The Autobiography of Gucci Mane By Gucci Mane

Summary ½ E-book, or Kindle E-pub ☆ Gucci Mane

I have to admit I wasn't expecting much. I find his story fascinating, but I've never been a fan of his music. I like rap in general, but his sound just isn't my thing and I find him repetitive. That said, this was well written, reflective, and generally an easy read. The tone was direct. He never made excuses for bad behavior and didn't try to justify poor decisions. He told the tale in a matter-of-fact way that didn't feel like bragging or exaggeration. Gucci Mane I'm a big fan of Gucci Mane aka Guwop. I love ratchet rap music. The more hood, the better.

Gucci Mane has the talent to be as big as Future or Migos but he just can't seem to stay out of jail. Gucci has had a very interesting life. Poverty, abandonment by his father, multiple stints in jail, one very infamous stint in a mental hospital and of course the tattoo of an ice cream cone on his face. Through it all he hasn't lost his sense of humor or his zest for life.

Recommended for hip hop heads and lovers of off beat memoirs. Gucci Mane I’m old so I knew nothing about Gucci Mane but this book was great. A fascinating look into the man’s life and how his career evolved. So many funny asides. So much realness. I kept thinking LEGEND! Just so fucking great. Gucci Mane Here's my full review: https://youtu.be/LIra_LjE_d8 but in short, I loved it because it was gritty, raw, unapologetic and redemptive. It spoke of mental illness, and how he struggles with Bipolar disorder/symptoms of PTSD. As a fan of his music, it was nostalgic for me to see the lyrics and where the song came from.
If you're a rap/hip-hop/Gucci Mane fan, or even a little curious about the book, I highly recommend! Gucci Mane I’ve always been indifferent but leaning positive toward Gucci Mane - I like a fair share of his music and think he seems like a cool person, but I wouldn’t rank him among my favorite rappers.

Reading his book, The Autobiography of Gucci Mane, was nice to get a first hand account of his experience coming up as a rapper in Atlanta. I’m familiar with many of the places and landmarks he referenced throughout the book. Gucci has had more than his fair share of trouble - with drugs, cough syrup, the law, and relationships - personal and professional. It’s admirable that he remained resilient and was repeatedly determined to make comebacks after these setbacks. That said, much of the trouble appears to be self-induced, brushed over in the book, and at least to some degree, preventable.

I had no idea about the tension he has with Jeezy, which was disappointing to read about since 1) Jeezy is one of my all-time favorite rappers and 2) So Icy is still my favorite Gucci song (which features Jeezy). Can’t win them all I guess. I also didn’t realize how instrumental Gucci was in giving many other Atlanta rappers (whose music I also enjoy) some of their first opportunities.

Despite brushing over some of the incidents that caused him serious trouble, Gucci’s story was interesting and I appreciate the honest tone that remained throughout the entire book. Addressing the reader directly, for example, when casually mentioning he thought of his son during a specific moment. He then writes, “I know what you’re thinking. What son?” Yes, thank you G, because that’s exactly what I was wondering at that moment in the book.

I will say, it’s clear that since his latest sentence in jail, Gucci appears to have really turned things around this time. He is the fittest and healthiest he’s been since I first became familiar with him, back when I was in early high school. Hopefully these changes are permanent and he’s able to keep up the positive mindset and behavior, for himself and his family.

Unlike a few other memoirs I’ve read this year, I feel like there aren’t necessarily universal takeaways here - just an interesting story to a few different audiences. I’d recommend The Autobiography of Gucci Mane to fans of Gucci, obviously, and fans of rap music, stemming from the early 2000s on. Gucci Mane

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“As wild, unpredictable, and fascinating as the man himself. ” —Complex
“A cautionary tale that ends in triumph.” —GQ
“A revelation and a welcome addition to hip-hop’s literary legacy.” —All Hip Hop

The highly anticipated memoir from Gucci Mane, “one of hip-hop’s most prolific and admired artists” (The New York Times).

For the first time Gucci Mane tells his story in his own words. It is the captivating life of an artist who forged an unlikely path to stardom and personal rebirth. Gucci Mane began writing his memoir in a maximum-security federal prison. Released in 2016, he emerged radically transformed. He was sober, smiling, focused, and positive—a far cry from the Gucci Mane of years past.

Born in rural Bessemer, Alabama, Radric Delantic Davis became Gucci Mane in East Atlanta, where the rap scene is as vibrant as the dope game. His name was made as a drug dealer first, rapper second. His influential mixtapes and street anthems pioneered the sound of trap music. He inspired and mentored a new generation of artists and producers: Migos, Young Thug, Nicki Minaj, Zaytoven, Mike Will Made-It, Metro Boomin.

Yet every success was followed by setback. Too often, his erratic behavior threatened to end it all. Incarceration, violence, rap beefs, drug addiction. But Gucci Mane has changed, and he’s decided to tell his story.

In his extraordinary autobiography, the legend takes us to his roots in Alabama, the streets of East Atlanta, the trap house, and the studio where he found his voice as a peerless rapper. He reflects on his inimitable career and in the process confronts his dark past—years behind bars, the murder charge, drug addiction, career highs and lows—the making of a trap god. It is one of the greatest comeback stories in the history of music.

The Autobiography of Gucci Mane is a blunt and candid account—an instant classic. The Autobiography of Gucci Mane

I didn't think I had any expectations for this book going in, but apparently I did expect that it would at least be tolerable. Well, I was let down. This has to be one of the worst books I have ever read. It wasn't poorly ghost written, it was just a weak ass story. I'm not sure why I even read it because I hate his music, so that should have been red flag one. Anyway, I stupidly bought it and regretted it from about page 30 on. The story went something like this: I sold drugs, I did a bunch of bad shit, went to prison, got out, made crappy music, repeat. It got so old hearing about his drug use and weak ass songs, I couldn't take it anymore, and after about the 3rd or 4th time in prison, I skipped to the end. Even the ending was like blahhhh. There are plenty of better rappers with more interesting coming up stories, so save yourself the torture, time and money and skip this one. Gucci Mane Confession first:

Before reading this book, I had only listened to three or four Gucci Mane songs... maybe.

I am a child of the seventies and eighties, a New Yorker, jazz head, bibliophile, art-nerd, musician, whose taste in Rap is more puritanical than what began to emerge from the genre in the mid-nineties and the new millennium. The repetitive bass line, synthetic-hypnotic rhythm, and heavily slang-filled accented lyrics kind of lost me, but that is not to say that I was not open to rappers from the south. Actually, I was digging them. Their raps covered life as they knew it and educated those of us who didn't understand. Through them, we grew eager to see the alien contours and crevices of the planet they occupied and rushed in droves to Atlanta, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, Memphis, and New Orleans to be enveloped by their often harsh-told realities and to tread upon their planet.

I first learned of Gucci Mane while a Dean in a Memphis performing arts high school. From the middle of a relatively quiet room came a screeching howl, GUCCI! and the room exploded in laughter and echoes of GUCCI raced across the room for what seemed like an hour, quieting only when it lost its comedic appeal. Still, I hadn't heard anything by this Gucci dude until a student pulled a CD from his backpack and put it into a player behind the classrooms. The CD was Murder was the Case, and it was both familiar and extraordinarily foreign. It was the sound of the south, the story of forbidden zones and hidden realities, of 'life in the game.' It was raw and vivid, sad, tragic and poetically profound. It was catchy and definitely not my jam, but I could see why it was theirs.

Then I heard about the book.

I feverishly read The Autobiography of Gucci Mane, because of Morgan Jerkins. She interviewed him for Vulture magazine in 2017, and from that interview penned an article entitled 'Gucci Mane Got Out of Prison and Wrote a Book. Here's How It All Happened.' I figured that if Morgan Jerkins found him worthy of writing about and millions of people love him and his music then I had spent an unrecoverable decade missing out. By the time I finished reading his autobiography, I realized that indeed I had.

Gucci Mane's story is the story of America. Not the pigeon-holed, stereotypical images perpetuated throughout the media, but the real day-to-day. It is an uplifting tale of rags to riches and dirt paths to gold paved streets. This autobiography was a graphic music video based on its own soundtrack. And it brought to the forefront that, tattoos, accents, drugs and all, Gucci is a bad MANE!

At the opening of his story, he writes about his ability to read earlier than his peers, thanks to his schoolteacher mother and his inexplicable interest in the written word. It was the word, ultimately, that would save his life a dozen times, and would equally make his world an orb of fire. Words produced poetry, poetry produced rap, and rap, at least for Gucci, produced money, power, and chaos. But the other part of his DNA was provided by a father who knew the importance of hustle and respect, and Gucci, whose real name is Radric Davis, followed that often sordid path. He was thought to have a speech impediment (at age nine Gucci and his mother moved to Atlanta where verbal inflections may be different from its neighboring states), but it seems that his Alabama accent was so thick his words didn't sound quite right. As the years progressed, Atlanta introduces and influenced young Gucci, exposing him, almost illuminating him, to a life of trapping, profiling, and grandiosity; certainly not a life he would have found in Alabama. He became disenchanted with formal education and, after high school, never fulfilled any academic commitments, dropping out of college and trade schools. But words remained his strength.

The Autobiography of Gucci Mane rockets through Gucci's existential life so quickly the reader feels as if something was missed. This sonic movement from period to period is, perhaps, the principal misfortune. Admittedly, I may have missed some of the fillers or statements that closed those holes, but I doubt it. From the point when he becomes a drug dealer to when the heavens opened, and he begins to realize his talent as a rap artist, it seemed to be a blur, particularly the bump from buying beats to bagging gigs. Suddenly his music takes off, soaring well beyond the skills of his peers and he is crowned and quickly revered. But, in all fairness, it is obvious that Gucci was a pursuer of his personal passions and thrusts himself into the spoils of those passions. He followed the credo of the very successful: Never Apologize -- and throughout the narrative abides by that credo. Regardless of the outcome, he never made excuses, and he never apologized. Then another phase emerged: Prison.

Being imprisoned for possession of firearms in 2013 (this was not this first rodeo, and it wouldn't be his last) was his metamorphosis and, in many ways, the beginning of his rebirth. When admitted, his body was wrecked from an addiction to a codeine-laced cough syrup concoction that affected him so profoundly he gained a mass of weight and suffered chaotic side-effects. Eventually, a doctor urged him to discontinue its use, but that was not a part of his immediate plan, and he continues to sip syrup until his environment prohibited access. Prison, as implied by the book, detoxed him. He was gradually getting clean of the damaging poisons and in doing so, clearing his head. The decision to engage in a self-developed exercise program (if you want to call it that) led to an eighty-pound weight loss by the time of his release. When his term ended (of course there are stories about his time behind bars), the beats of his life and the rumble of the streets welcomed him back.

Ultimately, The Autobiography of Gucci Mane was surprisingly well developed and absent of chapters of indecipherable rhetoric often common in autobiographies about musicians, especially rappers. I was shocked by his candor and his willingness to speak about a multitude of [personal] issues that other artists would avoid intensely. His transparency in this book was golden and elevated him, I believe, to a status that he would not have gained through music alone. Would I recommend this book? Absolutely! Not because it speaks to the life and success (or failure) of a known personality, but because it was everything one would never expect a book about a known personality to be. It seems that Morgan Jerkins also found this to be true. So, now, after a decade free of trap music I am trapped, bumping several Gucci Mane tracks locked securely in my musical repertoire. The magic is that these tracks clarify many parts of the book I only subtly understood and left me, randomly, if not hypnotically, yelling... GUCCI! Gucci Mane initially, i was not going to give a review but a lot of things took place in this book that really stuck with me. there is a lot that can happen in a man's life and although shit can seem so lavish, that is not always the case. when i look back on this book i understand Radric (Gucci Mane) so much better, but it was more to it. i think of how the world has constantly failed our black men and how we look for ways to survive and for family in so many different places. we feed of the next person's excitement and follow lead but in that process, we lose a bit of our selves.

Radric did not have the best life and even though there were some good examples in his life, that was not enough. from his grandparents, down to his father, and to his mom working constantly with nothing to show for it you would naturally want more. Radric was a natural born hustler but he was his own worse enemy. throughout all the drugs, fights, cases, deals gone bad and etc ... you can see that Radric was smart and never stayed down for too long. he made a lot of smart moves in his life time and much more shitty ones but the way he owned up to it and still managed to survive in a place where he shitted on a lot of people shocked me.

if you keep looking back you're going to trip going forward.
this quote from this book fits Radric's whole life. he did trip so many times during his time of hustling and rapping, but how he ended up is a blessing. from selling drugs, to making hits, to having to resort back to selling drugs while making hits, and also having your life on the line is what this men went through. the consumption of drugs clouding your decisions and losing so many people will change you and Gucci Mane changed for the better. Gucci Mane ***This book is called the Auto Biography Of Gucci Mane and the author is himself written from his point of views. The genre is auto biography. The theme of the book is the struggle that he grew up being in and how hes showing people what he did to make it out and be a star. Gucci grew up in a small town of Alabama with just his grandma because his parents couldnt take care of him. Gucci had no support system which made him start selling drugs in the 7th grade. He started off with just selling weed and than he started moving on to pounds of cocaine. Gucci spent time in 5 different jails between the ages 20-30 for various charges. Most of it was for violating his probation. Then as he kept going in life he met up with some people and started making music that would send him to the top of the charts and start to make him millions. “If you keep lookin' back, you gon' trip going forward.” That is the quote that Gucci lived by and he still lives by that to this day. The book was very interesting to me because I know he had a rough life and it showed me how bad it really was. I agree with the author on how hard it actually is to grow up in poverty and how it can shape people into doing great things. The book leaves out what really caused his parents to not be there for him and what they did to not be there. The book affected me by making me realize what people actually go through in these situations. My opinions have changed people living in these conditions need some serious help. Gucci Mane This was a decent ass book. I don't know what else to say. It wasn't even that my expectations were low this book was good enough to thoroughly enjoy. Gucci Mane