by Gucci Mane
“It sounds like he was set up, then?” a reporter asked.
“I talked to a detective,” my attorney told him. “The detective indicated he was set up. We have an independent witness we tried to give to the detective. The detective basically doesn’t want a whole lot more information. We have a witness, a man who saw the five men go in. A woman, the young lady whom he was with, basically said she set him up. We’re not sure of all the other facts yet.”
With that, I headed inside and turned myself in to DeKalb County police for the murder of some twenty-seven-year-old dude. They told me he was from Macon. They told me he was a rapper too. I’d never met the man or even once heard his name.
I was wearing a T-shirt with a photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on it. Above his image it read, “I Have a Dream.”
PART TWO
XI
* * *
DEKALB TO FULTON
“Round II”
(written in an isolation cell in DeKalb County Jail)
I know I have my mother’s luv
I know she’s prayin’ 4 me
But all the things I took her thru
I know it’s hard 2 luv me
My older brother’s disappointed
My little brother’s scared
Been faced with trials my whole life
Yet still I’m not prepared
I always dreamed to be a rapper
Just like Big Daddy Kane
But all I got was jealousy
Since I took my daddy’s name
I once lost my sanity
With prayer I got it back
My granddad had a heart attack
And we can’t bring him back
I love my girl with all my heart
Though we both have made mistakes
Besides God no one’s perfect
No one will ever take her place
My homeboys truly miss me
I cry because I miss ’em
I know they all can feel my pain
Them being victims of this system
Now as I write this poem
Tears are rushing down my cheeks
I want to be a respected black man
Like Big Cat and Frank Ski
They say I’m not intelligent
Because I have a speech impediment
But all that is irrelevant
Because my words are heaven sent
They say that I’m a murderer
But I do not believe it
So pray tonight for Gucci Mane
And even pray for Jeezy
—by Gucci Mane
Five days later I walked out of DeKalb County Jail on a hundred-thousand-dollar cash bond. It was May 24, 2005. Trap House was in stores and it was time to promote. But nobody was interested in talking about the album.
While I was locked up, the in-house publicist at Big Cat implemented a “crisis management campaign,” issuing statements on my behalf.
“As much as I want to be celebrating my album release party rather than sitting alone in a cell where I don’t belong, I can’t feel sorry for myself because a man lost his life,” said one.
“As a God-fearing person, I never wanted to see anyone die,” read another. “I found myself in a predicament and even though there was an attack on my life, I truly never intended to hurt anyone, I was just trying to protect myself.”
I didn’t handle the questions as well upon my release, when I had to face them in person. I still hadn’t had time to process the events of that night let alone be able to discuss them with strangers.
“Ain’t too many people that got the motive to do some shit like that,” I told Mad Linx, a few weeks after everything went down, on Rap City. “I just look at it like a detective, who has the motive to do it, and this fuck nigga is the only nigga that have motive.”
“Jeezy?” Mad Linx asked.
“Yeah, straight up. I guess he’s scared of competition. I’m independent. He’s major. What the hell you beefin’ with me for? Why would you jeopardize everything you got going to beef with a nigga at an independent label? There’s something that I’m doing that he likes.”
In a lot of folks’ eyes I’d done some gangsta shit and people started rocking with me again for that. But I’d never walked around acting like I was hard. My music had always been fun because I’d always been a fun person. But now I had this reputation that I’d never sought out, something that was forced on me. And it wasn’t only that my reputation had changed, the experience changed me too. I felt different. I was doing my best to keep everything going but in reality I was shell-shocked.
But the show had to go on. Trap House’s success or failure didn’t only affect me. There was a lot on the line for a lot of people. So I carried on, hitting the road for my scheduled tour dates, doing performances in a bulletproof vest.
I knew when I walked out of DeKalb County after making bond that my newfound notoriety was going to be bad. Ultimately it was. To law enforcement and the press and the general public I would never catch a break on anything from that point on. But it wasn’t hurting the release of Trap House, which was exceeding all expectations of what an independent album could do.
Two months after I turned myself in for murder, I touched down in Miami for a performance that Cat and Jacob booked for me at the downtown club Warehouse. As soon as we pulled up and stepped out of the car, all hell broke loose.
Everyone standing outside the club—the bouncers, valet parking attendants, patrons—turned to us with automatic weapons drawn. Every single one of them. It was a scene out of a movie.
“ATF! FBI! DEA! Everybody on the ground!”
It happened so fast I didn’t have a chance to react. Before I knew it I was in the back seat of a black sedan, squeezed between four strangers. They hit the gas and sped off, without reading me my rights. Not a word was spoken. I thought I’d been kidnapped.
I realized I wasn’t when we got to Miami’s FBI headquarters minutes later. I was led to a conference room where the walls were covered with photos from huge drug busts, showcasing piles of seized bricks, guns, and money.
Two agents explained that they’d been made aware of death threats against me. Then they started asking about BMF and what I knew about the organization.
“Lawyer,” I told them. “I ain’t got nothing to say. Look, I’m tired. I need to go to sleep.”
That was all I needed to say. I think maybe they couldn’t question me after I said that because then anything I said would be under duress or something. I don’t know. But I really was tired. It was the middle of the night and the experience of getting ambushed again like that had drained me. It was a shot of adrenaline when it happened but now I was crashing. I was taken to another room where I sat down on the floor and fell asleep.
When I woke up I was told there was a warrant out on me for an aggravated assault charge out of Fulton County back home. But why would the feds come down to Miami to serve a state warrant out of Georgia? Then I remembered all their questions about BMF.
As for this aggravated assault warrant, I wasn’t sure what they were talking about. But when one of the agents mentioned a pool stick I realized.
This nigga who worked in promotions at the label had been booking shows in my name and pocketing the money. After I caught wind of this me and my boys found him at Big Cat’s studio, and you can guess what happened. Allegedly a pool stick was involved.
I was to be extradited back to Georgia. I was crushed. Cat and Jacob had shown up to the office and I couldn’t even look them in the eye. I stood there, my head hung, as the agents put me in cuffs.
Damn. This shit fucked up.
“Hey!” Cat shouted as they walked me out. “Put your motherfucking head up.”
I was taken to a local Miami PD precinct, where I was booked before being transferred to another jail. Two days later I was on a bus to Georgia.
I sat on that bus for two days as it stopped at damn near every correctional facility between Miam
i and Atlanta. It was the worst discomfort I’d ever felt. My wrists were in handcuffs and my ankles were shackled in leg irons. I couldn’t move a muscle. The metal dug into my limbs and my whole body was cramping up. There I sat, captive, for miles on end. I got to use the bathroom once. Getting sleep was out of the question. It was crazy to me that you could do this to a person who hadn’t even been convicted of a crime.
But Cat telling me to keep my head up stuck with me. I knew if I could just get through this temporary pain that tomorrow could bring a better day. That mentality would serve me in the years that followed.
•
I haven’t exactly tested out every jail in the country, but I can tell you there ain’t too many places like Fulton County. That place has got to be one of the most fucked-up correctional facilities in the United States.
Fulton County Jail was not like DeKalb County, where I’d just spent a week before making bond on my murder charge and done my sixty-seven days back in 2002. DeKalb was heavily policed, with a bunch of old, white, racist good ol’ boy COs running the show. They love fucking with niggas in there.
Fulton County is the city jail, policed by young black COs, many of whom came up in the same areas as the inmates. It is very easy to get a job there. Fulton County is not a place people aspire to work.
It was extremely overcrowded. Built in the eighties, the facility was designed to hold 1,332 inmates. When I got to Rice Street in ’05, there were about three thousand of us in there. Cells meant to hold two bunks had three. Even that wasn’t enough. There were mattresses strewn across the dayroom floor.
Bringing in some extra bunks and mattresses was easy, but they weren’t adding showers and toilets to accommodate the overpopulation. The strain on the utilities resulted in system failures. Electric. Plumbing. HVAC. All fucked up. The overworked and understaffed maintenance workers couldn’t keep up. It made for horrifying conditions.
Pipes were leaking. Toilets were overflowing. Sinks were clogged. Power outages were commonplace. The laundry machines didn’t work, so inmates would wash their clothes in the shower, hanging them out to dry on the railings of the dayroom. The wet clothing only worsened the already unsanitary climate inside the pods, which were terribly hot and humid from the busted ventilation systems and crowded bodies. Mold was everywhere. And the smells. As if the food itself wasn’t hard enough to put down, those fucking smells made it nearly impossible.
The inmates ran the show here and the place was rampant with gangs, drugs, weapons, and corruption. The rule of law in Fulton County was simple. Anything goes.
•
I hadn’t been there a month before I nearly caught a second murder charge.
I was still on and off with Danielle and she came by to see me a few weeks after I got locked up. I was on my way to visitation when I was blindsided. I don’t know what the guy hit me with—maybe it was a lock?—but whatever it was, I was hit hard.
My ears were ringing. My vision was blurry. I was barely conscious. As I slowly came to, I was able to grab ahold of whatever it was he’d hit me with and we began to struggle over the metal object. We both had one hand on it and with our free hands we were blasting away at each other. A couple of punches later and this nigga was knocked the fuck out.
I’d gotten my wits about me by this point and was now fully enraged. Even though he was asleep I stayed swinging. I grabbed his legs and dragged him to the nearby stairwell. I was readying to throw him down the steps and break his neck. But then somebody saved my life and his.
“Don’t throw him down those steps, man. You already won the fight.”
I turned around to find an older inmate standing there who had seen the whole thing. This all happened right by visitation, so there were witnesses.
“Look, you’re going to beat that murder charge,” he told me. “Don’t get another one. Just let him go.”
So I did. With one tooth knocked out and blood pouring out my mouth, I walked down the same steps that I was about to throw my attacker down and extended my arms for the COs to put me in handcuffs. I was immediately brought to solitary confinement.
In the hole they had me three doors down from Brian Nichols. I couldn’t believe it.
Earlier that year he’d been in all the papers. This guy was on trial for rape and before his appearance in court he’d beaten a sheriff’s deputy damn near to death and taken her gun. Then he went into the courtroom, where he shot and killed a judge and a court stenographer. Outside he shot and killed another sheriff’s deputy. He carjacked someone and a manhunt ensued. This was on America’s Most Wanted and everything. While on the run, he killed a federal agent too. Eventually this lady he’d taken hostage convinced him to turn himself in.
How the hell could they have me in the same place as this guy? I’d just been on my way to visitation when someone attacked me. And I end up in solitary on some bullshit.
But I was treated just like Brian, stuck in my cell twenty-three hours a day. No windows. One bed. One sink. One toilet. The only light I saw was fluorescent. The air was stale. The only time I was allowed to leave was to use the shower, when I’d get escorted in shackles by a team of armed SWAT-like COs. When I got to use the phone they’d wheel it down on a cart to my cell and put the receiver through the same metal flap in the door that they put my food through. It was so inhumane. I started to lose it.
When I first got charged with the murder, I knew it was going to be a challenge but I also felt at the end of the day there was no way I could be convicted. I knew the facts of the case and that I hadn’t been in the wrong that night. I’d done a lot of dirty, low-down things over the years, but what happened that night wasn’t one of them. That’s just all there was to it.
But the hole started fucking with me. With no human contact the only person I could talk to was myself, and I was saying crazy things, over and over again until I believed them. My thoughts became consumed by how many people had gotten convicted for murders they hadn’t committed. More and more I started thinking that my life could be over. Over what? Nothing. Some song.
I was angry. Directly or indirectly this guy had put me in a situation where I had to fight for my life in the streets, and now I was going to be fighting for my life in the courts. Meanwhile he was out there enjoying all the success of his debut album. As the days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months I sat in solitary, going over how everything had played out. How had this good situation turned out so bad?
The more I thought about it, the more I started thinking maybe he resented me even before I turned Def Jam down. Prior to “So Icy” Jeezy was the new dude in Atlanta. He was riding with Meech and them and they were pulling up to the clubs in Gallardos and Phantoms and Bentleys and spending so much money it was unbelievable. But believe it. All those stories are true. I saw it with my own eyes.
But then here I was, creeping into what he thought was his limelight. I would understand those feelings if it weren’t for the fact that I always thought we were coming from different angles. I wasn’t talking about Lambos and Maybachs. I was rapping for the young boys on the corner with dirty T-shirts on. The ones cooking up in the kitchen. The car thieves. The shooters. The niggas breaking into houses. I was rapping my reality.
And I’d done it independently. I’d had help along the way from partners like Doo Dirty and Jacob and Cat. I’d had people like Clay Evans and DJ Greg Street from V-103 who took an interest in my career and looked out for me. But I hadn’t come out of the major-label system and in a way that had made me the people’s champ.
Maybe that fucked with his ego. Maybe he started viewing me as his competition, a thorn in his side. I’d never viewed him that way. Remember, I’d never even heard of the dude prior to our phone call through Shawty Redd, but he’d sure as hell heard of me. He was in south Georgia listening to “Muscles in My Hand” back in 2002. Maybe because I wasn’t in awe of him, I never put on the shoes that he wanted me to wear. Maybe my keeping “So Icy” for myself was just the straw that brok
e the camel’s back.
Or maybe being in the hole was just fucking with me.
Nearly three months after being placed in solitary confinement I caught the attention of the warden, who was walking through the wing.
“Can you tell me why y’all still got me in here?” I shouted.
She stopped, turned around, and approached my cell.
“Well, you stabbed your visitation buddy in the face,” she responded.
“I did what?”
I still don’t even understand how this shit happened but apparently I hit this guy so hard that his incisors went through his jaw on both sides of his mouth. When they took him to Grady Hospital he told them the reason he had these holes in his jaw was that I’d stabbed him in the face with a pen.
I explained to the warden that I hadn’t stabbed anyone and she agreed to go back and check the surveillance footage. She returned the next day.
“Well, you’re right,” she told me. “We looked back at the footage and you didn’t stab him. But let me ask you something else. Why were you still hitting him after he was unconscious?”
I didn’t have an answer for that one but I wouldn’t need one. After spending more than three months in solitary I was allowed to return to general protective custody. I had a disheveled Afro and a beard like T. J. Duckett. I was a mess. The hole had broke me down.
It seemed like there was little progress being made on my cases so I fired my attorney. Jacob was telling me that he had taken an aggressive approach with the DA, which had brought things to a standstill. So I hired a new team of lawyers from the law firm that had represented Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis when he’d gotten charged with murder after an incident at a Super Bowl party in Atlanta in 2000. That case was a whole lot more complicated than mine, so I was hoping they’d be able to figure my shit out.
And they did. Things started moving after the new lawyers came aboard. They met with the Fulton County prosecutor and were able to find common ground. As far as the DA was concerned, their plaintiff wasn’t the best victim. They knew this guy was a thief and had been stealing. At this point all he wanted was for his medical bills to be paid for. I was going to have to do some time for the assault, but this was a resolvable case.