pursuit of financial stability. The line "Shawty rap about gucci stay strapped with a uzi" implies that violence may be involved in the chicken-selling business. Gucci Mane's inclusion in the narrative also suggests that he has experience in the illegal industry, having served time in jail for his involvement.

The song also touches on Gucci Mane's rise to success in the music industry. He brags about his platinum-selling album "Murder 1" and his record label So Icey Entertainment's deal with Atlantic Records. He asserts his dominance and power, warning others to not mess with him or his business. The lyrics are full of confidence and bravado, reflecting Gucci Mane's persona in the rap world.

Overall, the song is a commentary on the realities of street life and the lengths people will go to survive. It highlights the difficulties of making a living legally and the lure of fast money through illegal means.

Line by Line Meaning

I'm moving chickens
I am selling drugs

I move chickens shawty
I am very good at selling drugs

In the kitchen cookin chicken tryin to pay my rent
I am cooking and selling drugs in order to make enough money to pay my rent

Shawty rap about gucci stay strapped with a uzi
My associates talk about me and the fact that I carry a gun with me at all times

Murder 1 platinum eatin justice by Tuesday
I am a famous rapper who has had a number one hit album and can get away with committing crimes without any repercussions

It's gucci mane excuse me dawg I'm makin my music
My primary focus is on my career as a rapper and making music

For facin me a nigga fight about what a toothpick?
People are so afraid of me that they would probably fight over a toothpick just to avoid getting into any real conflict with me

I did 6 months incident with a pool stick
I have been incarcerated for 6 months for being involved in a violent incident with a pool stick

They found a nigga guilty still say ain't do shit
Even though I was found guilty, I maintain my innocence

Major league minor league was independent
I have had success in the music industry whether I was with a major label or not

I moved on shawty gucci handled his business
I have moved past my troubles with the law and am continuing to focus on my music career

And I ain't goin back to jail god is my witness
I am determined to stay out of jail

I'm grinnin so hard it look like it's a picnic
I am extremely happy with my current success and it shows on my face

So icey entertainment in atlantic
My record label is called So Icey Entertainment and it is based in Atlanta

I'm trapped in spanish for slayin them dragons
I am using a lot of slang and metaphors to talk about my drug dealing activities

I'm chef boy ardee and I'm cookin a QB
I am very skilled at cooking drugs

I'm whippin up the gravy the feins say that it's tasty
My customers like the quality of my drugs

It's fuck you pay me bitch what you done lately
I am very direct with my customers when it comes to payment

I growed up crazy boy 1980
I grew up in a tough environment in the 1980s

A true trapy babybitch this ok maybe
I am a true drug dealer and this may make me seem unlikable or unsavory to some people

The streets raised me I drove my kinfolks crazy
I was raised in a dangerous and violent environment which has had an impact on my personality and relationships with family members

Rather buy purp then pleasure
I prioritize drug dealing over other pleasures or forms of entertainment

My down south swag got the fine hoes callin
My southern charm and personal style are attractive to women

My swag so norm and my grill so gnawless
I have a very distinct, unique style that is attractive and fashionable

From start to the finish gucci mane the apprentice
I started from the bottom and worked my way up to success as a rapper and drug dealer

So every word letter I had lived every sentence
Everything I say in my songs is based on my real life experiences

I'm trappin and cursin for rappin the chinese
I am making money by selling drugs and I am able to use this to pursue my music career

Down south finest it's gucci your hinus
I am known as the best rapper in the southern United States

Crazy color diamonds they got me shinin (TRUE!)
I have expensive, flashy jewelry that makes me stand out

Bitch arms up climbin up a cut like tyson
My customers are so eager to buy my drugs that they will do whatever it takes to get them

I'm big cruz diamond but got no license
I have a lot of expensive jewelry but I don't have a license to carry a gun

Lanes talk senseless G's you silence
People who aren't involved in the drug dealing world don't know what they're talking about and don't understand the realities of this lifestyle

And you can these dog but I use violence
People may try to intimidate me, but I am not afraid to use violence if necessary

I'm trappin like a house over trap house cloudy
I am actively involved in drug dealing and have a lot of customers

Your stones cloudy so your not balling
Your jewelry isn't as impressive as mine and therefore you are not as successful

Lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Written by: Radric Davis, Anthony White, Orville Hall, Phillip J Price

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

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