GUCCI BE REVELATIN, WRITIN IN HIS DIARY LIKE PETEY PABLO

 

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!  Sup bitches.  Anyway, let's cut to the quick.  First of all, what's up wit alll da songs about "young niggas" these days?  Is old rappers really feelin that old and out of touch that they gotta write paeans to their young fans?  Shit is mad homo imo.

But yo, 4real, I was not expecting anything diaristic about Diary Of A Trap God.  Thought it was just  a catchy name GUCCI conconcted to keep da Trap God series movin, yamean?  But there are a few revealing moments on the mixtape, in particular the track entitled "Show A Young Nigga."  Besides showin love to his youthful harem, he also touches on some real shit dat the rap public been pondering as of late.  First off, he touches on da beef between him and JEEZY and T.I.  The beef wit JEEZY been broiling for years, but he gives a little new insight into the situation.  "I heard Tip and Jeezy say that they don't like me," GUWOP raps.  So all dis beef is cause he thinks these cats don't like him?  That some grade school shit, GUCCI.  Didn't know he was that sensitive.  Who cares what other ppl think of u?

Then he say, "They say I'm bipolar but my diamonds they sure live."  Now there been some chirpin bout GUCCI bein bipolar, but there ain't been no proof cause none of these rap bloggers been readin the DSM-IV, and I know they ain't wilin on that DSM-V tip.  This armchair psychologizin got some legs when GUCCI had his infamous Twitter meltdown a while back.  But yo, dis the first time he actually address this shit in song and adds credence to the idea that it was all a publicity stunt, or more accurately, a private-becomes-publicity stunt.

Is GUCCI bipolar?  Does this explain his erratic behavior?  Will GUCCI do for mental illness what FRANK OCEAN did for gayness?  Or will it all get swept under the rug like so much mental illness in aMURIKKKA?  I dunno yo, i just be sittin back and observing shit like my mane Alexis de Tocqueville.  Chuuuuuuuuuuuuch!

DA CIPHER HEARD ROUND THE WORLD!

 

Oh shit dude, it been a minute ain't it?  But fo rilla, ya boy been locked up.  Got roped on some bullshit indecent exposure charges, but ain't you supposed to diddle yoself in a porno theatre?  I think it was all a set-up, 'cause the MAN wants to contain the dangerous truths I be leakin' on this website.

But yo, what I really came here to talk about is this legendary BET cipher featuring NICKI MINAJ, OJ DA JUICEMAN, and WAKA FLOCKA early in they careers.  I think it was '09 or something?  I dunno.  Dey was rollin fresh off the noise GUCCI MANE was kickin at the time; we talkin Burrprint and Cold War era, before the cocaine, before the ice cream face tat, before GUWOP!

At this time, WAKA FLOCKA and OJ DA JUICEMAN were just Brick Squad weed carriers hungry to eat the waffle cone crumbs from GUCCI's bib.  NICKI had yet to release an album.  Da Internet straight clowned dis cipher when it dropped, e.g. Who da fuck is these shortbus-ridin cretins?,  but let's revisit it with three years worth of hindsight and context.

Before this NICKI was mainly known for her breathy, unremarkable appearances on LIL WAYNE mixtapes.  When da Internet heard her new weirdo style in this cipher, they clowned her cause they wasn't ready.  It was a classic case of the SHOCK OF THE NEW, like when STRAVINSKY dropped his Rites of Spring mixtape and heads went nuts moshing and punching bitches.  We was all, "What the fuck girl, is you on crack?"  But now that we have been familiarized with NICKI's style, it don't sound as silly as it once did.  Yeah her performance is a bit awkward and goofy like she popped too many Valiums before grabbin da mic, but now it's just NICKI bein NICKI with a subpar delivery.

OJ has had a lower profile in recent years, but his verse is prolly the best of da three.  Just straight greazy ignorance.  He raps like a happy illiterate child and who are we to knock the special guy?  He's just a simple soul havin fun pretending to be a big bad cool rap guy.  Don't burst his bubble.

WAKA's verse is the strangest.  When you think WAKA you think energy.  It's fight music for when you've been smokin crack all night and wanna get antisocial.  But here he's just all sheepish and shy, as if his aunt brought him out at her bridge night and was all, "Joaquin, you're a rapper!  Sing one of your rap songs!" and instead of rappin in da trap with his Brick Squad Killas, he was forced to rap in front of nice middle-aged ladies eating crumpets and drinking Earl Grey who don't really understand what he's doin, but he loves his aunt and wants to make her proud so why not rap a few bars?

AN ELEGY FOR OJ DA JUICEMAN BY A DECEASED ROMANTIC POET!

So yo, one of da most beautifullest things I've learned in my time in the rap music trenches is that HIP-HOP HEADS come in all shapes, sizes, and colors.  I once had dis midget friend and to my surprise he was mad hip-hop!  Who woulda thought?

I thought I'd seen everything after I met a hip-hop midget, but I was wrong.  This cat Pasquale who lived down the street from me fancied himself a poet in the Romantic tradition.  He styled himself after LORD BYRON and wore mad poofy shirts.  We gots to talkin once and he started blatherin bout how BUSTA RHYMES embodied the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility" that them Romantic dudes was all about.  I was like, "Chuuuuuch!"

I ain't seen dis cat in years when I ran into his mother on da ski slopes.  She told me Pasquale had died in Tunisia.  He was thurrr teachin a coterie of young men about poetry and eroticism when he was taken by the consumption.  I was all, "Sheeeit, RIP."

She forwarded me a stack of his poetry.  Most of it was mad gay and not very hip-hop, but this one elegy for OJ DA JUICEMAN spoke to my soul (no homo).  In honor of JUICEMAN'S new mixtape, I thought I'd reprint this soul-tickler for y'all.

ELEGY FOR OJ DA JUICEMAN

OJ da Juiceman, where hath thou gone?  Your giddy "Aye! Aye! Okay!" no longer brightens the barbed paths and dark hallways of our wandering souls.  Your ooze of noble savagery has waned and O! we no longer thrill to your crudely enunciated verse.

What malady befell you?  Wherefore the absence and quietude? Beneath thy buffoonery was a depth the masses could not understand.  O, cruel fate of the visionary ones!  Disregarded in their time as common rabble.  Verily a kernel of gold amidst landscapes dreary you were.  The refuge of future glory is but a cold consolation for the insults you endured.

They cursed you as a plague upon culture, but soon they shall prostrate themselves before thy alter as they did with Van Gogh.  Your flame has diminshed, but Rejoice! -- your torch of genius burns eternal.

DOES GUCCI MANE NEED HIS REQUISITE 8 HOURS OF SLEEP A NIGHT OR DOES HE JUST NEED TO SNORT BLOW IN THE STUDIO?

Sup to all the headshakers and anonymous cretins.  We finna do this once again again.  So yo, like many a rap listener, I got swept up by the GUCCI MANE frenzy of '09.  My dude was killin it with the mixtapes - BURRPRINT 3, GUCCI SOSA, COLD WAR SERIES.  Like, he was goin off to the fullest!  Then he got locked up and checked into a mental health clinic and got a scoop of Ben & Jerry's tattooed on his cheek and kinda dropped off da rap map.

But never fear!  GUCCI dun returned with some fly shit!  TRAP GOD marks the return of that outlandish, impish GUCCI character we all love so much.  But am I da only one who notices the weariness in GUCCI's voice?  Maybe it's a symptom of age - a wiser, more contemplative GUCCI.  Or perhaps he's reluctantly accepted the repetition inherent to an established rap persona; that he is doomed to rap about bezels and trapping and fly bitches in a prison of his own making.  You can hear a similar abatement of aggression in RAEKWON's voice, another rapper who painted himself into a cocaine corner after CUBAN LINX.  Or I dunno maybe he was just RICK JAMES level coked up back in those halcyon '08/'09 days.