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.”

add it up
Gucci Mane Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Add it up, add it up
See ya homie tatted up
If used to make you mad, it's gon' make you madder
Add it up, add it up
Got the fire back it up
See ya homie swagged up
It's the gangsta grill
These boys be ill

Add it up, add it up
Add it up, add it up

Jumpin' out my Bimmer like a stuntman on a stunt
Though my leather is so soft, I put my top off in the trunk
Baby shakin' gettin' places, say she seen me in my dump
Picked her up in purple 'Vette, deuces on back, twenties on front
Gucci shout at hot tamales, even copped a Masarati
And that Lambi and a Bentley, shout out to my nigga Quic
Shout out to my boy Diego, makin' pesos for them bricks
Gucci Gucci, I'm here truly East Atlanta is the shit
I turn my swag up, I'm swaggered up, yeah Gucci got his swag up
Well think you think you mad now, I'ma make you madder
I'm swagged up, I'm swaggered up, boy I think I'm so swagged up
You mustard boy, so catch it up 'cause I think I'm so swagged up

Back on that dope shit tractor, trailer, boat shit
Cookin' up that coke quick, cookin' up that dope quick
Cookin' up that coca, You can call me Sosa
Rollin up the choca, I need me some mo' bruh
Partna you a puta, Grande mucho mocha
Ask me for a deuce, Fronted you an ocho
Bring me all my pesos, you know my amigo
My plug half Columbian, Gucci Mane's a negro
Smokin' on this gwedo
My girlfriend is bilingual
Ask me to speak English but I'm talkin' with my fingers
Brazilian bitches bathing in a bath tub full of singles snortin' powder, smokin' weed, yes they poppin' pills
M6, drop top Bimmer, shipped from Germany
Outfit from Sicily, my bank account in Switzerland
Literally so icy, the Energy
Gucci Mane's the businessman so tell me what the business be, bitch
Mi casa is colossal, swallow water with a bottle hallow
Shout out to my boy Rocco, I ball like no tomorrow
And my watch is real retarded, so I call it Lil Darryl
Shoot you point blank in your head, just like 'caine cousin Harold
Gansta Grillz, you bastards, shout out to Drama
The feds try get I'ma look and say your honor "I'm guilty"
Get money, make money, I'm filthy
Dog, do you feel me, dog, do you feel me
Cocaine lately sellin' good and my city set
Gucci got a bitch for every letter in the alphabet

If you listenin' to this it's the movie
It's Gangsta Grillz and iceman Gucci

Pull the cars out turn the sound up
Clear the bars out for a gangsta

Overall Meaning

The opening lines of Gucci Mane's "Add It Up" expresses a vibe of achievement and swagger. The confident and boastful lyrics describe the artist's esteem and plenty of accomplishments, from his tattoos to his vehicles, to his bank account, and to his women. He emphasizes how his previous achievements represented a significant frustration to his detractors and that he has no intention of slowing down any time soon. The chorus "Add it up" refers to the sum of all his relentless hard work, with the subtext of having no time for meaningless activities.

In the first verse, Gucci Mane describes how he jumps out of his "Bimmer" with the enthusiasm of a stuntman, outlining his love for expensive cars as he brags about his purple Corvette. He also makes several shoutouts to his friends who are making money with him, from the hot tamales to the boys making pesos for them bricks. In the second verse, Gucci references his drug-dealing past, describing it with a lack of remorse or shame. Brazilian girls in bathtubs full of singles pop pills and smoke weed, while he speaks to his dealer about his coke and marijuana supplies. The artist highlights his business savvy with references to his bank account in Switzerland and the energy surrounding his personality, which he refers to as "so icy."

"Add It Up" showcases Gucci Mane's journey from an impoverished neighborhood to a rapper who has achieved so much, with a big personality that cannot be ignored. The lyrics, along with the melodic beat, make it an anthem for working tirelessly to achieve one's dreams while disregarding the criticism and negativity of others.

Line by Line Meaning

Add it up, add it up
I'm adding up all my money and success

See ya homie tatted up
My friends are covered in tattoos

If used to make you mad, it's gon' make you madder
My success used to bother you, now it's going to bother you even more

Got the fire back it up
I have the skills and talent to back up my success

See ya homie swagged up
My friends are stylish and confident

It's the gangsta grill
This song is part of the Gangsta Grillz series with DJ Drama

These boys be ill
All the boys in my crew are talented and successful

Jumpin' out my Bimmer like a stuntman on a stunt
I'm getting out of my BMW with confidence

Though my leather is so soft, I put my top off in the trunk
Even though my car is luxurious, I still like to ride with the top down

Baby shakin' gettin' places, say she seen me in my dump
Girls are attracted to me because of my success and confidence

Picked her up in purple 'Vette, deuces on back, twenties on front
I picked her up in my purple Corvette with 22 inch rims

Gucci shout at hot tamales, even copped a Masarati
I'm buying expensive cars and living the high life

And that Lambi and a Bentley, shout out to my nigga Quic
I'm also driving Lamborghinis and Bentleys

Shout out to my boy Diego, makin' pesos for them bricks
My friend Diego is making a lot of money selling drugs

Gucci Gucci, I'm here truly East Atlanta is the shit
I'm proud of my hometown of East Atlanta

I turn my swag up, I'm swaggered up, yeah Gucci got his swag up
I'm feeling confident and stylish

Well think you think you mad now, I'ma make you madder
If my success bothers you, I'm going to keep succeeding even more

I'm swagged up, I'm swaggered up, boy I think I'm so swagged up
I'm extremely confident and stylish

You mustard boy, so catch it up 'cause I think I'm so swagged up
You're not on my level, so catch up if you can

Back on that dope shit tractor, trailer, boat shit
I'm back to selling drugs on a large scale

Cookin' up that coke quick, cookin' up that dope quick
I'm making drugs quickly and efficiently

Cookin' up that coca, You can call me Sosa
I'm making cocaine and compare myself to drug lord Pablo Escobar

Rollin up the choca, I need me some mo' bruh
I'm smoking marijuana and need more

Partna you a puta, Grande mucho mocha
My friend is a prostitute and we're making a lot of money

Ask me for a deuce, Fronted you an ocho
My friend asked for $200 worth of drugs and I gave them $800 worth on credit

Bring me all my pesos, you know my amigo
My Mexican drug supplier is bringing me all the money I'm owed

My plug half Columbian, Gucci Mane's a negro
Half of my drug supplier's family is from Colombia and I'm African American

Smokin' on this gwedo
I'm smoking on a type of marijuana called 'gwedo'

My girlfriend is bilingual
My girlfriend speaks two languages

Ask me to speak English but I'm talkin' with my fingers
She wants me to speak English but I'm communicating with hand gestures

Brazilian bitches bathing in a bath tub full of singles snortin' powder, smokin' weed, yes they poppin' pills
I'm partying with Brazilian girls who are doing drugs and bathing in money

M6, drop top Bimmer, shipped from Germany
I'm driving a BMW M6 convertible that was imported from Germany

Outfit from Sicily, my bank account in Switzerland
I'm wearing clothes from Sicily and my money is kept in a Swiss bank account

Literally so icy, the Energy
I'm so rich and successful that I'm literally icy (covered in diamonds) and full of energy

Gucci Mane's the businessman so tell me what the business be, bitch
I'm a successful businessman, so don't question my business decisions

Mi casa is colossal, swallow water with a bottle hallow
My house is huge and I can drink water straight from the bottle

Shout out to my boy Rocco, I ball like no tomorrow
I'm giving a shoutout to my friend Rocco and spending money like I don't care about the future

And my watch is real retarded, so I call it Lil Darryl
My watch is flashy and expensive, so I gave it a funny name

Shoot you point blank in your head, just like 'caine cousin Harold
I'm threatening to kill you like the character Harold did in the movie 'Menace II Society'

Gansta Grillz, you bastards, shout out to Drama
This song is part of the Gangsta Grillz series and I'm giving a shoutout to DJ Drama

The feds try get I'ma look and say your honor 'I'm guilty'
If the police try to arrest me, I'm going to plead guilty in court

Get money, make money, I'm filthy
I'm making a lot of money and becoming rich

Dog, do you feel me, dog, do you feel me
Are you understanding my message?

Cocaine lately sellin' good and my city set
Cocaine is selling well in my city right now

Gucci got a bitch for every letter in the alphabet
I have a lot of girlfriends

If you listenin' to this it's the movie
This song is like a movie

It's Gangsta Grillz and iceman Gucci
DJ Drama is hosting this song and I'm the main artist

Pull the cars out turn the sound up
Let's get in our cars and blast this song

Clear the bars out for a gangsta
Everyone in the bar should pay attention to me because I'm a gangster

Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

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