by Gucci Mane
For a few minutes I sat in my car in the parking lot of a Popeye’s, watching them. Seeing them interact with the baby, I realized Red had had a child with this girl while I was away.
Then I realized what they were up to. He was loading her down and fitting to put her on the road. The gas station was right off the expressway. Any minute now she was going to hop on the exit and start the two-hour drive to Augusta with birds in tow.
I had a laugh to myself, knowing I’d peeped the move. I wanted to get out of the car and go say what up, but I didn’t know where Red and I stood anymore. He and I never had any fallout, but he was so tight with D and I’d put D in this terrible situation by robbing his nephew.
Why would I do that?
As I sat there watching them, thinking back on how everything had played out these last few months, an SUV pulled into the gas station and parked next to Red and his girl. Out stepped the big man of Savannah and CEO of Zone 6 Clique Records himself, Doo Dirty.
On pure instinct I hopped out of the car and headed toward them. I didn’t know what was about to happen but I did know one thing: I was tired of hiding.
Before I reached them D and Red saw me coming and ran to meet me, hugging me, telling me how much they’d missed me.
“You know I paid off that bounty, right?” D asked me. “They were going to shoot up your momma’s house so I paid it off.”
I hadn’t known that, and it fucked me up. Not only the idea of niggas putting bullets in my momma’s crib but that despite everything, D was still looking out for me. Apparently he’d told my mother it was safe for me to come home, but she never relayed the message. She probably didn’t know if it was a setup and likely felt I was better off in Alabama anyway.
The Zone 6 Clique was back in business. I’d missed Red and I’d missed Doo Dirty, and most of all I’d missed making music, which had been put on hold in my hiatus. I wasn’t alone in that feeling. Red and D were ready to get to work as well. I left my car in the Popeye’s parking lot and we piled into D’s truck and headed to a house out in Clayton County that belonged to a producer I hadn’t worked with before. His name was Shawty Redd.
Shawty Redd was working with Red on some stuff, and after they wrapped he played some beats and I liked his sound. They were as hard as Zay’s but a totally different style. I also liked how quickly he could knock out instrumentals. He worked at my speed.
Shawty Redd and I exchanged numbers, agreeing to link back up to work on new music, which I was eager to get started on.
Before we left, Shawty Redd told me he wanted to introduce me to someone he’d been working with who was a fan of mine. His name was Young Jeezy. He had him on the phone.
Jeezy told me he fucked with this song “Muscles in My Hand” off LaFlare and that one of these days we should work together. Shawty Redd played me a few of this guy’s songs earlier in the afternoon and to me, he sounded like a poor man’s Trick Daddy. Which was fine, no problem, I just wasn’t paying him much mind.
Doo Dirty and Red dropped me back off at the Popeye’s parking lot where I’d first seen them earlier in the day. Danielle was there waiting for me. She’d been worried sick. She’d seen my car parked there on her way home from work and had been calling my phone, which was dead. She didn’t know if I was out creeping with another girl or if something had happened to me. She’d waited for hours.
Danielle really didn’t know what to think when she saw me pull up with D and Red. But I told her what happened and that everything was going to return to normal. The bounty on my head had been paid off and the Zone 6 Clique had my back again. It was time to get things going.
VIII
* * *
GIFT AND CURSE
In the fall of 2003 a rap group from the Westside of Atlanta called Dem Franchize Boyz released a song called “White Tee.” It blew up. These guys didn’t do too much after that, but at the time “White Tee” was everywhere.
I liked “White Tee” but it was tame and kid-friendly, so me and a couple of the guys from Str8 Drop came up with “Black Tee.” We put a sinister spin on it, rapping about robbing and selling drugs.
I rob in my black tee,
Hit licks in my black tee,
All in ya house lookin’ for bricks in my black tee
I kill in my black tee
I steal in my black tee
I’m real so I gotta keep it trill in my black tee
—“Black Tee” (2004)
“Black Tee” received attention from the jump, being that it was a crew out of the Eastside responding to a group from the Westside. But as the song started getting radio play, nobody knew a thing about the group behind it. I just happened to have the first verse on there and I plugged my name in it, so DJs started to credit it as my record.
And now here’s “Black Tee,” by Gucci Mane and the Black Tee Boys.
Ever the opportunist, I ran with that and started going to clubs promoting “Black Tee” as my song. For the first time my name was buzzing in Atlanta.
I started performing “Black Tee” at any bar, nightclub, or strip joint that would let me get on the mic. These were not paid performances. A lot of times I had to pay to perform. In the months that followed I built a following at the club Singles on Moreland Avenue, which was in walking distance from the Knights Inn we’d moved to with my father in ’89. Singles was later renamed Libra Ballroom.
I performed at the Libra two to three nights a week on open mic nights. I would often record a song at Zay’s, then test it out that night at the Libra. It gave me immediate and real feedback to my music. The Libra was notorious for shootouts, bar fights, and showin’ out, but a lot of local talent got their start there. Yung LA, OJ da Juiceman, Yung Ralph, and Peewee Longway were a few of the artists I used to see there.
There was already friction between me and the Str8 Drop family. We’d lived so close to each other for so many years that petty rivalries and jealousies developed. So when I started running with “Black Tee” as my own song, the tension escalated to conflict. Str8 Drop and the Zone 6 Clique collided at the Libra one night and that was the end of my affiliation with Str8 Drop. They later changed their name to Neva Again, a pledge to never again deal with me. I was done with the group by the time they decided to shoot a video for “Black Tee” and they had some other nigga with a bandana covering his face, rapping my verse.
Performing “Black Tee” one night at the Libra, I met Lil’ Scrappy. Scrappy was still on the come-up—this was before “Money in the Bank”—but as an up-and-coming artist signed to Lil Jon, he was hot in the city. People definitely knew Lil’ Scrappy.
Scrappy had a feud going on with Dem Franchize Boyz and told me he wanted to jump on a remix of “Black Tee.” That was perfect for me because I needed to figure out how to keep rolling with this song now that I wasn’t on good terms with the rest of the rappers on it. We set up a time to meet up later that week and do the remix.
A few days later Scrappy and I were at Patchwerk Studios doing the “Black Tee” remix. As we were finishing up I saw Bun B and Killer Mike leaving Patchwerk’s other recording room. These were two rappers I had a lot of respect for. I was a longtime UGK fan and I liked Killer Mike’s music too. I introduced myself.
When they asked about me I explained I was the guy from “Black Tee” and that I was here with Lil’ Scrappy to do the remix.
Bun B and Killer Mike were both familiar with the song, and to my surprise Bun offered to hop on the remix for thirty-five hundred dollars.
“Give me a thousand dollars and I’ll get on there too,” Killer Mike added.
This was a hell of a deal. I was about to get Lil’ Scrappy, Bun B, and Killer Mike on my song for forty-five hundred. For them to charge me such a cheap price I knew they must have seen my drive and respected my hustle. I hit up Doo Dirty and he immediately agreed to foot the bill for the features. We all headed back inside the studio, where Bun B and Killer Mike laid down their verses. While Bun was finishing his, I rang up Jody Bre
eze, another homegrown talent who was signed to renowned producer Jazze Pha’s Sho’ Nuff Records. He and I had gotten cool on a chance encounter at Atlanta’s infamous strip club Magic City. I’d recently had him get on another song of mine for five hundred dollars and a zip of smoke. He said he’d pull up and get on “Black Tee” for free.
The “Black Tee” remix was finished and hard as hell. The next day I printed a few hundred copies to pass out to DJs and get it circulating through the city.
Two days later me and my boys were at Walter’s, a clothing shop downtown, dropping off copies of the remix. While my buddies tried on gear I went next door to another store called What’s Happenin’ to leave a few CDs. While I was inside, a man approached me, introducing himself as Coach K.
Coach K managed Young Jeezy, and he had been looking for me to get us to collaborate. Apparently we’d kept missing each other at Shawty Redd’s, where we’d both been working of late. I remembered then that Shawty Redd had put me on the phone with this dude. Turned out Jeezy was next door at Walter’s, so we convened in the parking lot across the street.
Jeezy was from Macon, about an hour and a half south of Atlanta. He’d moved to the city some years back and was now running with Big Meech and BMF.
Remember when I said me and my boys had never heard of Meech or BMF back when Doo Dirty first told us about them? Well, by the time I met Jeezy everyone in the city knew those names. I swear it felt like it happened overnight. Things in Atlanta had been one way and then BMF happened.
These niggas were hitting all the hot spots—Club Chaos, Compound, the Velvet Room—and shutting shit down, pulling up in foreign sports cars, buying bottles of Cristal by the case and throwing around stupid money. Tens of thousands of dollars in a night like it was nothing. Nobody had ever seen that before. Meech and them invented making it rain. The BMF story isn’t my story to tell, but man, it was something else. They were really putting on.
While I was aware of Meech I still wasn’t familiar with Jeezy beyond our phone call at Shawty Redd’s. But he seemed cool enough and I appreciated that he was fond of my music. We agreed to meet up the next day to see if we could get some songs going.
Before parting ways we swapped CDs. I handed him the “Black Tee” remix and he gave me his new mixtape, Tha Streets Iz Watchin’.
I popped it into the CD player of the truck as we pulled off and the shit was hard. As a group we decided it was a good idea to work with this guy. Two days later we were at Patchwerk.
But Jeezy and I weren’t on the same page when we got in the studio. After we played a few beats and tossed some ideas around it seemed like we might not get anything off the ground. Jeezy was saying he wanted to make something real street and grimy, but I didn’t care for any of the beats he was playing.
“Is it cool if I have my partner Zaytoven come through?” I finally asked. “His beats are really good.”
With a green light I rang up Zay, who was cutting hair at the barbershop. I told him he needed to get down to Patchwerk ASAP and save this session.
Zay had given me a CD of beats recently and there was one on there I was stuck on. I’d first listened to it while heading out of town with the Z6C boys. We were riding to Daytona to get up with Daron “Southboy” Fordham, an ex–football player turned filmmaker. Daron was making a movie, Confessions of a Thug—it was like a hip-hop musical—and he wanted the Zone 6 Clique to make a cameo in it.
I’d come up with a hook for this beat in the car but hadn’t found the chance to get to the studio with it. But the hook was stuck in my head.
Zay loaded the beat and let it play. As it did I kept humming my hook to Zay.
“Okay, forget about everything else you guys have been doing here,” he said. “This is the song you need to do.”
I’d never seen him so adamant and I trusted his instincts. Coach K agreed.
“Yeah, let’s try it,” he said.
I had been humming the melody of this hook more than singing it because I wasn’t much of a singer. But Jeezy had a friend at the session named Lil’ Will from Atlanta’s legendary Dungeon Family, who could sing for real. So I wrote down the lyrics to the hook.
All these girls excited
Ooo ya know they like it
I’m so icy, so icy
Girl, don’t try to fight it
All yo friends invited
I’m so icy, so icy
As soon as Lil’ Will laid down the hook everybody in the studio was on board. Well, almost everyone. Jeezy still didn’t like it. It wasn’t the grimy street sound he was used to. It was melodic with a catchy hook.
“Let’s just do some street shit,” Jeezy insisted. “Something edgier.”
Some kind of way Coach and Jeezy’s crew persuaded him to do it. We did our verses and as soon as we finished copies were pressed. A few days later Jeezy asked if he could get on the “Black Tee” remix too, coming in right after Bun B’s verse. I was all for it. We’d only known each other a few days but everything was coming together nicely.
Collectively we started pushing “So Icy” and the “Black Tee” remix heavy. Doo Dirty and even Meech, whom I still hadn’t met, would be in the clubs tossing bands around to get the strippers and DJs on board with the songs. Before I knew it Hot 107.9 and V-103 had them on heavy rotation. My buzz in Atlanta blew the roof off. Suddenly everyone wanted a piece of Gucci Mane.
•
It wasn’t long before labels came knocking. The first to offer me a deal was T.I.’s Grand Hustle. I had known Clay Evans, the vice president of the label, from before “Icy.” He knew me from the open mic nights at the Libra and he’d taken an interest in my career. The first shows I ever got paid for were through Clay. He took me out to Chattanooga and small towns in Alabama and got me like five hundred dollars to perform, which was nothing, but I was so happy that I was actually getting paid to perform my music. I’ve still got love for Clay because of that. I even shouted him out on a song years later.
T.I. many times encouraged, told me face the game with courage
Clay gave me some great advice and still today I’m thankful for it
—“Worst Enemy” (2009)
Clay and Jason Geter, the other top dog at Grand Hustle, offered me a fifty-fifty partnership. They would foot the bill for producing and promoting my music and then we’d split the profits. But they weren’t offering any money up front.
Clay wanted me to meet T.I. He brought me to the video shoot for Slim Thug’s song “3 Kings” that T.I. and Bun B were featured on. T.I. was locked up in Fulton County for a probation violation on a drug conviction at the time, but he was in a work release program where he was allowed to record and conduct business during the daytime.
This was the old T.I., gold grill in his mouth and iced-out chains around his neck. He and I clicked and over the next few weeks were regularly in touch. But I ended up declining Grand Hustle’s offer. They needed an answer and I needed more time to think things through. The success of “Black Tee” and “So Icy” was happening so fast and even I wasn’t sure of what I was looking for in a record deal. I think he ended up signing Young Dro instead.
But Grand Hustle wasn’t the only one who wanted to sign me. I was hotter than fish grease. One night, while I was performing at a club, I met a member of another local rap group called the 404 Soldierz. He was a producer and wanted to get me on some of his beats.
Later that week I got a call asking if we could meet up, because there was someone he wanted me to meet. I pulled up to the parking lot of the West End Mall. That’s when I met Jacob York.
Jacob was the son of Dwight York, also known as Malachi York, the founder of the infamous Nuwaubian Nation, a cult religious group that built a compound in Putnam County, Georgia. I’d heard of Malachi, who had recently pleaded guilty to 116 counts of child molestation, but I wasn’t familiar with Jacob, who was telling me that he had been in the music industry for a long time. He said he had been instrumental in brokering the careers of the Notori
ous B.I.G., Lil’ Kim, Cam’ron, Pastor Troy, and a bunch of other artists from the South. His reputation had earned him his nickname “the Chancellor.” Most of this turned out to be true but at first I found it all hard to believe.
Jacob backed up his talk when he flew me to New York City to meet with the majors. He had us up at the W Hotel on Lexington Avenue and 49th Street. As soon as we checked in he told me he wanted me to meet Cam’ron, who was about to pull up to the hotel.
This was dope. Me and Zay were big fans of Cam’ron and the whole Dipset movement. Cam wasn’t just one of my favorite New York rappers, he was one of my favorite rappers period. Plus Jacob had shown me a photo of Cam’s latest purchase—a royal-blue Lamborghini—so I was I excited to see both of them.
“He’s really just riding around the hood in that Lambo by himself?” I asked Jacob.
“Well, this ain’t exactly the hood, Gucci.” Jacob laughed. “This is Manhattan, but yeah, he’s coming by himself.”
To my surprise Cam pulled up to the W in a Toyota Camry. At least the shit was new. He’d just bought it for his mother and was taking it out for a test drive. He wasn’t decked out in some bright pink fur like I’d expected him to be either. He was dressed regular. Meanwhile I was wearing a North Carolina blue mink coat and my recently acquired forty-thousand-dollar “So Icy” chain.
We chopped it up and I liked Cam. He was humble and I could tell he had some street in him too. He was for real. He wished me luck on my trip to the labels and we parted ways.
Jacob and I did the rounds over the next two days and met with all the majors—Bruce Carbone at Universal, Kedar Massenburg at Motown, Craig Kallman at Atlantic, Lyor Cohen at Warner Bros. But I wasn’t impressed with what they had to offer and frankly, none of them seemed all that impressed with me. My network inside the industry was minimal and I had barely traveled outside of Georgia. They all had the same script; they could put me in movies or get me on tour with so-and-so rapper. What I was interested in was money and being the head of my own label with their financial backing. I wasn’t hearing that anyone wanted to give me that.