Jeezy and Gucci Mane are the godfathers of Atlanta trap,
and the beef between these two icons is legendary.
At one point they were cool and dropped the hit song “So Icy” together in 2005,
But the success sparked a 15-year-long deadly rivalry
that almost cost Gucci Mane his life.
This is the true story behind the wild beef between Jeezy and Gucci Mane.
Jeezy was born in North Carolina but grew up in Atlanta.
He moved around a lot because his parents were separated,
and he told XXL Magazine that his childhood was “empty.”
Some of his older cousins taught him how to move in the streets of Atlanta.
He saw the flashy lifestyle they had and wanted to be like them.
But around age 10, Jeezys cousins got locked up.
Going back to his life in a broken home wasn’t what he wanted.
So when he was twelve, Jeezy moved out on his own and started trapping full time.
By the time he started his record label CTE World in 1998,
Jeezy already made A LOT of money in the streets.
At first he aint even want to rap, just run the label.
So, he invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into a studio
and started scouting new rappers to sign.
But, after a dude he signed ended up going to prison,
Jeezy stepped in the booth himself and put the label’s reputation on his own shoulders.
He told XXL in ‘05: “I don’t even want to be no rapper.
The only time I’m rapping is when I’m in that booth.
I don’t walk around with no pad or no pen.
I know I got love for this music ’cause it’s a hustle.”
His first album dropped in 2001 and set Atlanta on FIRE.
All of his experiences in the streets made his music feel real and authentic.
His ex manager called his music “the soundtrack of the streets.”
Jeezy was plugged in with clubs all over the city,
so his songs got played everywhere.
And his first two albums built up enough buzz that he was able to sign with Bad Boy Records in 2004.
Around this time, Gucci Mane was just starting to pop off in Atlanta.
Like Jeezy, he was in the streets way before he became a rapper.
His dad was on the run for selling crack and heroin when he was born,
and Gucci ended up following in his footsteps.
When he was nine-years-old,
he moved to Atlanta with his mom and half brother.
At first they stayed with someone his mom met at church,
but later had to live in a motel after they got kicked out.
Their hood was full of crime,
and it ain’t take long for Gucci to get sucked into the street lifestyle.
He started off selling weed with his brother.
In the eighth grade,
he used the money his family gave him for Christmas to move up to selling crack
By the time he reached high school he was a full time drug dealer.
Even though he was trapping every day,
Gucci still got good grades in school and was a pretty normal student.
But after getting robbed at gunpoint when he was 15,
he started carrying a pistol and things started turning up.
Gucci had beef with a local street gang called the East Shoals Boys when he was still in high school.
Apparently, most of the East Shoals dudes were grown men,
but Gucci was pushing big weight, which made him a target.
After the East Shoals Boys almost beat one of his friends to death,
Gucci and his crew allegedly beat their ass so bad that they never had problems again.
While he was trying to balance school and selling drugs,
Gucci was also getting into music.
He started writing poems as a kid,
then transitioned into rapping when he was just 14.
At first it was a hobby,
but after he was arrested for the first time he decided to take music more seriously.
Gucci ain’t just want to be a rapper though.
Like Jeezy, he created his own label and started signing his own artists too.
But after he linked up with Zaytoven and dropped the track Black Tee,
Gucci became the face of the label.
At the time, Jeezy’s manager was a dude named Coach K,
who later founded Quality Control Records.
Gucci Mane ended up tracking him down and introducing himself,
and K decided to put him and Jeezy on a track together.
When Gucci found out about the collab,
he called up Zaytoven and the two of them got to work.
Zaytoven is an Atlanta legend responsible for developing its iconic trap sound,
but at the time he was just a part-time producer who had a day job as a barber.
He was cutting hair when Gucci called and told him Jeezy wanted to do a track with them.
So Zaytoven met Gucci at his mom’s house and made the beat “in like five minutes.”
The song was called So Icy, and Zay knew it was an instant classic.
Gucci and Jeezy were both popping at the time
and this track made them blow up even more.
Even though it should’ve been a win for both of them,
rumors started going around that there was beef behind the scenes.
Some say that Jeezy was mad that the song was going to be on Gucci’s album instead of his own.
Others claim Gucci was upset with Jeezy
because he ain’t want to perform So Icy live with him.
Whatever happened, their relationship ended as quickly as it started.
Around a week after So Icy dropped,
Jeezy took shots at Gucci on a diss track called Stay Strapped.
In the song, Jeezy puts a $10,000 bounty on Gucci’s chain.
Gucci clapped back with the track Round 1
where he downplayed Jeezy’s street cred and called him Big Meech’s *****.
The two of them went back and forth for a couple of weeks.
Then on May 19th 2005,
the situation went from rap beef to murder.
That night, Gucci brought home a stripper from the club.
While they were in bed, five dudes broke in armed with guns and brass knuckles.
It ain’t clear exactly what happened next,
but Gucci ended up shooting and killing one of the men while the rest of them ran.
Then he allegedly buried the body in the woods behind a local middle school.
A warrant was put out for his arrest
and Gucci eventually turned himself in and had to face charges for murder.
He told an interviewer: “I just want to let everyone know I’m not a murderer.
I was upset. I was scared a little bit, but I had to do what I had to do.
You gotta be a man about it. I’m not a bad person.
I have remorse for everything that happened.”
It was clear that Gucci wasn’t some cold-blooded killer looking for a chance to murder someone,
but that ain’t mean he wasn’t prepared to defend himself.
He’s talked about how the event gave him PTSD, but he still used it as an opportunity to diss Jeezy.
The man he killed was a dude named Pookie Loc,
an associate of Jeezy who was signed to his label.
While Jeezy denies being involved,
many believe that he paid Pookie and the others to rob Gucci.
The murder charge against Gucci was later dropped cause he acted in self defense.
But the murder only intensified the beef between the two rappers.
Over the years, he dissed Jeezy over the failed robbery on multiple tracks.
On his song The Truth, he raps
“Go dig your partner up, n****, bet he can’t say ****
and if you looking for the kid, I’ll be in Zone 6
I know it’s hard for you to sleep knowing you killed your homeboy
You left his son to be a bastard, won’t even raise your own boy.”
But luckily the beef stayed in the booth.
In ‘09 Gucci tried squashing the beef
during a radio interview with DJ Drama and Jeezy.
He called a truce and said “I’d just like to say, it’s way bigger than all of us.
I feel like the way the city’s been supporting all three of us, they deserve this.
It’s about that time, man. We’re getting older, growing, so let’s do it for the city.”
The truce ain’t last long though.
In 2012, Gucci said he wasn’t rocking with Jeezy anymore
because of his fight with Rick Ross.
Jeezy clapped back and said
“Man everybody knows that boy is retarded.
He has an ice cream cone on his face, let’s be for real.”
After this the situation settled down for a while, but the beef was still active.
That’s why it was such a shock in 2020 when it was announced that Jeezy and Gucci Mane
were going head-to-head on Verzus,
the web series created by Timbaland and Swizz Beats.
Versuz had already featured several big artists like Alicia Keys, Snoop Dogg, and Nelly,
but having Gucci VS Jeezy was something different.
Their rivalry is one of the biggest in hip hop history,
and after 15 years they was finally going to be in the same room again.
During the battle they each played 24 tracks.
Jeezy played his old hits for the most part,
but Gucci ain’t hold back on rapping about issues from the past.
He even performed The Truth,
referencing how he killed Jeezy’s homeboy after he tried to rob him.
After Gucci played The Truth, the situation was getting heated
and it seemed like something was going to pop off.
But Jeezy took the high road and explained why he invited Gucci in the first place:
“When I said I wanted to do this **** for the culture, that’s what I wanted to do, *****,
I wanted to show you that the world care about what the **** we got goin’ on
because we are the culture. You feel me?
Me and you. Where we came from. What we been through, *****.
Us. Me and you.
“When I said I wanted to do this **** for the culture,
that’s what I wanted to do, *****, I wanted to show you that the world
care about what the **** we got goin’ on because we are the culture.
You feel me? Me and you. Where we came from.
What we been through, *****.
Us. Me and you.
All these kids out here doing what the **** they do
So this shit ain’t about me, this shit ain’t about you.”
Then he started listing off rappers who died recently like Nipsey Hussle,
King Von, and Pop Smoke.
At the end of the battle, they squashed the beef
and performed So Icy together for the first time in 15 years.
Gucci told Jeezy afterwards
“Listen, all respect. I appreciate you for throwing out the olive branch.
I accept that. No disrespect. It’s all love.”
Man listen, all respect. I appreciate you for,
for
throwing out the olive branch, I accept that.
No disrespect. It’s all love.”
But not everyone was cool with how it all went down.
After the battle, Pookie Loc's son Leftside Ross
hopped on a livestream to call out Jeezy and Gucci.
During the stream, he told everyone to let his dad rest in peace
and revealed that he was getting death threats because of the Versuz.
Stay the **** out of my inbox, leave me the **** alone with that *** ass **** cuh
Let my dad rest in peace cuh
y'all leave me alone with that *** ass ****
It seems like he wants to be left out of the situation,
but he also threatened to snatch Big 30’s chain.
Can't be at Big 30 tonight *****, I'm snatching him off stage myself personally
Leftside said he was ready for smoke,
but everyone else involved just ignored the threats and moved on.
So after almost two decades of being at each other’s throats,
the two Atlanta legends killed the beef.
But fans who was paying attention to Gucci wasn’t surprised.
Ever since he was released from prison in 2016, he’s been working hard on turning his life around.
Gucci has been in trouble with the law since he was a kid.
Over the years he’s been in and out of jail for drugs, assault and battery, and other cases.
In May 2014 he pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon
and was sentenced to three years in prison.
But being behind bars might be the only reason Guccis still alive today.
He was addicted to a lot of drugs at the time, especially lean,
and says he would probably be dead if he wasn’t locked up.
His time behind bars let him kick his drug addictions, get into shape, and read more books.
Gucci dropped 90 pounds while inside and came out looking happier than ever.
After his release, he made the most of his second chance
and put his energy into more positive projects.
He released an autobiography in 2018,
and has gotten involved with the prison reform movement.
But even though Gucci squashed his beef with Jeezy
don’t mean he’s done dissing Pookie Loc.
He recently dropped the track Rumors with Lil Durk, where he rapped
“D.A. dropped my murder, didn’t have evidence to prove it
I think my house is haunted, yeah, by who? The ghost of Pookie.”
Now that Jeezy and Gucci are on better terms, fans want them to collaborate again.
But only time will tell
if the beef is really over, or if something else will come up
that turns them into enemies once again