He’ll never forget touring with Jay-Z for The Blueprint 3 : Lately, as far as my street shit, I’ve been on the old Master P, Ice Cream Man and Ghetto D, and I really, really been listening to Project Pat, Mista Don’t Play.” We hustled to be able to go to nice places and listen to nice music. I’m the type of person to sit around and listen to fucking Michael Jackson Off the Wall because I just think that shit is music like, sonically-what the fuck? How did you even? I don’t want to hear somebody talk about a lifestyle that I lived. I like street music because I make that, but when it comes to sonics, in my personal time I like to hear well-put-together music. I’ve definitely been listening to the new Kendrick shit. A lot of Sade just because sonically I think she’s dope as fuck. “To be honest with you, I ’ve really been on a lot of Tupac. In his downtime, he’s playing some Sade & Tupac: I was trying to convince them that I could rap.” I wasn’t trying to convince them that I was from the streets.
So why would you want to be like a rapper? I never wanted to be like a rapper. It’s understandable because you can relate to a street figure that gets money and takes care of his homies or the fam. Nowadays, a lot of cats are rapping to be that guy. That wasn’t who I was rapping to try to be. For somebody like myself, who came in the game with the cars, the chains, the girls, the lifestyle, that’s who I really was. The things that saying-they’re idolizing street figures, but they’re trying to be the coolest guy to do it. “I would never disrespect the game, because I came from that, but it’s almost like it’s cooler to be a rapper than the street shit now. The industry has done a 180 since he first came up: If you need to get away for a minute, there’s a rooftop cigar lounge upstairs.” You’re able to get everything done, eat upstairs with the chef, if you need to go somewhere there’s a driver, you can get haircuts in the barbershop, there’s a gym. When you’re here, you got the whole space. “I wanted to create something that was boutique-style, to fit your every need from health, to being comfortable, to being able to get everything done in one space. He wanted a comfortable place to create and to never have to leave:
After getting a full tour, we lounged with the rapper in his brand-new studio and talked the new sound of his music, why new rappers are so focused on being cool, and Jay-Z. It ’s the same place where Jeezy, who has seven studio albums and two independent albums, recorded the majority of his newest album, Pressure (which dropped today). Jeezy deemed his new three-building compound “The Embassy,” and in addition to an office dripping with plaques, there are two other buildings which have everything from state-of-the-art studios to a barbershop to a game room. When we were invited over to the OG ’s newly built studio compound in Atlanta, there was no way we weren ’t going. He recently told Billboard that he wants to be known as “the world’s greatest hustler.” Fast-forward nine years, and Jeezy is still making his mark on the world. “My President” will forever go down as the anthem to the 2008 election when Barack Obama became the States ’ first black president. After all, we practically grew up listening to his famous raspy voice spit out bars about the streets, moving drugs (please never forget his iconic snowman “mascot”), and the political state of the world. To us, Jeezy (formally known as Young Jeezy) is one of those whose name will live on forever. The music world isn’t even close to being an easy or fair industry, and we applaud those who manage to stay in the game for longer than even one or two years.
It’s hard not to admire artists with longevity.