Young Jeezy

words: Brendan Frederick photos: David Yellen

Please, for the love of Jehovah, stop complaining about how hip hop “sucks.” Rakim has grey whiskers in his beard. DJ Premier hasn’t made a good beat since the 1999. Give it up. Mass Appeal has been around for ten years now, and we’ve kept quiet as you fickle fucks complained throughout it all. From bemoaning New York’s opulent comeback in the mid ’90s to the PhD backpacker movement, there’s no pleasing you tunnel vision anal fissures. And now, with the South turning the tables on New York rappers (remember OutKast getting booed at the ’95 Source Awards? Karma is a bitch), you seem to be as angry as ever. Hi, haters.

Clearly, a new era in street music is upon us and Jeezy is ready to prove he can take the weight. His new album The Inspiration: Thug Motivation 102 will be out before 2006 is up, and he’s still in the booth just feeling it out. Mass Appeal caught up with Jeezy shortly after Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt’s 10th Anniversary Concert, where Jeezy watched happily from the audience in a white hat and plain white tee. No matter how hard you may try, you cannot ban the Snowman. Sorry.

I saw you chopping it up with L.A. Reid in the audience of the Reasonable Doubt show. Things must be a lot different for you since that album first dropped in ’96.
It brought back a lot of memories with me. A lot of shit I had going on when those records were playing. Even though I was younger then, Jay made me understand what it was like growin’ up in his area. I really didn’t get the big Benzes and the shit he was talkin’ about, but now I get that shit, so I understand. That’s the shit you strive for, you know? To put on some real clothes from time to time. A lot of cats don’t get that ’cause you stuck in your element. You really don’t care ’cause you comfortable. Then you step outside of your element and people live different. When I stepped outside Atlanta I was like, Whoa. It fucked me up.

Artists usually think experiencing new things will somehow dilute their music. How’s it affecting yours?

It’s making me open up more. It’s making me wanna put real thought into my records and not just put no shit out because it sounds good to me and my homies. Even on this album, I locked all the cars in the garage and didn’t wear no watches or nothing because I wanted to put myself on probation. Like, You don’t need to do none of this shit until you get done with this album. Muthafuckas overnight is talking about jumping outta fucking helicopters and G4s and all this shit. Meanwhile, everybody else is still driving to work [laughs]. I got a voice now and people are listening to me. No fuckin’ way President Bush could sell 2 million records right now. You could put me in a venue and Bush in a venue, I bet I get more people in the venue than Bush. Not to say that he ain’t got that type of following, but nobody really cares to hear what he says because there’s a lot of bullshit in it. He’s gonna tell you what you wanna hear so you’ll be with him, but I’ma tell you what you wanna hear because I came from where you come from.

People seem really wary about having a message in their music. Coming off as too “preachy” is the worst.
Yeah, but you gotta be careful with that because you can kinda turn people off. You don’t wanna be no intellectual muthafucka. You wanna be a dude that really know what they know, but put in perspective. People wanna hear that they right.

You seem to have a real purpose with your lyrics, but it isn’t the same as the typical rapper. You’re not concerned with doing multi-syllabic rhymes or coming with the most complex flow.
The best rapper alive type shit don’t do nothing for nobody. If you just try to be so lyrical, you ain’t sayin’ nothing. Okay, you can rap, but who did you help get through their day? When I’m out, nobody comes up and says, “Man, I love you for ‘Sole Survivor,’ or ‘And Then What’.” It’s always, “Man, keep doing what you’re doing. You keepin’ us alive.” It’s like believing in your preacher. You believe every word he say and then all of a sudden he just go left on you. He’s in the pulpit just saying a whole bunch of nonsense instead of saying something that means something to you. What can you get outta that? But like with an R&B singer, they sing, and if you go through that type of experience, you feel ’em. You know, Damn, I been there.

Also, you’re one of the few platinum rappers who seems pretty committed to not making too many tailor-made songs for women. Is that hard?
You know, I’ve been getting talked to about that a lot. I just feel like that ain’t my lane. Like, I could do it. Come on, shit, I’m a cool lookin’ young dude, you know? I fuck with a lot of broads [laughs]. I love the women, but they love me for being me. When I was doing me, I wasn’t no player like that, I was a hustler. I wanted money. I really didn’t take the time to experience a lot of shit with broads like that because I was in the hood. To us, as long as we was fucking around with the hood rats, we was cool. I still hang with a lot of niggas that I was cool with before this, so a broad might not like the way I roll. I might roll with 50 niggas, she might not be cool with that. You might come over to my house, everybody look crazy over there, like a gang-bang convention or something [laughs]. Them pretty broads don’t like that. But that’s my personality. When I’m looking for shit to rap over, I know I can kill any beat, but sometimes it don’t feel right. When I get a message off of the record, I feel that much better.

But the label must be telling you like, You can do a girl record, just do it Jeezy’s way.
I mean, they do. But hands down, I have my way at Def Jam because I painted my picture first. On the first album I wasn’t pushing the issue. You can’t have the streets and the mainstream. You can’t have all the ladies and all the gangsters. It’s a very thin line, so I’m comfortable where I’m at. I’m not saying that’s where I’m gonna be at for the rest of my career, I’m just gonna take my time. On the first album, I went to Def Jam and told L.A. [Reid], “I got this girl record, it’s crazy.” Then I played “Tear It Up” for him and his mouth dropped. He was like, “Man, that’s a little harsh.” And I’m like, “It’s a girl record, man. This is the shit,” and he was like, “No, you gotta be a little more player.” I was like, “Damn, I don’t really know how to be like that.” But I’m learning little by little. I wanna show the growth and show people I can make real records. I don’t want nobody to think I’m shallow. I’m still the same nigga. I’m still in the hood everyday. It’s kinda hard for me to jump on some shit to where I’m singing R&B shit and taking off my shirt [laughs]. You wanna be bigger, but you don’t wanna sell your soul to be bigger.

So when you write your lyrics, do you really sit down and think about a set topic, or do you just get in the booth and do what you do?
I just go by what I feel. I ain’t really a rapper ’cause I ain’t mastered the craft yet. When I hear a beat, sometimes I wanna get on some real topics and sometimes I wanna pop off. I really don’t do a lot of writing, I kinda lay my vocals like a signature. I like to feel it and if it don’t got that right little thing, I’ll go back and do the whole thing over. When you speak from your heart and your soul, you really just give them all of you. People would say I wasn’t lyrical and I was shallow, I was like, Damn. This is me. How you not gonna accept a nigga giving you all of him? I’m risking my life telling you some things I’m saying. I’m putting myself in a fucked up predicament.

You’re known for your signature ad-libs. Where did those come from?
The way I spaced my bars out, sometimes I need to fill it in with something that makes you addicted. Growing up, I felt music a different way. I’d hear something and I’d pop an ad-lib in there. Even when I’m rhyming on someone else’s shit, I might throw an ad-lib. I don’t really call them ad-libs. This is how I feel the music. Like, I have to fill it up. I wouldn’t feel comfortable just doing a track, rapping over it and not putting a lot of little shit here and there, something to make me feel like I just said some real slick shit.

Tell me about this track “Hypnotized” that you did with Shawty Redd on the new album.
Oh my God, man. The murder rate goin’ up when that shit come out! It made me have to stop smoking. You know I be blowing that Cali, so me and Shawty Redd sat and listened to the song after we got done. Man, that shit was in my head damn near for like a week. That shit had me spooked. That record is scary, homie. It don’t got no drums or nothing. That shit will fuck you up! You’ll fall into it.

Your chemistry with Shawty Redd’s moodier beats tends to produce some of your best songs. What initially drew you to his sound?
I used to see Shawty Redd out all the time and I kinda took him in like my little brother. I used to take him to the club with me, buy all his little homies bottles and shit. Then I kinda took a break for a couple of years and got into a lot of trouble. When I came back, we were stuck in the mind of trying to make hits. Then one day Shawty was like, “Hey man, why don’t you just rap about the shit you do all day?” And I was like, “You think niggas wanna hear that shit?” and he’s like, “Yeah!” So and then I was like “Shit, man, lemme try that shit.” Shawty was a crunk producer and I was like, “Man, just slow it down, lemme talk to ’em.” That’s when I just started getting my swag off. Now, me and Shawty Redd have kept our relationship open. I come to his house, he come to mine. We talk every other day. When I need a go-to guy like a Dr. Dre, I go sit down with him and this muthafucka whips up beats in like six, seven minutes. It’s like, I co-produce everything with him ’cause I tell him what I want and he could just do it.

Why do you think your chemistry with Shawty works so well?
It’s sinister. For me to rap over a beat that powerful, I have to have a persuasive tone in my voice. I rap from my heart, so you feel my pain. I really say it the way I mean it. I can hear a pretty beat and could put two words to it and then I could hear something dark like that and spill my guts. What’s funny to me is a lot of the muthafuckas [question me] lyrically, but if you really break down the first album, it wasn’t no way wasn’t supposed to get five mics. I took the streets…I took life and flipped that shit so many ways, but so simple that everybody could get it. It ain’t much to think about because the punchlines are simple, but they so simple that they smart. A lot of cats can’t do that. A lot of rappers will hit you with [a] punchline and you’ll be like, “What’d he say? I didn’t get that.” It’s one thing to be lyrical with words, but to be lyrical with reality…who has ever done that?