Slackk recommends Gucci Mane’s Trap God 2

There’s a new Gucci Mane video for “Choosin’” & “I Wonder” on YouTube; it came out the day after Valentine’s Day. It isn’t on this tape but in it he’s chasing a girl in a bikini through the woods dressed as a Native American and occasionally just having a little dance with a flute in his mouth, headdress and all. Later on in the video, he’s standing outside this other girl’s house in a tuxedo with his bowtie undone, serenading this girl as she leans out of her window. I can only presume this was meant to be Gucci’s valentine present to you, the collective girl of the internet.

My girlfriend hates Gucci, and I doubt it’d change her mind if I played her it. We were listening to this tape in the car the other day and she kept saying things like, “Why is he mumbling so much,”/“did he just say asparagus,”/“why is he obsessed with chickens?”

You could say that Gucci’s an acquired taste, but I think she’s just plain wrong here. He’s probably been the most consistently odd and challenging American rapper for years; a really individual flow, that almost mumbling rasp. You need your rappers to have a sense of eccentricity to them, a touch of the surreal to go along with the menace, and Gucci’s always had both.

This tape, much like Trap God 1 that preceded it, has him in great form. On “Scholar”—Gucci didn’t graduate but he’s a trap scholar—he’s going over a magnificently spacey Lex Luger beat. “Breakfast” has him telling us he doesn’t eat in the mornings, just goes straight in with a pint of lean, “two grams of molly breakfast.” I’m a bit weary of that claim, given Gucci’s opulent stomach, but Waka Flocka Flame and the brilliantly named PeeWee Longway seem to agree with him, so what do I know. I love that track, actually; such a hard beat.

The beats on this tape are almost universally great, actually. Some of Gucci’s greatest moments over the years have been over Zaytoven beats so it’s probably no surprise that these bits are some of the best—especially “God’s Witness”, where he’s basically just going over the occasional orchestra hit and music box twinkles—but there’s arguably the best rap producer out right now in Mike Will Made It turning up with a couple; 808 Mafia pitching in, too. I was glad to see DJ Squeeky on there; he’s probably the originator of that trap sound that’s just ubiquitous these days, but you don’t hear much from him anymore.

A couple of bits on it are a bit weak, and I don’t even remember the Lil Wayne verse on “Runnin’ Circles” to be honest, but that says more about modern day Wayne than Gucci. The good far outweighs the bad, though, don’t get me wrong. I could have done with a No DJ version because some of the stings are far too loud in the mix (I think it’s on iTunes, but I’m cheap), but it’s a good tape. You should get it.~

Slackk is an eski-house producer and DJ based in London. He releases records on Local Action Records as well as on his own Sulk imprint, which is home to his pop-juke project Patrice & Friends. Gucci Mane’s Trap God 2 mixtape can be downloaded here.

Published February 20, 2013. Words by Slackk.