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Predominantly working with Shawty Redd where the production aspect of TM 101, Jeezy took the best elements of the trap music climate at that time and moved towards stripping it down even further.
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Who did it better - Gucci Mane's Trap House or Jeezy's Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101? Let's find out. The two would collaborate several more times over the course of their early careers, but they also found themselves competitors where their debut albums are concerned. He released the singles "Black Tee" and "So Icy," the latter of which featured Jeezy on the vocals. However, after sniffing out distribution deals to no avail, he ended up teaming up with Big Cat Records, the label that had given Khia a shot at stardom. In 2001, Gucci first met up with Zaytoven, forming a working relationship that has become one of the most admired in the history of rap music. He also made his own label, LaFlare Entertainment, in the hopes of making a name for himself in more ways that one. After that first arrest, he would put out La Flare, an album that was pressed on approximately 1000 CD's for Str8 Drop Records. Distributing them manually throughout East Atlanta, Guwop used the album as inspiration to start his own label. Gucci's lead-up to his debut was perhaps a little less linear than Jeezy's. For Jeezy, it was time to make some noise on his own. Their self-titled album dropped in June of 2005 and would be met with great success on the Billboard album charts. That release cleared the way for Jeezy to sign with Bad Boy Records in 2004, joining the Boyz n da Hood crew soon after. In 2003, Jeezy rolled out Come Shop wit Me, another independent LP that spanned two CD's worth of material. As a result, Jeezy would also come to the rap game a little bit later on in his life, releasing his first independent effort, titled Thuggin' Under the Influence (T.U.I.), in 2001 when he was 24 years old. In 1994, he spent nine months at a juvenile "boot camp" after being booked for narcotics possession. His parents were separated, contentiously so, which led to different family members taking custody of Jeezy on a regular basis. Relocating to Atlanta when he was just a toddler, Jay Wayne Jenkins grew up in a fractured family situation. Jeezy's childhood was a similarly topsy-turvy affair. It was only after these harrowing experiences that he began to take music, which he'd considered a hobby since age 14, far more seriously.
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Finally, at 18 years old, Gucci was caught with crack cocaine by an undercover cop and was eventually sentenced to 90 days in a county jail, followed by probation. Two years later, a violent encounter with a street gang led to one of his close friends being beat to within an inch of his life. After being robbed at gunpoint at age fifteen, he started packing a. Moving to Atlanta with his mother, Vicky Davis, he would encounter more traumatizing life experiences than most kids his age. At the time of his birth, his father was on the run from the police for drug possession, a line of work that Gucci himself would be unable to avoid later on in his life. Radric Davis was born in 1980 in Bessember, Alabama. Their names? Gucci Mane and Jeezy.įor all of the recent success he's had, it's easy to forget that Gucci Mane's outlook growing up wasn't quite as rosy. Then, along came two ATL emcees that would go on to become legends in their own rights in the pantheon of hip-hop's deep South. were just a few of the names who enjoyed widespread success during the initial popularization period of trap music. Acts like Lil Jon, the Ying Yang Twins and T.I. By the time the middle of the 2000's decade rolled around, Southern hip-hop's bread and butter had gone from underground club sensation to full-blown mainstream hitmaker.
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Today, Atlanta is arguably the most vibrant scene in all of hip-hop. Characterized by bass-heavy beats, double or triple-time high-hats, soaring brass or string melodies and rapid-fire vocal delivery, the birth of trap music took place in the 1990's but didn't begin to hit its full stride until the dawn of the new millennium.
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Two of Atlanta's finest duke it out to see who had the better debut album.
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