letz talk abt gucci mane

the best songs on that >>> the best songs on this, but as an overall tape this is prob better

still think his flow is too detached in a lot of places on this tho

i went back and listened to the first one today to make sure i wasn't romanticizing it or whatever...and i'm not/we aren't.

he was just clearly so much more excited by new language and flow then. something like "even when i'm sleepin money climbin creepin makin interest" would be !!!!! on this tape and nearly every song there has stuff like that

i dunno i dont really have a problem w/ any of this record. only track id really drop is 'hard on a bitch'

well i guess the part where he says 'leaning like the eiffel tower' is kinda lol

beats on this are >>>> beats on the 1st one

lyrically i dont notice too much slipping. maybe there are a few more filler lines. but he's still dexterous/ entertaining

he was just clearly so much more excited by new language and flow then. something like "even when i'm sleepin money climbin creepin makin interest" would be !!!!! on this tape and nearly every song there has stuff like that

― Jacques_Lamure, Thursday, July 7, 2011 10:21 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

the rapping from that era is def >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> this -- but that tape is not that great

thats too many arrows. his rapping here is really not bad

"scotty' is pretty dope

dirty birds like roddy
white off in my audi

"tragedy" is prob the best luger/southside track he's ever done

this is prob >> "the return of mr zone 6" which baffles me a bit bcuz those are all hi fi drumma beats, but idk, i guess we have no idea when any of these songs were actually recorded

i think you're right that there's a lot less imaginary imagery here. it's a bit more workmanlike, i suppose. but musically, this is v v good

i agree w/ that last part

i think he should outright stop rapping on southside & lex luger beats -- they don't work for him at all

imaginary imagery, what am i saying

imaginative imagery

DISAGREE -- listen to "Major"

i mean, im tired of the luger sound in general, although i think 'lil friend' works really well & 'tragedy' works because of the hook

yeah those two are exceptions

he def rediscovered his ability to make good songs -- like, "camera ready" is pretty vintage -- that said, his rapping would've been better if this was from 16 months ago

haha those are the only two luger tracks. "Major" is one of two southside tracks. "psycho" i dont have a prob with really either

comparing tape to tape is kinda beside the point for me. i probably like the beats here better too, and i guess you could make an argument for the bulk of these being better constructed "songs" than some of the dashed off stuff on the first one.

but when has that ever been the draw? for me it was "what a sight to see/tattoos all over me/a walking work of art/i took a lot of ink," which is as vivid now as it was then. now it's "i'm insane in the brain like saddam hussein/on fire, propane, i'm a boiling flame"

yeah "major" is also good -- i prob shouldn't be lumping the two of them together, mostly i still wanna hear him over drumma/zay etc beats

i prrrrrretty much agree w/ jacques

yeah i agree that there's def less of a sense of exploration w/ his lyrics here than there was then, its a codification of stuff he was already doing. although i would emphasize that hes not biting himself, he's still adding variations to older lines

vintage gucci raps from this year:

2 timez
up my alley (still think this is like 2 years old)
birds of a feather

which is obv not a list of his good songs, but

i love his rhyme patterns on the 2nd verse of 'camera ready'

"camera ready" is pretty dope from an overall perspective

maybe it was lowered expectations but i think this tape is better than any of his brick squad guest verses

well yeah

once again i'll be interested to see what he raps like right after getting out

young buck's verse is dope btw

i'm still missing stuff like "lamborghini creeping up the street like its tip toeing"

oh it's definitely better than his brick squad verses, but that shit was the dregs

anyway, xp, i still think you're being too generous. if it was a codification of stuff he was already doing, it'd still be super dope, maybe just a bit stale. but it's not--regressing to a workmanlike approach, which i think about gets it right, means that you occasionally get something that makes your ears perk up, but only occasionally. it used to be constantly constantly all the time

flow chilly
smoking on a dro philly
mo millis
competition, oh really?

^^still miss stuff like this

yah thats probably true, i guess it doesnt bother me as much as it *should* because of how musically consistent this is

yeah and the more i listen to these the more i agree that these are pretty solid, and i imagine they'll grow on me like they always do

reflectin on my life, 30 years of stress
buy million dollar statues as a token of success
so practice makes perfect
i'm outside turfin while you internet surfin
and buyin hoes purses

v dope!

just miss listening to one of these tapes for the first time and rewinding every few bars like O_O

yeah i mean i think his rapping still WORKS for this stuff, i guess -- that its not as multi-dimensional-insane-great as it was then, but his rapping is still ... lively? hes just always on the dumb-humor "twitpic of my dick" type shit instead of see the frozen crystals when i hit the cigarillo

yes

fuck, "trap goin crazy" is so damn good

ya that verse belongs in a norton anthology

of poetry i mean, not rap, if there's one of those now

in my red ferrari, sittin on spinners, tinted windows
blinkin like a blinker, on the seats are my initials

first verse is obv the stone cold classic but i was listening to some old gucci favorites a few days ago and realized how much i/ppl slept on the rest of that song, the second verse is great too

one of the things that pissed me off the most abt the coverage of his stuff was that caramanica argument about how stepping up his lyrics hadnt made him more popular. he had it totally backwards

once again i'll be interested to see what he raps like right after getting out

― gucci mande (J0rdan S.), Thursday, July 7, 2011 10:41 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark

if anyone can help us retire the whole 'mystique' of jailtime having some kind of perceptible effect on a rapper's musical output it's gucci

well i always thought that he sounded decidedly more sober on 'mr. zone 6'

also i thought a lot his raps & flows were inventive on that tape, as if one of the only things he had time to do was sit down & write raps

then again he had a lot of inventive raps and flows when he was smoking like a hundred blunts a day, so i don't subscribe to it much either