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.”
Pillz
Gucci Mane Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Bitch I might be
Girl he geeked up
Bitch I might be
Yeah!
East Atlanta slum man is where I come from
Pass that bubble thrax and put this bean on your tongue
Bout the same time that that thing kicked in
Now she ain't really pretty but she got a nice body
I'm geeked up thinking this Buffie The Body
Ain't your name lil' Trina cause you look like Janet Jackson
I'm off three double stacks and I'm looking for that action
Gucci Mane you stupid man I love the way you flowing
Riding in my drop but I don't know where I'm going
On two eighty five I keep riding in a circle
The inside of my ride smelling like a pound of purple
Gucci is your time give me five more minutes and a cold
orange juice cause I'm really really trippin'
Went to the strip club and request that I'm the man
The next thing you know I was throwing rubber bands
Is you rolling
Bitch I might be
Girl he geeked up
Bitch I might be
Yeah!
Shorty telling me she ain't never suck no dick
Neva took a pill or never ate a bitch
You a lie but I ain't gonna get upset right now
But I wish I had a lie detector test right now
You say you marry well bitch you might be
But I bet your husband ain't Icy like me
She stand on B.C. in my ashy black tee
When them dope man Nike's and them jore ass jeans
I don't pay her but I still keep that thrax on me
I'ma the shit in East Atlanta baby ask about me
Pop one pop two two halves that's three
Ain't no waffle house baby hell I cant eat
Gucci hood like your hood-man hes so extreme
Wearing Doces in the club cause you know the boy geeked
Top the top on that thing let you see my seats
We've been rolling rolling rolling we ain't slept in weeks
Is you rolling
Bitch I might be
Girl he geeked up
Bitch I might be
Yeah!
Gucci Mane gotta lot of fame nigga get your mind right
Or a cries by the twelve like a case of Bud Light
Sell a cush by a bell so you know might shit tight
See I'm 30 in the morning on a all night flight
I'm high like Fabo hood like Shorty
So tell me when to go like my name E-40
A rich rock star nigga I'm gonna party
Got a party pack of pillz that's at least bout 40
Ill pour them in your hand like a bag of jelly beans
Take two of these pillz call me in the morning
Fifty thousand pillz man I'm so real
Three dollars for a pill that's a damn good deal
Ay whats up Gucci Mane
Why you sweatin so hard?
Is you rolling or something
Shit well baby I might be
But got damn what is you doin
You jockin' a playa, You ch-Chewy ova here right
Look I ain't K-Rab baby You know what I mean I'm not a piece of Bubblegum
What I'm doin' is not your business
But matta of fact while you ova here is you a waitress or somethin?
Cause the shit you got on make you look like you a waitress
So do what you do aight, I'mma give you this hundred dollars
Go get you what ever you drankin
Bring me and click about ten of dem orange juices
Five crunk juices and we'll be straight how bout that
And is you straight is you single or is you marry
Cause I might be, bitch I might be
Bitch I might be, bitch I might be yeah
The song "Pillz" by Gucci Mane is a narrative about a drug-induced, wild night in East Atlanta. Gucci Mane describes his surroundings and the people he meets while he is under the influence of pills, presumably ecstasy or MDMA. The rapper emphasizes his state of mind by repeating the phrase "Is you rolling, bitch I might be, girl he geeked up, bitch I might be." This stylized phrase is an allusion to the effects of ecstasy, which can cause a feeling of euphoria, stimulation, and heightened sensations.
Throughout the song, Gucci Mane describes the people he encounters, including a girl who he believes looks like Buffie the Body, a male friend who is "geeked up," and a woman who claims she has never engaged in certain sexual activities. Gucci Mane's lyrics are frank and explicit; he describes a liquor store run and visiting a strip club, throwing money with abandon. The song's lyrics graphically describe the effects of ecstasy and its ability to alter one's perceptions and heighten their desires.
Overall, "Pillz" is a snapshot of a moment in time that is vividly captured by the rapper. It gives the listener a glimpse into the world of partying and drug use, complete with all of its sensory and emotional components.
Line by Line Meaning
Is you rolling
Asking if the person is under the influence of drugs
Bitch I might be
Responding affirmatively, saying that there is a possibility that the person is on drugs
Girl he geeked up
Referring to another person being high on drugs
Bitch I might be
Again affirming that there is a possibility that the person is also high
Yeah!
An interjection that represents excitement
East Atlanta slum man is where I come from
Introducing his hometown and background
Pass that bubble thrax and put this bean on your tongue
Asking to share drugs and take pills
Now everything was gravy til your bitch came in
Suggesting that everything was fine until someone else arrived
Bout the same time that that thing kicked in
Implying that the drugs have started to affect him
Now she ain't really pretty but she got a nice body
Noting that a woman who recently arrived has a good body
I'm geeked up thinking this Buffie The Body
Admitting that he is high and fantasizing about the woman's body
Ain't your name lil' Trina cause you look like Janet Jackson
Comparing the woman's appearance to Janet Jackson and suggesting that her name is Trina
I'm off three double stacks and I'm looking for that action
Stating that he is on drugs and looking for excitement
Gucci Mane you stupid man I love the way you flowing
Referring to himself in the third person and expressing appreciation for his own music
Riding in my drop but I don't know where I'm going
Driving around without a destination
On two eighty five I keep riding in a circle
Driving in circles on the highway
The inside of my ride smelling like a pound of purple
The interior of his car smells strongly of marijuana
Gucci is your time give me five more minutes and a cold orange juice cause I'm really really trippin'
Asking for more time and a drink to help with his intoxication
Went to the strip club and request that I'm the man
Claiming to be important and asking for attention at a strip club
The next thing you know I was throwing rubber bands
Implying that he spent money at the strip club
Shorty telling me she ain't never suck no dick
A woman claims to have never performed oral sex on a man
Neva took a pill or never ate a bitch
Denying any experience with drugs or engaging in sexual activity with women
You a lie but I ain't gonna get upset right now
Accusing the woman of lying, but not getting angry at the moment
But I wish I had a lie detector test right now
Suggesting that he wants a way to tell if she is lying or telling the truth
You say you marry well bitch you might be
Stating that the woman might be married to a wealthy man
But I bet your husband ain't Icy like me
Boasting about his own wealth and status
She stand on B.C. in my ashy black tee
Describing a woman standing next to him in a graphic t-shirt
When them dope man Nike's and them jore ass jeans
Referring to specific brands related to drug culture and fashion
I don't pay her but I still keep that thrax on me
Implying that he has drugs, but does not give money to a woman he is with
I'ma the shit in East Atlanta baby ask about me
Bragging about his status and reputation in his hometown
Pop one pop two two halves that's three
Explaining how to take drugs
Ain't no waffle house baby hell I cant eat
Being too high to eat or go to a restaurant
Gucci hood like your hood-man hes so extreme
Comparing himself to other people in the neighborhood and suggesting that he is more extreme
Wearing Doces in the club cause you know the boy geeked
Wearing a specific brand of shoes while high on drugs
Top the top on that thing let you see my seats
Lowering the top on his car to show off the interior seats
We've been rolling rolling rolling we ain't slept in weeks
Driving around for a long time without sleeping
Gucci Mane gotta lot of fame nigga get your mind right
Acknowledging his own fame and telling others to focus their minds
Or a cries by the twelve like a case of Bud Light
Warning that someone might get arrested or in trouble like a case of beer would be seized by the police
Sell a cush by a bell so you know might shit tight
Boasting about the quality of his drugs
See I'm 30 in the morning on a all night flight
Revealing that he is on a flight early in the morning after being out all night
I'm high like Fabo hood like Shorty
Stating that he is high on drugs and from a specific neighborhood
So tell me when to go like my name E-40
Referencing a song by rapper E-40 called 'Tell Me When to Go'
A rich rock star nigga I'm gonna party
Referring to himself as a wealthy musician who is going to party
Got a party pack of pillz that's at least bout 40
Possessing a large amount of drugs
Ill pour them in your hand like a bag of jelly beans
Offering drugs to someone else in a casual way
Take two of these pillz call me in the morning
Jokingly suggesting that taking pills will cure someone's issues and to call him later
Fifty thousand pillz man I'm so real
Boasting about many drugs he has
Three dollars for a pill that's a damn good deal
Implying that selling drugs for $3 is cheap and a good deal for the buyer
Ay whats up Gucci Mane
Someone addresses Gucci Mane
Why you sweatin so hard?
Asking why he is sweating profusely
Is you rolling or something
Asking if he is high on drugs
Shit well baby I might be
Responding nonchalantly that he could be on drugs
But got damn what is you doin
Asking what someone else is doing or looking at him for
You jockin' a playa, You ch-Chewy ova here right
Accusing someone of admiring him or being interested in him
Look I ain't K-Rab baby You know what I mean I'm not a piece of Bubblegum
Clarifying that he is not a follower or someone who is easily influenced
What I'm doin' is not your business
Asserting that his behavior is not someone else's concern
But matta of fact while you ova here is you a waitress or somethin?
Asking if someone is a waitress
Cause the shit you got on make you look like you a waitress
Commenting on someone's clothing and suggesting that it is similar to a uniform worn by a waitress
So do what you do aight, I'mma give you this hundred dollars
Telling someone to continue with their job and giving them money for it
Go get you what ever you drankin
Instructing someone to buy themselves a drink
Bring me and click about ten of dem orange juices
Asking someone to bring him and his group ten orange juices
Five crunk juices and we'll be straight how bout that
Asking for five additional drinks to make his group feel good
And is you straight is you single or is you marry
Asking someone about their relationship status
Cause I might be, bitch I might be
Responding flirtatiously and suggesting that he might be single as well
Lyrics © Ultra Tunes
Written by: XAVIER DOTSON, RADRIC DELANTIC DAVIS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind