photo courtesy of Erik S. Lesser / New York Times
On Tuesday, the day Gucci Mane released his second studio album, “The State vs. Radric Davis,” he woke up and went to sleep in the Fulton County Jail, in the northwest part of Atlanta, where he’s resided since last month.
It was a not altogether unusual predicament for this rapper, born Radric Davis, one of the most vigorous and exciting in recent memory. This is the second time he’s had his probation from a 2005 aggravated assault conviction revoked, and the second time it’s happened at the moment where his career appeared to be on the verge of exploding.
Still, in spite of these impediments, Gucci Mane, 29, has been the most prolific rapper in Atlanta over the last two years, the most hotly discussed, and also the most improved. In the last few months he’s had the swiftest ascent to hip-hop ubiquity since Lil Wayne.
He didn’t do it alone. Gucci Mane’s rise has occurred in large part thanks to a handful of producers — Zaytoven, Drumma Boy, Shawty Redd and Fatboi, most prominently — whose work over the past four years has come to exemplify the modern Atlanta sound: triumphant but moody, synth-heavy with sharp snares, all sprinkled with almost gothic overtones. Collectively these four been responsible for much of Gucci Mane’s great recent material as well as most of the best songs on “The State vs. Radric Davis” (So Icey/Asylum/Warner Brothers). Their work on this album, Gucci Mane said in a phone interview from jail, “made me feel like, damn, I was smart for working with them for all these years.”
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New York Times - Gucci Mane, No Holds Barred
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