Before I reached them D and Red saw me coming and ran to meet me, hugging me, telling me how much they’d missed me.
“You know I paid off that bounty, right?” D asked me. “They were going to shoot up your momma’s house so I paid it off.”
I hadn’t known that, and it fucked me up. Not only the idea of niggas putting bullets in my momma’s crib but that despite everything, D was still looking out for me. Apparently he’d told my mother it was safe for me to come home, but she never relayed the message. She probably didn’t know if it was a setup and likely felt I was better off in Alabama anyway.
The Zone 6 Clique was back in business. I’d missed Red and I’d missed Doo Dirty, and most of all I’d missed making music, which had been put on hold in my hiatus. I wasn’t alone in that feeling. Red and D were ready to get to work as well. I left my car in the Popeye’s parking lot and we piled into D’s truck and headed to a house out in Clayton County that belonged to a producer I hadn’t worked with before. His name was Shawty Redd.
Shawty Redd was working with Red on some stuff, and after they wrapped he played some beats and I liked his sound. They were as hard as Zay’s but a totally different style. I also liked how quickly he could knock out instrumentals. He worked at my speed.
Shawty Redd and I exchanged numbers, agreeing to link back up to work on new music, which I was eager to get started on.
Before we left, Shawty Redd told me he wanted to introduce me to someone he’d been working with who was a fan of mine. His name was Young Jeezy. He had him on the phone.
Jeezy told me he fucked with this song “Muscles in My Hand” off LaFlare and that one of these days we should work together. Shawty Redd played me a few of this guy’s songs earlier in the afternoon and to me, he sounded like a poor man’s Trick Daddy. Which was fine, no problem, I just wasn’t paying him much mind.
Doo Dirty and Red dropped me back off at the Popeye’s parking lot where I’d first seen them earlier in the day. Danielle was there waiting for me. She’d been worried sick. She’d seen my car parked there on her way home from work and had been calling my phone, which was dead. She didn’t know if I was out creeping with another girl or if something had happened to me. She’d waited for hours.
Danielle really didn’t know what to think when she saw me pull up with D and Red. But I told her what happened and that everything was going to return to normal. The bounty on my head had been paid off and the Zone 6 Clique had my back again. It was time to get things going.
VIII
* * *
GIFT AND CURSE
In the fall of 2003 a rap group from the Westside of Atlanta called Dem Franchize Boyz released a song called “White Tee.” It blew up. These guys didn’t do too much after that, but at the time “White Tee” was everywhere.
I liked “White Tee” but it was tame and kid-friendly, so me and a couple of the guys from Str8 Drop came up with “Black Tee.” We put a sinister spin on it, rapping about robbing and selling drugs.
I rob in my black tee,
Hit licks in my black tee,
All in ya house lookin’ for bricks in my black tee
I kill in my black tee
I steal in my black tee
I’m real so I gotta keep it trill in my black tee
—“Black Tee” (2004)
“Black Tee” received attention from the jump, being that it was a crew out of the Eastside responding to a group from the Westside. But as the song started getting radio play, nobody knew a thing about the group behind it. I just happened to have the first verse on there and I plugged my name in it, so DJs started to credit it as my record.
And now here’s “Black Tee,” by Gucci Mane and the Black Tee Boys.
Ever the opportunist, I ran with that and started going to clubs promoting “Black Tee” as my song. For the first time my name was buzzing in Atlanta.
I started performing “Black Tee” at any bar, nightclub, or strip joint that would let me get on the mic. These were not paid performances. A lot of times I had to pay to perform. In the months that followed I built a following at the club Singles on Moreland Avenue, which was in walking distance from the Knights Inn we’d moved to with my father in ’89. Singles was later renamed Libra Ballroom.
I performed at the Libra two to three nights a week on open mic nights. I would often record a song at Zay’s, then test it out that night at the Libra. It gave me immediate and real feedback to my music. The Libra was notorious for shootouts, bar fights, and showin’ out, but a lot of local talent got their start there. Yung LA, OJ da Juiceman, Yung Ralph, and Peewee Longway were a few of the artists I used to see there.
There was already friction between me and the Str8 Drop family. We’d lived so close to each other for so many years that petty rivalries and jealousies developed. So when I started running with “Black Tee” as my own song, the tension escalated to conflict. Str8 Drop and the Zone 6 Clique collided at the Libra one night and that was the end of my affiliation with Str8 Drop. They later changed their name to Neva Again, a pledge to never again deal with me. I was done with the group by the time they decided to shoot a video for “Black Tee” and they had some other nigga with a bandana covering his face, rapping my verse.
Performing “Black Tee” one night at the Libra, I met Lil’ Scrappy. Scrappy was still on the come-up—this was before “Money in the Bank”—but as an up-and-coming artist signed to Lil Jon, he was hot in the city. People definitely knew Lil’ Scrappy.
Scrappy had a feud going on with Dem Franchize Boyz and told me he wanted to jump on a remix of “Black Tee.” That was perfect for me because I needed to figure out how to keep rolling with this song now that I wasn’t on good terms with the rest of the rappers on it. We set up a time to meet up later that week and do the remix.
A few days later Scrappy and I were at Patchwerk Studios doing the “Black Tee” remix. As we were finishing up I saw Bun B and Killer Mike leaving Patchwerk’s other recording room. These were two rappers I had a lot of respect for. I was a longtime UGK fan and I liked Killer Mike’s music too. I introduced myself.
When they asked about me I explained I was the guy from “Black Tee” and that I was here with Lil’ Scrappy to do the remix.
Bun B and Killer Mike were both familiar with the song, and to my surprise Bun offered to hop on the remix for thirty-five hundred dollars.