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.”
Quiet
Gucci Mane Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Who know somebody who know somebody who got them mollys
Karate Kid but I don't even know karate
Kush got my eyes low like Mr. Miyagi
East Atlanta Santa, yeah my stomach fat and jolly
Fucked up 50 grand in Vegas with my nigga Paully
Got the battle of the bands going in my Robin's
And if you think of robbin Gucci, you gon have some problems
And I be shittin' on all these niggas just like pigeon droppings
Thirty grand in all hundreds, I don't do the wallet
And I'm about to fly to New York cause I'm going shoppin'
I take a brick, break off a brick and cook a deuce
Way I'm beating up all these babies call it child abuse
Way I'm beating that white girl, that's domestic violence
And my money talk for me cause I be being quiet
Quiet, quiet, cause I be being quiet
I let my money talk for me 'cause I be being quiet
Quiet, quiet, cause I be being quiet
I let my money talk for me 'cause I be being quiet
Break a 4-way off a brick and then I'm bout to fry it
My money gettin' obese, your shit is on a diet
I sip lean all day every day until the kid is tired
I make em search for that inner cause this pussy's wired
If you think you can defeat me, fuck it nigga, try it
I got squares all in my trunk I think he wanna buy it
Got a G-4 but I do not have no one to fly it
I'm so fly that I might stop rappin' and be a pilot
Gucci Mane the shit and you can't deny it
I got the game in a knot and you can't untie it
I let my money do the talking, I be being quiet,
And I get money out the streets but keep my business private!
I take a brick, break off a brick and cook a deuce
Way I'm beating up all these babies call it child abuse
Way I'm beating that white girl, that's domestic violence
And my money talk for me cause I be being quiet
Quiet, quiet, cause I be being quiet
I let my money talk for me and I be being quiet
Quiet, quiet, cause I be being quiet
I let my money talk for me 'cause I be being quiet
In Gucci Mane's song "Quiet", the rapper talks about his lifestyle, drug use, and business. The song starts with Gucci talking about his connections in the drug trade and his use of molly. He also references Mr. Miyagi, a character from the Karate Kid movie series, to talk about how smoking kush makes him feel. The line "East Atlanta Santa, yeah my stomach fat and jolly" shows Gucci's confidence in his body image.
Gucci also mentions losing money in Vegas and his involvement in the music industry with the line "Got the battle of the bands going in my Robin's". The rapper warns potential robbers that they will have problems if they try to rob him. Gucci boasts about his wealth by saying he doesn't use a wallet and has thirty thousand dollars in all hundreds. He concludes the song by stating his preference for privacy in his business dealings.
Line by Line Meaning
Don't anybody know somebody who know somebody?
Do you happen to know someone who knows someone else who knows where to get Molly drugs?
Who know somebody who know somebody who got them mollys
Who knows someone who can get Molly drugs?
Karate Kid but I don't even know karate
I refer to myself as the Karate Kid, but I don't actually know karate.
Kush got my eyes low like Mr. Miyagi
The marijuana has made my eyes appear droopy, similar to Mr. Miyagi's.
East Atlanta Santa, yeah my stomach fat and jolly
I refer to myself as the East Atlanta Santa because my stomach is jolly and overweight like Santa Claus.
Fucked up 50 grand in Vegas with my nigga Paully
I lost 50 thousand dollars gambling in Las Vegas with my friend Paully.
Got the battle of the bands going in my Robin's
I have a lot of money in my bank account and I am showing it off.
And if you think of robbin Gucci, you gon have some problems
If someone tries to rob me, they will face the consequences.
Servin' pizza pies, all my pies got extra toppings
I am selling drugs, and all of my drugs have added substances for extra effect.
And I be shittin' on all these niggas just like pigeon droppings
I am superior to other rappers, and I am metaphorically pooping on them like pigeons.
Thirty grand in all hundreds, I don't do the wallet
I carry thirty thousand dollars in cash, only in one hundred dollar bills and without a wallet.
And I'm about to fly to New York cause I'm going shoppin'
I am traveling to New York to go shopping with my money.
I take a brick, break off a brick and cook a deuce
I break off a piece of cocaine, prepare it and then sell it.
Way I'm beating up all these babies call it child abuse
I am succeeding in my music career and surpassing my competition.
Way I'm beating that white girl, that's domestic violence
I am doing well in my drug dealings and surpassing my competition.
And my money talk for me cause I be being quiet
I let my financial success speak for itself.
Quiet, quiet, cause I be being quiet
I am quiet about my financial success.
I let my money talk for me 'cause I be being quiet
I let my wealth do the talking, rather than boasting about it.
Break a 4-way off a brick and then I'm bout to fry it
I am breaking off four pieces of cocaine and preparing it for sale.
My money gettin' obese, your shit is on a diet
My wealth continues to grow, while others may not be experiencing the same success.
I sip lean all day every day until the kid is tired
I drink codeine syrup all day, every day, until I am tired.
I make em search for that inner cause this pussy's wired
I make people search within themselves because my dominance is intimidating.
If you think you can defeat me, fuck it nigga, try it
If someone thinks they can surpass me, they are welcome to try.
I got squares all in my trunk I think he wanna buy it
I have a lot of marijuana in my car that someone may be interested in purchasing.
Got a G-4 but I do not have no one to fly it
I own a private airplane, but I do not have anyone to fly it.
I'm so fly that I might stop rappin' and be a pilot
I am so successful and confident that I could easily switch careers and become a pilot.
Gucci Mane the shit and you can't deny it
I am the best, and no one can deny my dominance.
I got the game in a knot and you can't untie it
I have a strong hold on the rap industry and no one can surpass me.
And I get money out the streets but keep my business private!
I make money through illegal means, but I keep my success and dealings quiet and secretive.
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: JOSHUA LUELLEN, RADRIC DAVIS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Stubbo242
Music aging like fine wine. One day they gone understand how legendary this man is
Nostra Jay Official
Literally
mikeee____
Yep
Brian Brownlee
Preach
LEYZURE
Couldn't have said it any better
Evan Douglas
This an understatement
Alan Green
Guccis old music has a type of bounce you can’t find anywhere anymore. It’s borderline all over the place and still in a perfect rhythm all at the same time. The one comment was facts, this aged like fine wine
JapaVlogs
Essa musica e foda
Eduardo Veronez
concordo
forex master
@Eduardo Veronez muito foda