Gucci Mane (feat. Waka Flocka Flame & Rocko) - Euphoria (Brick Squad, 2009)
your love is like an addiction to heroin/there’s nothing else I feel it can compare with/I’m arrogant, she got more fans than Aerosmith/or Miley Cyrus, or Janet Jackson/attraction really strong like a magnet/please excuse my French, but she a bad bitch
Gucci Mane (feat. Papa Smurf, YG Hootie & Ice Burgandy) - Valentines Day (Brick Squad, 2011)
my baby love my aura, but no romance for her/cause I don’t think I love her, but I really wanna fuck her
Gucci Mane - Trap Back (1017 Brick Squad/WMG, 2012)
We gon trap back, we gon trap back, we gon trap back..
Gucci Mane - Face Card (Brick Squad, 2012)
Zaytoven’s back to crafting slow, lurching beats, and Gucci’s back to domineering them. On this track, which may feature my favorite production from Zay since “I Think I Want Her”, Gucci almost adopts an EA Sportscenter delivery, the natural flow of his verses bouncing off Zay’s creeping keys. He does not sound sober here.
Trap Back drops this Sunday.
Gucci Mane (feat. Future) - Sometimes (Brick Squad, 2012)
It appears that Gucci is spending more time writing these days, and less time shaving (what’s with the crustache, man?). I’ve actually avoided this track for a couple days, and I’m regretting that now. Since Freebrickz dropped last year, I’ve been well under the assumption that Gucci and Future have absolutely no chemistry. Despite the cues that Future takes from Gucci’s playbook, both are two distinctly different rappers that compliment eachother in no way. Unfortunately, they have the same fanbase, and that means they’re gonna be collaborating until the day one of them does one too many lines.
It’s been frustrating following Gucci, and though some may argue that Gucci has been showing flashes of brilliance once again, this isn’t the first time that Gucci has really been spitting well again. Both “North Pole” and the Yo Gotti-assisted ”Animosity“ from Mike Will’s mixtape were strong reasons for me to believe Gucci maybe back to form. Truthfully, he’s been rapping well on and off since last year’s Writing On The Wall II/Freebrickz (which didn’t work as a collaboration, but did allow Gucci to flex his pen for a minute before being hauled back to jail). While the leaks for Trap Back are good (I don’t think any of them really constitute as the best thing Gucci’s done in the past 12 months), I’m still not convinced if this is the return of the Gucci of yore.
“Sometimes” is great though. Gucci’s rapping pretty openly about his life for a change, his top down so he can “look up at the galaxy” to clear his mind. His verse is so good that it’s almost a shame when Future comes on. Though Future is moderately self-aware here, he still misses the opportunity to silence critics by focusing on the skulls and spikes that he really spent too much time rapping about on Astronaut Status. It’s not that what Future is doing is bad, by any means, but when stacked up against a driven Gucci, he does fall flat (it doesn’t help that Drumma’s production brings Future’s normal energy down to a stuttering halt). This is exactly why Freebrickz failed as a whole.
Trap Back will come out on February 5th. It will probably be simultaneously great and uneven. Which means I’ll listen to it more than anything else this year.
Gucci Mane - North Pole (Mixtape, 2011)
The unofficial sequel to Weird, Gucci focuses this whole song around the concept of being Santa Claus. It’s always refreshing to hear the playful Gucci of yore, but he’s seriously rapping about throwing pipe bombs down chimneys on this song. Maybe a late contender for rap song of the year? It definitely helps that Mike Will Made It.
Mike Will’s Established in 1989 dropped yesterday. Featuring amazing songs from Future, Gucci, Schoolboy Q, Travis Porter Lil Boosie, Waka, Slim Dunkin and others. Mike Will is seriously producer of the year.
Slim Dunkin was never my favorite member of Brick Squad. I know how death often changes one’s opinion, and makes you see someone, especially an artist, in a greater light. I’m as big of a Gucci and Waka fan as they come, and Wooh Da Kid was always my go-to option after the Ferarri Boyz. But Slim Dunkin? Slim Dunkin was something entirely different. Slim Dunkin was all untapped potential, which, thanks to some scumbag with a gun out in Atlanta, will never be fully realized.
He was arguably the rawest member in one of rap’s roughest posses. Everytime Dunkin was featured on a track, he was guaranteed to make the song stop dead in its track. His thirst for violence was frightening at times, as he never rapped about little more than shooting and robbing in explicit detail. His style was incredibly visual; he’d describe the way he’d steal your shoes down to the T, threatening to “cut your ankles off if I like your sneaks.”
Even though Slim never got to release a solo project that fully showcased his ability (Menace II Society comes the closest, but it isn’t nearly as impressive as his showstealing guest verses), Slim released a couple mixtapes with Waka and other Brick Squad associates that helped him become one of the more recognizable members of the group. His numerous appearances on albums with Gucci (he appeared twice on Baytl, on the first single to Ferarri Boyz, as well as on Gucci’s Return of Mr. Zone 6), his heavy presence on Flockaveli, and his single Dunk with Roscoe Dash had him poised to lead the Brick Squad should Flocka step down. He’ll never get that opportunity now, and it’s just sad.
It was the lifestyle he celebrated that got him unfairly murdered by some coward. The motive hasn’t been determined yet, but it’s more than likely that Slim was about to get robbed himself. I’m positive that Slim didn’t go out without a fight. It’s a dark day when someone with such potential gets his life taken far too soon, but at least he was fairly productive in his young career and left a lot of material behind.
Rest in peace, Slim Dunkin. May we all DONK one time in your honor.
(Source: fuckyoubrandon, via realniggaworldnews)
Waka Flocka Flame & French Montana - Lockout (Mixtape, 2011)
This is surprisingly dope (and up-North). I was afraid this mixtape was going to be full of Choppa Down’s, with faux-Luger beats everywhere, but French and Waka manage to balance out their signature aesthetics equally for the tape. There’s a lot of slow, lurching beats here, as well as gothic-trap bangers. There’s even a song called Wavy, as well as recreation of Mobb Deep’s Hell On Earth, We Mobb, featuring P himself.
Chill Will (feat. Gucci Mane) - Average (Internet, 2011)
Chill Will has made a number of appearances on Gucci and Flocka tapes this year, perhaps most notably handling chorus duties on Flocka’s Spazz Out (a standout from Benjamin Flocka) and Outkast homage Two Dope Boys with Gucci (another standout, this time from Gucci’s stellar WOTWII). Chill Will has shown some wonderful chemistry with Gucci on the couple tracks they’ve appeared on together, which is no surprise as they both share a heavy-drawl and unique pronunciation. Gucci kicks back, and hits his internal rhyme scheme stride once again, bringing back some glimpses of the Gucci we all knew only a couple years ago. Chill Will may not have a verse as strong as Gucci’s, but he remains consistent with two, as well as providing the chorus.
The chorus is very similar to Gucci’s single-adjective choruses of yore, such as Normal or Wonderful. Will manages to use each meaning of the word Average to describe multiple things, using it to dismiss an advancing female as well as tell you how his car is far from average. It seems like each track Will appears on, he supplies the hook, and he’s certainly one of the more talented third-tier Brick Squad members based on this alone. He also stands out from the YG Hooties and Kayo Redds for one very simple reason; in a group full of Flocka-clones, he’s the only one who really seems like a descendant of Gucci.
I’m not saying he’s the heir to Gucci’s throne, but it’d be nice to hear more from Will. A solo mixtape could actually prove his worth, and it’s not like it’s that much of a far shot, since presumably every other member of the Squad has gotten one. I’d love to hear a full project of Chill Will on Southside beats. God knows he wastes enough of them on Frenchie and Kayo.
This beat was also used by Future on Gone To The Moon, off of Street Dreamz. It was produced by Will A Fool (no relation to will.i.am I take it), who has been providing some great beats over on the A1/Freebandz roster.
DJ Holiday (feat. Waka Flocka Flame, Trouble & Gucci Mane) - My Block (mixtape, 2011)
Some of you may’ve missed this track, as it was included on DJ Holiday’s Holiday Season 4, which I’m sure most of you, like regular human beings, had no idea existed. I know I certainly didn’t, so it was a bit of a surprise to stumble upon this track with three of my favorite rappers on (though not much of one since I’m rarely online anymore).
Despite that, I was a bit afraid when I originally set this to play - despite all of them carrying the flag for each generation of Atlanta (past, present, and future), I’ve never heard Trouble really gel with either artist. He and Gucci have such a distinct approach, both of which are unorthodox, and a bit disorienting in their own right. Together, the songs they’ve appeared on together have just come across as sloppy. Between this and FreeBrickz, it’s become clear to me that modern Gucci is best kept to working with artists already in his inner-circle. Though it’s nice to see him passing the torch to the future (no pun intended) of Atlanta, Trouble 2X and Future would both be better off working together than with Gucci, and vice versa.
I’d say that My Block is another example of that mismatched affair, but it’s actually held together by the man that eclipses both of them both in popularity and stature. Waka, who is easily the most consistent rapper running the last two (going on three) years, manages to keep this song from running off the rails by providing a strong-willed chorus and a monumentous verse to close the song out - a trademark of his that he has established on almost any posse cut he appears on anymore.
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