by Gucci Mane
We hugged it out. That deep friendship was still there. Our relationship was bigger than business. Still, there was business I wanted to attend to. I wanted to restructure my deal at Warner Bros. We needed to get a proper budget for my next album like I’d gotten with The Appeal.
Todd told me his hands were tied as far as restructuring my contract, but he gave me the green light to sell my mixtapes on iTunes to put some extra money in my pocket. He also had another idea.
“You should start calling yourself the trap god,” he said. “Actually . . . you should legally change your name to Trap God.”
Legally change my name? Todd was crazy, but he was onto something.
“Okay, it’s perfect!” he said. “Put together a mixtape called Trap God and I’ll sign off on it so you can sell it on iTunes.”
That’s how the Trap God moniker was born.
Coming up with the Trap God name and letting me sell my mixtapes would be the last things Todd did for me at Warner Bros. A month after I put out the project he resigned from his position as CEO of the label. Not long after, Warner Bros. folded its urban music department and by default I was transferred to Atlantic Records.
These were the folks who screwed me in 2007 with Back to the Trap House and now I was supposed to deal with them again. I hadn’t gotten what I wanted out of my conversation with Todd, one of my biggest supporters, so I knew it wasn’t going to go any better at Atlantic. And I was right about that. We couldn’t see eye to eye on anything.
Fuck it.
Everything had been going so well. I wasn’t going to let the label mess it up. I didn’t need ’em. I’d get my contract sorted out later. For now I was on strike with Atlantic Records and taking my career back into my own hands.
XIX
* * *
BRICK BY BRICK
Patchwerk had always been my spot, but my bills there had gotten ridiculous. Studio fees were running me nearly a hundred thousand dollars a year. If I wasn’t on the road, I was there. Every day. After I signed Waka, I’d started renting out both rooms of the studio at $150 an hour each. Even when I wasn’t recording I’d be there just hanging. But the meter was always running. I don’t even want to think about how many hours I got billed just to be smoking weed and drinking lean at Patchwerk.
So when I decided I was on strike with the label and they were no longer footing the bill, I decided to set up my own shop. I scouted a couple of locations and landed on a studio in the heart of East Atlanta. I named it the Brick Factory, after the Hit Factory in Miami, which had always been one of my favorite places to record.
The Brick Factory was the studio where Dunk had gotten killed. Because of that I had reservations about getting the place. Financially, though, it made sense.
I needed to get rid of the bad vibes in there and give it a fresh start. With the help of Beasley, a longtime friend who doubled as my hood secretary of sorts, I had the whole spot gutted and remodeled. I put a lot of money into it. There was a lounge with flat-screen TVs. A workout room. I had my own little apartment-like area with a bedroom and kitchen and shower upstairs. And I assigned Zay the task of outfitting the three recording rooms with top-of-the-line equipment. We made it real nice. I also bought the car wash next door and had the fence between the buildings torn down. My plan was to add two more recording rooms after we finished phase one of renovations.
I already had a reputation as an A&R man—someone with an ear for new talent. My early involvement with Waka, OJ, Nicki, and Mike Will spoke for itself. But the Brick Factory was where I took an active role in grooming the careers of the next generation of young talent coming out of Atlanta.
•
Having this multiroom recording studio allowed for that. Before, anyone who was in one of my sessions at Patchwerk was there to be a part of whatever I was working on. Now, with three rooms and two more on the way, there was space for everyone to work on their own stuff simultaneously. I could bounce around and get involved in what everyone had going on. I wanted my studio to be a place where artists had the freedom to experiment. A place to take chances. Where people could be themselves but also find themselves as rappers or producers. For me this was a much deeper level of involvement. I’d set up an incubator of talent.
I’d had this in mind when I got the place. I wanted a new stable of protégés. Waka and I were on okay terms, but he had his own career now so he wasn’t around all the time. That meant Wooh and Frenchie weren’t around either. And Dunk was dead. So I was looking for a new crew of young bulls to take under my wing.
Even before I got the studio, I’d been on the hunt for artists who would be good fits for 1017. First was Scooter. Young Scooter and I had gotten cool during the summer of 2011 when I was working with Future on Free Bricks. Future and Scooter were childhood friends from Kirkwood. I mentioned earlier that I never knew Future coming up, but when he introduced Scooter and me at Patchwerk, it turned out he and I had actually met before.
“Don’t you remember me, bro?” he asked. “From that dice game in East Atlanta?”
Come to think of it, I did remember this guy. We’d met maybe a year or two back one day when I was hangin’ in my old neighborhood. He’d been with some of my old partners from the Zone 6 Clique. At the time I didn’t know he rapped, but I did figure he must have some street in him to be there gamblin’ with my old partners. They didn’t hang with anyone who didn’t.
When Future reintroduced us I immediately took a liking to Scooter. He was pretty green when it came to the music. I don’t think Scooter had even put out a mixtape yet. But I liked his approach. There was an effortlessness to it. Lackadaisical. Almost like he wasn’t even rapping. Like Scooter was just talking on tracks.
I’d wanted to get Future to sign with Brick Squad, but by that point I’d come to terms with the fact that that wasn’t going to happen. Future already had his situation with Rocko, and he was so hot that summer that his major-label deal was coming any day. I’d missed the boat on Future, but it was still early for Scooter.
“I’m telling you he hard, Gucci,” Future told me. “You should sign him.”
Scooter and I kept in touch and a year later, after he got himself a buzz in the city off a song called “Colombia,” we put it on paper and made it official. Scooter was now a 1017 Brick Squad artist.
Then there was Young Dolph.
I linked with Dolph through Drumma Boy, who put me in touch with him for a feature at some point in 2011. But I was sleeping on Dolph then. I did a lot of features for lesser-known rappers in the South. A lot of the time these were dudes who already had money in the streets—which was how they could afford a feature from me—and were now looking to give it a go in the rap game. So I did a verse for Dolph and that was that.
Months later I was hanging out with one of my partners from Mobile, Alabama, when he asked me if I fucked with the nigga Dolph from South Memphis whom I’d done that song with. At first I didn’t even know who he was talking about.
“Well, Dolph got a serious following out here in Alabama,” he told me. “You really should fuck with him.”
He had Dolph’s new mixtape—A Time 2 Kill—in his car. I gave it a listen on the drive to Atlanta and I was impressed. With him it was his voice. Superdistinct. Superdeep. I knew how far a voice could take you in the game, so I hit Drumma for Dolph’s number and told him the next time he made it to Atlanta he should pull up on me at Patchwerk.
My buddy was right about Dolph’s movement too. This was not some unknown up-and-comer with nothing to show. He already had money and his own independent thing going. That would keep us from doing a deal with 1017, but Dolph and I ended up getting tight anyway. He was just a real nigga. When I got the new studio I made sure he knew he was welcome to pull up and work anytime he wanted.
I was checking in on the renovations at the Brick Factory one day when one of my partners started telling me about Peewee Longway.
“Gucci you know the dude Peewee from Zone Three?” he said. “The
nigga who rap?”
“Peewee?” I thought. “From Jonesboro South?”
“That nigga.”
“Yeah I know Peewee,” I said. “He don’t rap, though.”
“Well, he rap now.”
I had not seen Peewee in many years, but I’d known him for quite some time. Peewee repped Zone 3, on the Westside of Atlanta. We always ran in different circles coming up, but I would see him frequently at the Libra. I’m talking way, way, way back when I was twenty-three, performing at their open mic nights. But Peewee was never rapping at the Libra. He was always there just as a patron of the club. From what I knew of him, Peewee was strictly a hustler.
As soon as I heard that Peewee was a rapper—the “Longway” part was new—I sent for him to come to my studio. I was signing him to Brick Squad. That might sound odd, but it’s a good example of something else that I look for in artists.
Peewee was always this little, funny, charming nigga whom people just seemed to gravitate toward. Everyone I knew liked Peewee and he was very much respected from his dealings in the streets. So I didn’t really need to hear Peewee’s music to know I wanted to sign him. The music was the easy part. That shit I could help him out with. And once I did, I already knew Peewee was someone who would be well received in Atlanta.
I had twenty-five thousand dollars in cash waiting for him when he came to the studio a few days later. But Peewee had other plans.
“You ain’t even got to worry about paying me, bro,” he said. “What I really want is for you to sign my young boys here.”
“I’m pretty much set on signing you, Peewee,” I told him. “But if this is what you really want, then tell me about your boys.”
That’s when Peewee introduced me to Young Thug. Not only had I never met Thug, but I’d never heard a word about him. But I took a look at this tall, skinny kid with a bunch of tattoos on his face like me and I got the feeling he could be something. He definitely had a look.
Peewee wanted me to sign Thug as part of a three-man crew, but it was clear who the diamond in the rough was. So I took the twenty-five thousand I’d had ready for Peewee, gave it to Young Thug, and signed him on the spot. I hadn’t known him longer than thirty minutes.
I’d taken a chance on Thug but it didn’t take long for me to realize he was something special. Thug started coming to the studio every day, staying for days on end, and man, listen . . . the boy was going fucking crazy. I remember Thug had some shit going with his teeth and was wearing some type of mask over his mouth for a brief period. When he would take it off to record it would be like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat pulling his mask off and breathing fire. He was bouncing off the walls. He had different voices, different flows, and he was switching in and out of ’em effortlessly. I remember when he made “2 Cups Stuffed.” It was obvious Thug was a superstar in the making. All he needed from me was a little seasoning.
•
A few weeks later I was at Zay’s crib when he waved me out of the booth to show me something on the computer.
“Check this out.” He laughed. “There’s some boys here who sound just like you and they’re rapping over some beats that sound just like mine.”
Zay was watching a music video for a song called “Bando” by a three-man group calling themselves Migos. He was right. There were similarities. Like Zay and I had first started doing a decade earlier these boys were talking about cookin’ up work in the kitchen and they were making it fun. It was upbeat. Animated. Catchy. Silly. Right away I liked what Migos were doing.
Later in the day I was back at the Brick Factory showing the “Bando” video to Scooter, Thug, and Peewee. I found a booking number in the description on YouTube and called it. Whoever answered couldn’t believe it was me.
“Get the fuck out of here, man,” I was told. “This ain’t no Gucci Mane.”
“Well, if this ain’t Gucci, then tell those boys not to come down to 1074 Memorial Drive because Gucci Mane don’t want to sign ’em.”
They were on their way.
Migos were from Gwinnett County, north of Atlanta, so it took them an hour or so to get to the studio. When they did show up, it was just two of them. The third, Offset, was locked up in DeKalb County on a parole violation.
The first thing I noticed about these boys was that they had on a bunch of fake-ass jewelry. I took two gold necklaces off my neck, gave one to each of them, and told them I wanted them to be on my label. I’d taken out forty-five thousand dollars, fifteen thousand for each of them. Quavo and Takeoff were on board, but I needed to make sure the third guy, Offset, was too. I wanted this group as I’d first seen them, as a trio.
They got Offset on the phone from jail. He didn’t need much convincing. I asked him what he wanted me to do with his share of the money and he told me to hold on to it for him until he got out. And with that Migos were on Brick Squad. Quavo and Takeoff headed home with plans to return the next day and get to work.
Shortly after Migos left, Scooter called me out of the booth while I was recording. There was something I needed to see.
“You see those boys threw their jewelry in the trash can?”
I figured Scooter was trying to be funny, making a joke about those bullshit chains. But I looked in the trash can and sure enough, there they were. Quavo and Takeoff had thrown out their old chains after I’d given them real jewelry. We had a laugh at that one.
Migos would be the last addition to the new team. I came so close to signing Yung Fresh—who later started going by Bankroll Fresh—too, but his parents got involved in the negotiations and the deal fell apart. That one bummed me out ’cause I’d been cool with Fresh since ’07 and thought he was a hell of a talent. We ended up tearing up the contract and Fresh gave the advance back save for a couple of Gs I told him to keep to take care of some probation shit he had going on. I guess there’s always going to be the ones who got away.
The Brick Factory was now up and running with a team of hungry, talented prospects following my lead. The studio took on a life of its own. At any given time, someone would be in there working. At full capacity there might be thirty people in the building. I might be in one room with C4 or Honorable C.N.O.T.E. working on Trap House 3 while Thug was in the next, recording his 1017 Thug mixtape with one of the 808 Mafia producers. Or Metro Boomin might be in a room just cookin’ up some beats by himself. Or Migos might be downstairs doing their own thing. Scooter and Waka were both on the road a lot then, but whenever they were in town they’d be there too. Even the artists who never officially signed with me were always welcome and I did mixtapes with all of them—EAST ATLANTA MEMPHIS with Dolph, Money Pounds Ammunition with Peewee, Trust God Fuck 12 with Rich Homie Quan.
It was a 24/7 operation with an open-door policy for any rapper or producer I fucked with to come be a part of what we had going on. I gave those boys hell whenever they tried to leave. Take a nap on the couch if you tired, I’d tell ’em. If one of the engineers got tired, I’d sit down and record Peewee or Thug myself. If you need a break from recording, let’s roll something up. Or pour something up. Or shoot some dice. Ain’t no need to leave the studio.
The Brick Factory was some hippie commune shit. Outlaws playing by our own set of rules. A tale of true American counterculture.
•
After spending the winter getting the studio set up and my signees off the ground, I started spring with a trip to California for the Spring Breakers premiere. Keyshia was joining me. I’d been asking her to take me back for months and she finally agreed to come on the trip and see if our relationship was worth another shot.
She’d seen I’d gotten my act together and was proud of me. I’d promised her I was done drinking lean, which was a lie, but as long as I stayed on point and didn’t let things spiral out of control she would have no reason not to believe me. To be safe, I’d started mixing my lean with fruit punch or some other colored drink so she wouldn’t see a photo or video out there of me sipping. Keyshia was an angel. She didn’t know the f
irst thing about lean. As long as I wasn’t drinking something purple, she wouldn’t have cause for concern.
The premiere went great. Not only did people seem to like the film but I was getting a lot of love for my part in particular. I was glad Keyshia was there to see that. It brought us back to how things were when we first fell for each other. Me on point and feeling good about myself, not falling apart from the drugs and out of my mind.
Harmony had us seated in the theater next to Marilyn Manson and his girlfriend at the time, Lindsay. Harmony and Marilyn were buddies, and Harmony thought the two of us would hit it off. Harmony swung by our seats to introduce us, but as it turned out Marilyn and I had already met on the red carpet earlier.
Lindsay complimented Keyshia on her lipstick and the two of them struck up a conversation.
“Looks like we both got us some fancy bitches,” was the first thing Marilyn Manson said to me.
The four of us hit it off and ended up hanging the rest of the night. Marilyn and I chopped it up about music and our shared love for the city of Miami. After the movie we hit an after-party, and after the after-party, Marilyn and I hit a studio where we made “Fancy Bitch,” a song inspired by our first interaction. Marilyn Manson turned out to be a cool, down-to-earth dude. I didn’t know a lot about him beyond his wild persona in music. I respected how he could let his guard down and be a regular person when the camera wasn’t rolling. In the rap game there are so many people who feel like they need to keep the tough-guy shit going 24/7 and can’t even hold a conversation.
Things were going good in LA, but back home a storm was brewing. While I was away Waka had showed up at the studio, trying to get the files for a song he and I had made. One of the engineers working there told Waka he didn’t have permission to give up songs off the hard drive. He told Waka to wait until I got back into town to sort it out. Waka couldn’t accept that and he punked him out in front of everyone at the studio and took the files.