Gucci Mane - FREE GUCCI (The Best of Cold War Mixtapes)

Genre rap Publisher Mad Decent Records External Links

Gucci Mane, born Radric Davis in Birmingham Alabama, is probably best known for his "So Icy" with Jeezy and his own "Freaky Gurl" back in 2007, but has come on strong lately. If you listen to the radio you are sure to hear Gucci’s voice. It is soft and muffled and somewhat hard to understand, but that is Gucci. He has garnered some success and attention because of the way he raps and now his rap sheet. 

Some of the songs on the radio you might be familiar with are remixes of "Boom Boom Pow", "Obsessed", "5 Star Chick", an in fact, Gucci was so hot after his release from prison in late 2008, he made 17 cameos on other artists’ tracks. If you are a rap fan you probably knew him from "So Icy", "Freaky Gurl", and most recently OJ da Juiceman’s "Make the Trap Say Aye" and Gucci’s own "Wasted". 

Gucci came in at number six on MTV’s silly “Hottest MC’s in The Game” list. It is a ridiculous list that omitted Chamillionaire and Souljaboy, the two hottest rappers in the game, but Gucci is a well known rapper with plenty of credibility. 

He recently released a new mixtape titled Diplo Presents: FREE GUCCI (The Best of Cold War Mixtapes) to keep Gucci’s name hot while he serves an inexcusable violation of his parole. Apparently Guc only served 25 of 600 hours of community service and was immediately thrown back in jail for another year. SMH!

There is no doubting Gucci’s talent but the problem for me is he is hard to understand. Rap 101 tells rappers, be clear and concise so all kinds of people can understand you, not just the ones who are familiar with you. His latest mixtape is a collection old Gucci songs remixed by different DJs including Diplo, Bird Peterson, Memory Tapes, Brodinski & Monsieur, Douster, Emynd, DJ Teenwolf, Zomby, Salem, Flying Lotus, Mumdance, DZ, and DJ Benzi & Willy Joy. 

I suppose the purpose of the mixtape is to keep Gucci hot while he is locked up but he has always had no problems staying hot while incarcerated. I am not sure how, but Gucci has the “staying hot while locked up” under control. 

The mixtape is pretty bad and I think it is silly when old tracks are remixed because the original versions were fine, which happens a lot on this tape. Gucci got flow and shows off his skills on all the songs including Dangers Not a Stranger but that was the only good song on the tape. I began to get the feeling this mixtape is more for the DJs to get their name out instead of Gucci.

The DJs are using Gucci’s fame to get their name out, which is typical, but I wonder if Gucci knows this while in jail. The beats are not your typical rap beats and while listening I felt like it was 2AM at some techno bar, which most rap fans will not like.

When it comes to rapping, it is all about the lyrics and listeners do not want anything that gets in the way of listening to our favorite lyricists. This is some odd rave or techno music mixed with Gucci’s voice and it is not very easy to listen to. Actually it is very hard to listen to because you are distracted the entire time by some peculiar beats. 

The lyrics and beats seem not to harmonize well and it is really hard to listen to after awhile. It sounds like jungle music mixed with Gucci’s lyrics, which are not exactly the best and most proficient lyrics in the game.  

The Diplo Presents: FREE GUCCI (The Best of Cold War Mixtapes) Mixtape became more of a hassle to complete and gave me a horrible headache. Gucci got game, but this was a horrible example of it. #Burrr.