The Autobiography of Gucci Mane

by Gucci Mane

  I didn’t hear about the incident until I got back, and when I did I called Waka and told him not to come to the Brick Factory anymore. He and I initially exchanged words through text but eventually we both made our feelings public.

  Waka Flacka flames officially dropped off brick squad 1017. Big Guwop say give me a offer fa this disloyal lil nigga

  —@Gucci1017

  Somebody tell Gucci Mane 2 SUCK A DICK.

  —@WakaFlockaBSM

  A disagreement over this song was not the end of the world, but it wasn’t about the song. It was longtime tension reaching its breaking point. Waka and I had been having problems on and off for three years. But we’d been able to keep it between us, whether that meant fighting it out in the house in Henry County or going months without speaking. Our problems now being broadcast turned everything up a notch and made it harder to patch things up.

  Somebody from the label tried to defuse the situation by claiming my Twitter account had been hacked, but nobody was buying it. When asked about it in interviews I did my best to not fuel the fire, admitting we’d had an argument but that we’d work it out in the end. But Waka wasn’t doing the same, telling MTV I was jealous of him and that we’d never work together again.

  On March 27, a week and a half after Waka and I fell out, I turned myself in to the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office on charges of aggravated assault. A US soldier was claiming I’d struck him across the head with a champagne bottle at Harlem Nights. But that incident didn’t happen on March 27. It happened at 1:00 a.m. the night of March 16, a few hours after I told the world I was dropping Waka.

  “We’re just asking that a bond be set,” my lawyer said to the judge. “I never ask for an amount. That’s not my job. My job is to ask for bond. The conditions I leave to the court’s discretion.”

  “Well, in the exercise of my discretion . . .” the judge began.

  That was not a good start.

  “I understand your position, Mr. Findling, but this gentleman does have an aggravated battery with a deadly weapon just a few years ago and he’s already on probation for a battery charge. Now he’s been charged with aggravated battery and aggravated assault.”

  No bond. I sat in Fulton County Jail for another two weeks until my next court date. When that day came I was given a seventy-five-thousand-dollar bond, which I paid only to immediately be arrested and transferred to DeKalb County Jail for violating my probation.

  Here we go again.

  •

  Nobody thought I was getting out after that. Again the consensus was that it was finally a wrap for Gucci. So it didn’t surprise me when I heard the artists I’d spent the last six months grooming were trying to defect on me.

  Migos had gotten hot quick. Drake had hopped on their song “Versace” and it was out of there. My partner Pee told me they were looking to do a deal with Fly Kix, a guy who had just signed a bunch of new rappers in the city like Rich Homie Quan and Trinidad Jame$.

  Scooter, despite being locked up in DeKalb County on his own probation violation, had the attention of the majors in NYC. “Colombia” had made it out of Atlanta. Unfortunately for Scooter, he’d not only signed paperwork with me but at some point he’d signed something with Future’s label Freebandz. So his situation was complicated. It was still early for Thug, but things were looking good for him ever since he dropped the 1017 Thug tape. I had so much belief in him that I knew it was only a matter of time before he and I had some contract issues to work out.

  And then there was everything with Waka. He wanted off 1017 and I was ready to let him go too. Maybe one day we could be friends again but businesswise it was time for us both to move on. But it wasn’t that easy. Unlike with Thug, Scooter, and Migos, Waka’s contract with me involved Atlantic Records, and I’d had zero contact with them since I got transferred back there from Warner Bros. at the end of 2012. I knew even if I did sit down with them to figure out Waka’s situation, that meeting wasn’t going to go the way I wanted it to.

  “Gucci, we’d never do that,” Quavo told me when I called him from jail to tell him what I’d heard about Migos and Fly Kix. “We loyal to you.”

  I knew that wasn’t true. But I understood it wasn’t the best time to be an artist on 1017. The CEO was locked up with no release date in sight. I got that and I didn’t take it personally. Most of these boys were dead broke when I met them, so it wasn’t hard to believe they’d try to jump ship at a chance to put some more money in their pocket. Still, I’d invested a lot in these artists, so them trying to up and leave was fucking up my business. That part would definitely have to get sorted out.

  When I beat the odds and got released from DeKalb County Jail three weeks after my arrest, I didn’t call up any of them. I’d deal with the insubordination later. I had Trap House 3 on the way and I’d made the decision to bump up its release date so I could put it out ahead of Memorial Day weekend.

  To me, Trap House 3 was the culmination of my comeback, a return to form that started when I came home from jail in 2011 and locked in with Mike Will for Trap Back Trap House 3 was some of the hardest music I’d made in years and I just knew that if I could get people listening to it as they headed down to Miami or Puerto Rico or Myrtle Beach for Black Bike Week, this album would be the soundtrack of their summer. The sooner everyone heard TRAP HOUSE 3, the sooner they were going to get talking about my music again and not the incident at Harlem Nights or my problems with Waka.

  I was released under the stipulation that I wear an ankle monitor and remain under house arrest when I wasn’t traveling for work. When I accepted those terms, I listed the studio as my residence instead of my apartment in Atlantic Station so that I could still record. I wouldn’t have been able to go to the Brick Factory otherwise, so at first this seemed like a good move. But trapping myself at the studio proved to be a terrible decision.

  •

  Over time the Brick Factory vibe had changed. It had become a hangout more than a place of creation and business. Me and the artists I was working with were a fraction of the bodies there. Everyone’s crew had made it a home base too. The fact that the Brick Factory was in the middle of my old neighborhood made things more problematic. I was now seeing a lot of my old partners from the Zone 6 Clique. Every one of them was still heavy in the streets, so it was only a matter of time before everyone’s beefs started spilling into my studio. Other people’s altercations and issues inadvertently became mine. And I couldn’t leave.

  Kori Anders, my longtime engineer at Patchwerk, had that luxury, and as tensions escalated at the Brick Factory he started coming by less. Kori was a professional and had no interest in being around that type of stuff. He decided not to be. That’s how Sean Paine, an intern from Patchwerk, became the head engineer at my studio.

  Back at Patchwerk, Sean had been the engineer who let me and my crew smoke in the studio. He’d roll blunts while I was in the booth and run to the store and grab Swishers or sodas for us to pour up into. I knew he would be a good fit at the Brick Factory.

  Sean didn’t mind being around some scary shit. And a bunch of scary shit was about to happen.

  XX

  * * *

  A NIGHTMARE ON MORELAND

  The response to Trap House 3 was positive. I knew it would be. The album wasn’t doing anything crazy numbers-wise, but because I’d put it out independently I was seeing more money on every copy sold. Really what mattered was that people were fucking with the music. My grand experiment with the Brick Factory was paying off.

  But I couldn’t enjoy Trap House 3’s success. I was growing increasingly more anxious. I had an open assault case. A probation violation hearing on the horizon. Defecting artists. My old rap beefs were back on. The unease at the studio made me stress. And as it always did, my stress manifested itself as intense dread and paranoia.

  Much of this paranoia was the product of the drugs—delusions brought on by weed and promethazine and codeine syrup coursing through me. I was always high. But there was a
legitimacy to my fears as well. My mind was unraveling, no doubt about it, but I really was in the same studio my friend got killed in. I’d experienced people with guns looking to kill me before. I was legally confined to this building, which was in a neighborhood where I’d accumulated a lot of enemies over the past twenty years. That shit was real.

  I couldn’t sleep. So I drank more lean and smoked more weed. My intake was beyond anything before and my addiction had become unsustainably expensive. The lean was a thousand dollars a pint and I was drinking almost a pint a day. The weed was a few hundred dollars an ounce and I was smoking an ounce a day. More than a grand a day on drugs alone. And those were just the basic necessities. Anything else I came across—Percocets, Xanax bars, molly, whatever really—would get tossed in the mix too.

  The money I was sinking into drugs was the least of my concerns. I needed this stuff. It was the only thing that could calm me, even if it was temporary. When I did catch some sleep, it wasn’t like I was tucked in bed for a restful night. I was nodding out during recording sessions. I was falling out of chairs. I would take too much of something and throw it up. Things were getting bad again. I could feel it. But I didn’t know how to stop it.

  The studio got broken into. I found out who it was when I reviewed the surveillance footage. When I told them I didn’t want them coming by anymore, it didn’t go well. Now I had problems with niggas who stayed right around the corner. Niggas with very little to lose.

  Earlier in the summer I’d done an interview where I called my new studio the Fort Knox of the hood. At the time I’d said it in jest because of the gate and surveillance cameras. But now the Brick Factory looked more like an armory than a place where music was made. There were guns everywhere. I could see the look on people’s faces when they came through. My studio was no longer a fun place to be. Onetime regulars were dropping like flies.

  I was still recording like hell. I’d dropped three mixtapes at once—the World War 3: Molly, Gas, and Lean series—and now I was working on a new project. Diary of a Trap God. A lot of the songs on there—“Decapitated,” “Half,” “High Power Cowards,” “Keep It Real”—were recorded during my darkest days, trapped in my brick prison. I was slurring my words bad on those songs. I’d never sounded so congested.

  It was the sound of somebody at the end of the line, facing a decision: accept defeat or go down in a blaze. I was sure someone was going to kill me or that I was going to have to kill someone again. That wasn’t a difficult decision for me to make.

  I fell out with my right-hand man, he tried to top on me

  I guess it’s clear we ain’t homies like I think we homies

  I’m at the top and I swear to God, it’s really lonely

  But I’m not coming down, no stoopin’ down, I keep it movin’

  These young niggas got no respect who make music

  Broke-ass nigga, never can get used to it

  And the bottom of Sun Valley don’t do it like the top do it

  Bouldercrest we hear AK’s more than church music

  —“Decapitated” (2013)

  Zay was at the studio the night I made “Decapitated.” It was late and there wasn’t a light on in there save for the glow of Pro Tools coming from the computer monitor. When the beat wasn’t playing you could hear a pin drop in there. Dark and quiet. Everyone was gone. Just me and Zay. Like old times. Simpler times.

  That was an eerie night. The calm before the storm.

  •

  Diary of a Trap God was so fucking deep. It needed to be an album, not just another mixtape. To do that I was going to have to reconnect with the people at my label. I needed them to sign off on it being a retail release and I wanted to restructure my deal. I also wanted them to buy out Waka’s contract.

  My lawyer got in touch with Craig Kallman and Julie Greenwald, the CEO and COO at Atlantic, and came back with an offer. It wasn’t to my liking. I marked the contract up with changes and sent it back.

  “We can’t make any revisions,” I was told. “Take it or leave it.”

  The next day I hopped on Twitter and told Craig and Julie to suck my dick and that was the end of negotiations. The label had its limits too.

  Gucci Mane Is No Longer on Atlantic Records

  —Fader

  Telling off Craig and Julie was one of the many ways I was airing grievances on Twitter that week. I was letting it fly. Any shit I felt had been bubbling beneath the surface, whether it was recent or an unresolved situation that had been dormant for years, I put it out there. Now we ain’t gotta dance around shit no more, was my thinking. Anyone and everyone could get it. And they did.

  Eventually my other lawyer called and told me to stop. I had several pending cases and I was out here threatening folks for anyone to see.

  “What are you thinking?!” he told me. “Stop it immediately.”

  I did stop. And put out word that my Twitter account had been hacked. But then I started to question my lawyer’s motives. Did he tell me that ’cause he was looking out for me, or was he doing someone else’s bidding? Over the next forty-eight hours my fears festered as I sat in the studio, smoking and drinking lean.

  Fuck it.

  I’d just fired my entertainment attorney after the failed talks with Atlantic. My criminal lawyer could go too. And I was going to his office to get paperwork to show he no longer represented me. I didn’t know what the fuck he was out here doing on my behalf.

  I got into it with the security officers at the office and the police were called. My lawyer asked me to leave and when the cops went inside to gather my belongings for me, they found a loaded handgun in the area. I told them it wasn’t mine.

  My lawyer didn’t say anything different.

  I think they call that attorney-client privilege. Maybe I was wrong about this guy. Good thing he didn’t sign those termination papers.

  •

  My days were numbered. The cops had let me go but they’d taken the pistol to be fingerprinted and turned into evidence. And I’d already violated the terms of my house arrest simply by leaving my residence and going there.

  The next twenty-four hours was a blur. I knew my time was ticking and you could say I made the most of it. I was the East Atlanta bogeyman, making my way through the hood one volatile incident after another. From the Texaco to the barbershop, the whole neighborhood was buzzing about my one-man wrecking crew. Truthfully I don’t remember much from September 12 and 13, 2013, but based on the stories I later heard, it’s not the sort of shit I should start discussing now.

  Let’s leave it at this. Whatever information was made known to the public—the incident at my lawyer’s office, the fight at the mall, an altercation with Rocko at the studio—those things were just the tip of the iceberg. I was toxic. Operating in full meltdown mode. Things could only end one way. Badly. And when an Atlanta police officer found me wandering down Moreland shortly after midnight on September 14, they did.

  ATLANTA POLICE DEPARTMENT

  Incident: 132570142

  Report Date: 09/14/2013

  Officer Name: IVY

  12:51 AM

  On 09-14-2013, I, Ofc C. Ivy, was dispatched to Moreland Ave. and E. Confederate on a call about an unknown male by the name of Gucci Mane who was bipolar, off his medication, and possibly armed. While en route to the location I was flagged down by an unknown male (later identified as one of Gucci Mane’s friends named [REDACTED]) who called police. Mr. [REDACTED] stated that his friend Gucci Mane was walking down the street and didn’t take his medicine and that he was acting violent and that he was worried about him, and that he just wants some help for his friend. Mr. [REDACTED] pointed to the male wearing a white shirt and blue jeans and advised that he was the male that he was calling about.

  I made contact with the male later identified as Mr. Radric Davis (AKA Gucci man). I informed him who I was, and who I worked for.

  At this moment Mr. Davis asked what did I want? I informed him that his friends called the police becau
se they were worried about him and want to get him some help.

  While talking to Mr. Davis I could smell the strong odor of marijuana coming from his person and I also observed a bulge which appeared to be a handgun in his right front pocket. I didn’t ask any questions because I didn’t want to escalate the situation due to him already being irate.

  Mr. Radric Davis was yelling that he wanted the police to drive him to his mother’s house in Douglasville and that he didn’t need anything else from us. Mr. Davis was informed that we could not go out that far but we would call him an ambulance. At this time more officers had arrived on scene to help assist me with Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis was acting irate by yelling and cursing and threatening police. Once other officers were on scene Mr. Davis got more irate and started to threaten police again and advise that he would shoot us up. Mr. Davis also stated to police that we were gay-ass officers and that we were “homos” trying to fuck him and that we must like men. At this time Mr. Davis was arrested for disorderly conduct and searched incident to the arrest.

  While searching Mr. Davis, I located a clear plastic baggie containing suspected marijuana and a loaded black .40 Cal Glock handgun from Mr. Davis’s right jean pocket. My supervisor, Sgt. Mitchell (unit 1694), had arrived on scene along with Grady EMS. At this time Grady decided to sedate Mr. Davis based on his behavior and the fact that he has been off his medication. Grady EMS gave Mr. Davis a shot in the left arm to calm him down. At this time Mr. Davis was escorted over to a Grady EMS stretcher so he could be transported to the hospital. While trying to get Mr. Davis onto the stretcher it took several officers and Grady EMS personnel to restrain Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis was administered another dose of medicine by Grady EMS and transported to Grady Hospital.

  When we arrived to the hospital Mr. Davis was removed from the ambulance and escorted inside the hospital, where he was checked in and escorted to his room. Mr. Davis was charged with, (Disorderly conduct 16-11-39), (Felon in poss. of firearm 16-11-131), (Carrying concealed weapon 16-11-126), (Poss. of controlled substance 16-13-30(J2), (carrying concealed weapon without license 16-11-126(A), and he also had an active warrant out of Fulton County SO, Warrant #13SC118228, date of warrant 09-13-13. There were no injuries reported from the arrestee while in police custody.