Now the new issue has dropped I thought I pop up the interviews I did from the last issue. First up it's one of my favourite debuts artists in like, forever (well, since The Game anyway) - Mr Trap Or Die. Can we have a moment for him eating his breakfast, please. 'No swine' naturally but Mr Jenkins was feeling the English-style eggs. Yes, that's exclusive to you good people - you heard it here first.
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The Snowman Cometh
“I tell people right off the bat, I’m not a rapper I’m a motivational speaker. I don’t do shows I do seminars,” states the South’s realest rapper, Jay ‘Young Jeezy’ Jenkins aka The Snowman. “I don’t walk around with no pad, I don’t rap all day, I don’t get in no ciphers, I don’t freestyle. When it comes time to putting it into word form, I got a beautiful mind but other than that I don’t do rap shit. You can see it with these other guys; he’s a rap star, I’m a trap star.”
Leaving home at the age of 12 to become a fully-fledged hustler who sold everything from ‘information’ to ‘mobile phones and Skygram pagers’ has enabled Jeezy to spit street stories with an authenticity wannabe thugs could only wish for. “I got all A’s on my street score card,” he chuckles. “It’s not like I’m boasting, it’s just something you get sucked up into and you live it out. For me, being able to make ends meet was something I knew how to do. I always had the ability to get; I like a lot on my plate – I like to manoeuvre, I like to politick.”
Retelling his roguish tales in a cigar-choked smoky flow, Jeezy’s debut album Lets Get It: Thug Motivation 101 recalls making so much paper ‘it’ll hurt ya hands’ yet he makes space for the odd political poem too. “Cash rules everything around me, so what's realer? ‘Bout the skrilla, call me a Ghostface Killa/ It's kinda hard to be drug-free, when Georgia Power won't give a nigga lights free,” he muses on the magnificent Go Crazy.
First gaining attention through the DJ Drama flames-filled mixtape Streetz Is Watchin before a brief stint in P. Diddy’s Dirty South crew Boyz In The Hood, the ATLien has quickly become not only hip hop’s hustler of choice but your favourite rapper’s favourite rapper. “Yeah, me and Jay is cool,” he breezes of his Def Jam CEO and co-collaborator on the aforementioned Go Crazy. “But there’s a lot of industry cats and rappers that are fuck boys. You get into this and you realise all these people you seen growing up is bustas, is lames. If you was a G, handle yourself like a G. I keep it G like that and I’m still human,” he insists. “Those cats want the VIP to themselves, they ain’t want nobody to get close to them; it’s like they ain’t human anymore. You can get sucked up in the industry like you get sucked up in the streets. I don’t care to name no names cos it don’t get me nothing, but people know. These motherfuckers that act real tough? That ain’t them, I know.”
With Thug Motivation having already stacked platinum stats Stateside, anticipation is high for Jeezy’s next offering, which he promises will be coming soon. So now he’s reached big boy leagues, is Jeezy finally ready to leave the streets alone? “I wouldn’t say so cos even now I live like I’m in the streets. The hood is my natural habitat; it’s in me, I can’t leave it,” he says with a smirk. “I didn’t get into rap to leave the streets, it was moreso not to be a statistic. I thought I gotta do something that I can still be me at. I think if I had got a job at IBM, it wouldn’t have worked out, so this was the closet thing to being me,” he decides. “It’s just nowadays, I can sleep a little better, you know?”
Lets Get It: Thug Motivation101 is out now
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