by Gucci Mane
The first video we shot was for “Everybody Lookin.” The next day I had a photo shoot for Rolling Stone and then another video for “Boy from the Block.” Keyshia wasn’t scheduled to show up until the next day. We were going to shoot a video for “911 Emergency” at Club Life, but I caught word that she had gotten into town a day early. So I told Amina to bring her out to the set of “Boy from the Block.”
The magazine photos didn’t do her justice.
“You’re gorgeous,” I told her. There was no playing it cool.
“Thanks.” She laughed. I must not have been the first one to tell her that.
I told Keyshia to stick around after we finished shooting “Boy from the Block” but she turned me down, telling me she’d see me the next day for our scheduled shoot. That only made me want her more.
We had such a good time on the set of “911 Emergency” the next day. Amina had hired a whole gang of models for that video but I made sure Keyshia knew she was my leading lady, that she had everything she needed in her dressing room, that she felt comfortable and taken care of. I wanted her to feel good about coming out here.
After we wrapped up I practically begged her to stay an extra night in Atlanta so I could take her to dinner. I’d done nothing but work since I got out of jail and this seemed like a break worth taking. She agreed.
Keyshia and I went to dinner at the InterContinental Hotel in Buckhead. We were still wearing our all-white matching outfits from the shoot. We ordered the same thing, salmon with mashed potatoes. I took her hand as we left the restaurant. The whole situation was out of character for me. I knew she was special.
Keyshia was stunning but it was more than that. I’d been with a lot of pretty girls. There was more to her. I may have first fell for her beauty, ogling her pictures while I was sitting in the clink, but I quickly began to appreciate her as a person.
Keyshia was from Jamaica. When she was ten her father was killed, and after that her mother moved her and her brothers out of the country. They spent a year in Canada before settling down in Miami.
After high school she enrolled in nursing college, following in the footsteps of her mother, a nurse practitioner. But Keyshia wasn’t meant to be wearing scrubs. This was a girl who’d been voted best dressed in her class every year in high school. Her passion in life was clothes, makeup, and hair. Fashion and beauty. So she dropped out and enrolled in cosmetology school with a dream of becoming a stylist to the stars.
On a chance encounter Keyshia had gotten cast in that “Say Something” video and became something of a star herself. The girl was a fox with a look all her own. The chick with the Mohawk and blue lipstick.
She hadn’t let the sudden success get the better of her. From the modeling jobs and paid appearances at nightclubs Keyshia had made herself some money in a few short months, but she’d saved it, she told me. She wanted to launch a line of cosmetics—lipstick, lip gloss, eye shadow, shit like that. As I watched her talk about her vision I could tell this wasn’t somebody flapping her gums. This was someone who when she set out to do something, she did it.
We’d both been through a lot. A few years after the death of her father, one of her brothers got killed in an incident where a gun misfired. But Keyshia was like me. She was resilient. She was a survivor. I was so drawn to that.
We had our differences. Keyshia was not much of a partier and definitely didn’t do drugs. She said she hardly even went out unless she was getting paid for an appearance. So I downplayed my vices. I’d already thought about what she may have heard about me or read online, so I didn’t need to add any concerns. Plus I’d just gotten out of jail, so besides smoking weed I really hadn’t done much partying or drugging of late.
We fell hard and fast for each other. Keyshia went home to Miami the next day but soon I asked her to join me on the road as I did my best to keep up with a grueling schedule of shows, media, and studio sessions. I was really into Keyshia but I was also very preoccupied with my career. I’d never been busier.
•
The State vs. Radric Davis had sold just short of a half million copies and Todd and Lyor had their sights set on my next album being an even bigger success. So did I. Georgia’s Most Wanted: The Appeal would dwarf The State vs. Radric Davis. It was a foregone conclusion. My first night out I’d told the world that I was on a mission to become the biggest rapper in the world and I’d meant it.
I had to go even bigger with this album. I wanted to work with Swizz Beatz. Done. I wanted to work with Wyclef Jean. Not a problem. I wanted to work with Pharrell. Let’s fly to California. Everything I wanted, Warner Bros. would accommodate. I was the priority.
And I was enjoying it. There’s a line on that album—I spent my winter in a jail so I’m ballin’ all summer—and that’s what it was. I was making up for lost time. I’d always been a spender, but I took it up a notch that summer for real. I might walk into Magic City on a weekday, throw twenty thousand dollars in the air, and leave thinking nothing of it.
I was about to appear on VH1’s 2010 Hip Hop Honors show, where I was going to perform a cover of Master P’s classic “I Miss My Homies.” I was excited for that. P had been one of my biggest influences. I figured what better way to pay tribute to the original Ice Cream Man himself than to show up onstage with a three-hundred-thousand-dollar ice cream cone chain around my neck. Excessive? Not to me. Compared to all my chains with the crazy fruity colors, this was toning it down.
I got two Ferraris back to back. First was the black 612 Scaglietti. It was Memorial Day weekend and I was in Miami. I was doing an interview at DJ Khaled’s radio station when they brought it to me. I walked outside and there it was, waiting for me on the tow truck. I wrote the man a check, they pulled that motherfucker off the trailer, and I hopped in and sped off. I remember my buddies were standing there in shock. I hadn’t told anyone I was getting it.
When I got back to Atlanta I copped the yellow 458 Italia. I was the first person in the States to get that car. I put it on twenty-two-inch Forgiatos and had the interior customized with yellow stitching. The two new pets cost me a quick seven hundred grand.
I loved the W Hotel in South Beach, and me and my boys would go down there and turn up. I’d be in the Mega Ocean View Suite. It had its own basketball court. We’d be out there wagering a hundred dollars a shot. The suite had a shower in the center. I’d be in the bed with two girls while I watched two other girls shower together.
During one of those Miami trips we had to cut the party short. A hurricane was coming so I chartered a jet to Atlanta. Once we were airborne I got up and went to the bathroom, rolled me a couple of blunts, and smoked ’em back to back.
When we touched down the pilot came out of the cockpit and he went crazy. He was so pissed. Unless I coughed up ten thousand dollars to clean the jet, he was calling the cops.
I paid the money and went on my way, but I couldn’t believe I was paying ten extra bands for a damn blunt. I hadn’t been trying to mess with the pilot. I just figured I’d be allowed to smoke, having spent this kind of money on a private flight. It hadn’t even occurred to me I was doing something wrong.
I was spending money like it was never going to stop coming. Why would it? Some nights I was making ninety thousand dollars. I was pulling in sixty thousand at these stadium shows, like Hot 97’s Summer Jam or Hot 107.9’s Birthday Bash, and then I’d do an after-party and bring in another thirty thousand. I had songs all over the radio. The royalty checks were flowing. It never occurred to me that any of this could be temporary.
And then “Gucci Time” leaked.
“Gucci Time” was one of two songs that I’d made with Swizz Beatz for The Appeal. I liked it—I still like it—but I’d never considered it as the lead single for my album. I thought the other song I did with Swizz, “It’s Alive,” was better, plus I had this dope-ass record called “Haterade” I’d made with Pharrell and Nicki Minaj at Chalice Studios in Los Angeles. I couldn’t wait for people to hear that one.
/> But Warner Bros. had been big on “Gucci Time” from the jump. They hired Chris Robinson to direct the music video. This was a Grammy-nominated director. His CV was iconic: Nas’s “One Mic,” Alicia Keys’s “Fallin’,” Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s “ ’03 Bonnie & Clyde.” I think Warner Bros. paid like two hundred thousand for the “Gucci Time” video.
When the song leaked they felt like they needed to move on it. The plans changed overnight and “Gucci Time” was positioned as the first single for The Appeal. It didn’t work.
“ ‘Gucci Time’ is banal, a rehash of Jay-Z’s ‘On to the Next One’ with an unnecessarily shrill Justice sample. (Someone at Gucci HQ still hasn’t figured out that it was the artist’s untainted appeal, cf. ‘Wasted’ and ‘Lemonade,’ that made for his greatest commercial successes.)”
—Pitchfork
“The awfully ugly sounds he puts in for the synths are just terrible on the ears, though, and when Swizz comes in for his token verse about nothing, you realize how hard this song would be to listen to without Gucci on top of it.”
—Pop Matters
“The problem is that the leaked songs were ‘Gucci Time’ and ‘Weirdo,’ which both seemed like recycled themes (i.e. T.I.’s ‘Bring ’Em Out’ = ‘Gucci Time’)”
—iHipHop
That was what everyone was saying. Swizz’s beat was a throwaway and I shouldn’t be making that type of record to begin with.
I never really paid much mind to what critics said, but for some reason this response threw me for a loop. I didn’t think “Gucci Time” should be the single, but I did like the song. It never crossed my mind that the response would be negative. For so long it seemed like every song I made was outta here. I was used to songs I hadn’t thought twice about blowing up, so when the inverse happened I didn’t handle it well. I wasn’t prepared for that.
The Appeal was finished and turned in to Warner Bros. but the album’s release was still a couple of months away and there was work to be done to promote it. But I started to withdraw from that work. I started bailing on photo shoots and interviews. A fan would ask me for an autograph and I would tell them to step off. Todd and I were still talking but I became disengaged. Keyshia and I broke up. Worst of all, I started drinking lean again. Heavily.
It had been almost a year since I’d touched the stuff. I’d spent those three months in rehab, immediately followed by six months in jail, and when I got out, I steered clear of it. But as time went on I convinced myself that I could handle it. I was working so hard and this was my way of taking the edge off.
Except I couldn’t handle it. My tolerance was so low that when I started up drinking pints like I used to, it took a toll on my body. I was already spreading myself thin. The shows, the features, the videos, the interviews, my album. It was impossible to keep up after I reintroduced the drugs to my body. I needed to be focused and on point like I’d been before The State vs. Radric Davis came out. Instead I was self-sabotaging.
Looking back, I realize it was so unnecessary. The response to “Gucci Time” wasn’t as bad as I made it out to be. There was no reason The Appeal couldn’t have been a success. I’d felt good about that album. Really good. As far as the big picture, I was still a star. But I lost sight of the big picture. I couldn’t see it. I was in too dark of a place.
This was how these downward spirals in my life always went. Some stressful situation would arise and I would turn to the drugs to cope. Abusing the lean and weed and pills would end up with me sleeping and eating poorly. It would compromise my whole health and then I wouldn’t be on point to handle the original stressful situation right. I’d compound bad choices. That would lead to more problems, more stress, and more drugs. A cycle with no end. No good one at least.
After what happened in ’05 and all my scuffles in the streets, I already had serious issues with paranoia. I would use the drugs to numb those feelings but really they magnified them. People have called me bipolar or that I suffer from depression, but I always identified most with the symptoms of someone with PTSD. Like a soldier who came home still dealing with the effects of being in a war zone.
It would always be a domino effect, with each fallen domino sending me deeper and deeper into despair until I crashed,
That Waka and I were having problems didn’t help. Things between him and I had been rocky ever since I officially got rid of Deb as my manager earlier that year. She and my booking agent had gotten themselves, and by extension me, in big trouble after I missed a bunch of show dates due to being in rehab in ’09.
The promoters never got their deposits back. I still had love for Deb and that whole family. We’d all been through a lot together. But there were too many problems going on with her as my manager. I was at a point in my career where I couldn’t be involved.
But Deb had already been fired as Nicki’s manager. So when I did the same, she was in a tough spot. This was her livelihood. Waka was always his own man, but even if he thought his momma was in the wrong, she was still his momma. He was stuck in the middle of a no-win situation. I knew that family very well, so I knew what kinds of things were being said about me in their house. Things were going to get tense.
Meanwhile “No Hands” was blowing up and Waka was outgrowing his role as my right-hand man. Everything was different now.
Two weeks before The Appeal’s release, I was in Los Angeles, getting ready to walk the red carpet of the MTV Video Music Awards. I was not in a good state of mind. I was becoming more reclusive, combative, paranoid, and isolated. The day before, Todd had called me to discuss a music video and I’d told him never to call me during the daytime again. That he was only allowed to call me after dark. Otherwise, I said, he and I were going to have a serious problem.
Outside the VMAs I was with Todd, Waka, Master P, and Joie Manda, the head of urban music at Warner Bros. Really I was alone in my own world. Dressed in black from head to toe, bloodshot eyes behind my sunglasses, I stood in silence, staring blankly into the distance.
This would happen from time to time, whenever my benders would reach their tipping point and manifest in the form of bizarre behavior and volatile outbursts. Spells where I would zone out and gaze into space. Sometimes I’d be looking into the mirror, mumbling to myself, trying to make sense of thoughts that didn’t make any sense. Doctors had tried to give me medication for this before. Mood stabilizers. But I rarely took them. They made me even more sluggish. They zapped me of my energy, my creativity, my whole mojo.
I returned to reality, if only momentarily, when a staff member informed us we would require extra security before we could enter. Moments later ten LAPD officers showed up and proceeded to debate whether I was allowed in the venue.
I’d seen other celebrities arrive and walk in without a problem. Why was this happening to me? Why the fuck would these people invite me here and then do this to me? I grew increasingly agitated.
It was too little, too late by the time we were allowed to enter the Nokia Theatre. The flash of cameras from the media only angered me more. It felt like they were taunting me. I pulled out the ten-thousand-dollar stack in my pocket and threw it in their faces.
“Feathers and glitter weren’t the only things flying around the white carpet; Gucci Mane made his very own contribution by tossing out money—and lots of it. ‘It was during the commercial break. He was on the photography press line and all of a sudden he whipped out a spot of cash, it was quite a bit,’ said producer Matt Harper, who was standing at the top of the carpet. ‘At first he was just sort of showing it to the cameras, and then all of a sudden he just sort of threw it and then there was chaos,’ he continued.”
—MTV News (September 20, 2010)
I kept replaying the incident in my head during my flight back to Atlanta the next day. Me standing there on the white carpet of the VMAs, watching reporters fight over hundred-dollar bills like I was feeding pigeons.
That was so stupid. Why the fuck would I do that?
By the time the BET H
ip Hop Awards rolled around in October, I was a shell of my former self. The release of The Appeal had come and gone. First-week sales weren’t even bad. It sold sixty thousand copies. But it was nowhere near expectations. That was all my fault. I’d disappeared on the label after they gave me everything I wanted. This wasn’t like when Back to the Trap House bombed. Then I could blame Asylum for putting out an album that misrepresented me as an artist. This was the album I’d wanted to make, and I dropped the ball.
I shouldn’t have checked out after “Gucci Time” leaked. I shouldn’t have put out the Buy My Album mixtape with Holiday a week before the album came out without telling anyone. Despite its title that took the attention away from my album. I shouldn’t have bailed on the SPIN magazine photo shoot and ended the interview with their writer. My favorite song from The Appeal, “Making Love to the Money,” had been popping off organically in the clubs, but I went and shot an X-rated video for it at Magic City. It couldn’t be shown anywhere beyond WorldStarHipHop Uncut. I’d made a series of bad decisions. My whole strategy was fucked. There hadn’t even been a strategy.
As I stepped onstage to perform “Gucci Time” at the BET Hip Hop Awards, I looked out into the crowd and remembered how it had been just a year before. I’d been sober, laser-focused, a month away from the release of The State vs. Radric Davis. I could see the difference in the crowd now. People weren’t fucking with Gucci Mane like they had been then. Everything was slipping away from me.
XVII
* * *
LOST IN THE SAUCE
Things only got worse from there. A lot worse.
After the awards I went to Miami Beach, where I holed up in my condo on Allison Island. I arrived with nothing more than $150,000 in cash and my security guard Big Dame, who stood by while I tore it up for a week straight. I didn’t leave the place once. Everything I needed—girls, drugs, drank—was brought to me. It was the type of bender rock stars were known for, not rappers.