Gucci Mane Back In 95

[Ezekiel Tulagan]

Hostedby DJ Holiday, Trap Back features 19 tracks of trap music by nine producers: Mike Will Made It, Zaytoven, Southside, Sonny Digital, Lex Luger, Polow da Don, Fatboi, and K.E. on the Track. Lyrically, Gucci Mane raps on the mixtape about topics familiar to his past work, such as drugs, sex, and life in the trap. There are guest appearances from Future, 2 Chainz, Waka Flocka Flame, Jadakiss, Yo Gotti, Rocko, and Chilly Chill. According to reviewers, the mixtape's musical moods and lyrical tones fluctuate from the menacing and sinister to the playful and humorous.

The recording sessions marked Gucci Mane's first sustained collaboration with Mike Will Made It, who was at the time an up-and-coming producer in the Atlanta hip hop scene. While the two had previously worked together on individual tracks, Gucci Mane's lead producer had usually been Zaytoven; Mike Will had never before been as deeply involved with the rapper's musical direction or recording process until these sessions. In addition to producing five songs, Mike Will stayed in-studio for the duration of the sessions to provide the rapper with both encouragement and, at times, blunt critiques. Though Gucci Mane was unaccustomed to recording with a producer who had such a demanding, unvarnished approach, he came to appreciate the creative results of their collaboration.

Trap Back, and especially the song "Plain Jane", were popular successes for Gucci Mane. On the mixtape website DatPiff, Trap Back has been designated "2 Platinum" with over 500,000 downloads. Critics generally praised the mixtape for Gucci Mane's clever lyricism and its innovative production, particularly Mike Will Made It's contributions. Most reviews cited the mixtape as a marked improvement compared to Gucci Mane's recent preceding material. In retrospect, critics and Gucci Mane himself have described the mixtape as the launch of a mid-career resurgence in both the quality of his music and his popularity.

Gucci Mane achieved a modicum of success with The State vs. Radric Davis (2009), his first record for major label Asylum Records after a series of releases on independent record labels.[5] But the follow-up The Appeal: Georgia's Most Wanted (2010) underperformed sales expectations.[6] His next album, The Return of Mr. Zone 6 (2011), was delivered on a much lower recording budget and minimal promotion but sold about as well as The Appeal.[7]

Gucci Mane had numerous legal issues in these years, as well as problems with his drug use and mental health. In his memoir, he said his "usual routine" in this time period was a repeated pattern of rebounding "straight from jail to the studio."[8] He was drinking lean and other recreational drugs, often in prolonged binges, during which he was prone to extreme seclusion and self-imposed social isolation.[9] His drug use occasionally manifested, in his own words, "bizarre behavior" that included "violent outbursts" but also "[s]pells where [he] would zone out and gaze into space."[10] He was briefly committed to Anchor Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Atlanta; this incident, along with a new face tattoo of an ice cream cone that he got days after leaving the hospital, prompted the press to portray Gucci Mane as an erratic and "crazy" personality.[11]

Following the arrest, Gucci Mane spent three months in jail.[17] He posted a $5000 bail but was held in Fulton County Jail for violating probation.[16] He was sent to Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison (GDCP) where, during his processing as an incoming inmate, his head was shaved to conform to prison rules.[16] He spent three weeks in solitary confinement, which he later described as "three of the worst weeks I ever spent locked up."[16] He was transferred back to Fulton County Jail and spent the remainder of his jail time there.[17]

In September, Gucci Mane pleaded guilty to two counts of battery, two counts of reckless conduct, and one count of disorderly conduct.[22] He was sentenced to six months in jail and ordered to attend anger management classes.[22] He later said "[e]ven though I felt I'd done nothing wrong, my lawyer advised me against trying to fight it. After the year I'd just had I knew he was right. I was the boy who cried wolf by that point. Telling my side of the story would have just pissed off the judge."[23] After three months in DeKalb County Jail,[23] he was released in December for good behavior.[22] Upon his release, Gucci Mane told XXL "[t]his is the last time I think I'll ever be in jail" and said the first thing he did after his release was change his clothes and head into the studio.[24]

Upon his release from jail, Gucci Mane felt determined to revitalize his career with a "comeback mixtape".[25] DJ Holiday, the host of Trap Back,[note 2] said Gucci Mane contacted him out of the blue early in the morning to ask him to work on a new mixtape:

He felt like he hadn't done a really, really hardcore trap mixtape in a while. He's like, "Yo, my nigga, we got to get the trap back." I was like, "We lost the trap?" [He said] "Nah, nah, nah, not like that. We always got the trap. But let's just do this tape for the trap. We want our trap back."[22]

Trap Back was recorded in Atlanta's PatchWerk Recording Studios.[26] In addition to Mike Will, Trap Back features beats from Zaytoven, Southside, Sonny Digital, Lex Luger, Polow da Don, Drumma Boy, Fatboi, and K.E. on the Track.[27]

Mike Will helped to keep Gucci Mane's morale high, even in the face of personal tragedy. Less than a week after Gucci Mane's release from jail, his close friend and 1017 Records labelmate Slim Dunkin was shot and killed.[31] Because Slim Dunkin had been on his way to meet Gucci Mane when he was killed, Gucci blamed himself for the incident and almost fell into a "downward spiral" of despair and hopelessness.[25] However, he stayed motivated and focused on music with Mike Will's encouragement, who he said "wanted to see me come back and win just as bad as I wanted it."[32]

Gucci Mane said Mike Will was a "perfectionist" who expressed his opinions directly when he thought Gucci could do better in his lyrics or vocals.[26] Gucci Mane had written raps in prison, but Mike Will deemed them not good enough, prompting Gucci to start over with freestyling.[26] Gucci Mane was unaccustomed to recording more than one take on a track, but Mike Will made Gucci rerecord vocals until he felt the performance was strong enough.[30]

Trap Back opens with a phone call recorded from prison: a message to Gucci Mane from the Black Mafia Family boss Demetrius "Big Meech" Flenory, known for his affiliation with rapper Jeezy.[33][34] Since 2008, Meech has been serving a 30-year sentence without the possibility of parole for organized trafficking of cocaine.[35] Meech's appearance on Trap Back was considered surprising, given that Gucci Mane had famously beefed with Jeezy.[33] In an interview with Atlanta hip-hop station Hot 107.9, Gucci Mane said that despite his disputes with Jeezy there had never been any conflict between himself and Meech.[36]

The trap aesthetic has always abounded in the gothic but is currently delving further in the dark with haunting synths accompanying the raw percussive base. ... The bluster and pomp of the Lex Luger-inspired 2010/2011 explosion has been transplanted by an insidious stalk and the subtle change can be explained as a shift in emphasis from the snare to the bass drum. This retracted boom means Gucci can really step into tracks rather than just get carried along by them.[38]

"Plain Jane", a track that uses a low-pass filter to make the beat sound submerged underwater, serves as an example of the mixtape's production aesthetic and Mike Will's typical style.[39] "Get It Back" uses a sample of "Tetris - Type A" by Hirokazu Tanaka, the chiptune theme song to the 1989 version of Tetris for the Game Boy.[40] Comparing "Get It Back" to Gucci Mane's 2009 single "Lemonade", Julianne Escobedo Shepherd noted the slowed-down version of the Tetris melody sounded like "cheeky flossing, the ATL version of screaming, 'in your face.'"[41]

Gucci Mane characterized the mixtape as "a journey through East Atlanta".[43] His lyrical concerns on Trap Back include topics common to his work in general, such as drug use, drug sales, women, and money.[44] While critics noted the topics of Gucci Mane's raps were often familiar, they praised his creative lyricism, inventive word play, and innovative flow.[33][2][44] "Back in 95", the first full-length song, finds Gucci Mane reflecting on a lifetime as a "hustler".[44] Calling the song "a rare look into Gucci's past," AllHipHop's Mos Jones observed "[a]lthough critics complain of the lack of variety in his subject matter, it is clear that [the drug trade] is all Gucci has known his entire life."[33]

Guest appearances on Trap Back include Waka Flocka Flame on "Walking Lick"; Rocko on "Plain Jane" and "Chicken Room"; 2 Chainz on "Get It Back" and "Okay With Me"; Future on "Brick Fair" and "Sometimes"; Chilly Chill on "Ghetto"; Yo Gotti on "Blessing" and "In Love With a White Girl"; and Jadakiss on "Blessing".[27]

Trap Back was released on February 5, 2012 at 10:17 a.m., a reference to Gucci Mane's label 1017 Records.[48] The release coincided with that year's Super Bowl Sunday and took place a few hours before the kickoff of Super Bowl XLVI.[49] According to a Gucci Mane discography compiled by XXL, Trap Back was the rapper's thirtieth mixtape.[50] Later the same day, Gucci Mane released another mixtape, Gucci Classics 2, a title he had announced shortly after his release from jail and slated for a December or January release.[51][52] Gucci Mane held a Trap Back release party at the Velvet Room in Atlanta the same day as its release.[53]

According to Wilson McBee at Prefix, Trap Back was "[e]asily the most anticipated mixtape of the current cycle".[54] Trap Back reached "2 Platinum" status on the mixtape website DatPiff with more than 500,000 downloads.[27] No official singles were released from Trap Back, but Gucci Mane released music videos for the songs "Okay With Me",[55] "North Pole",[56] "Face Card",[57] "Quiet",[58] "Chicken Room",[59] and "In Love With a White Girl".[60]

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