That Waka and I were having problems didn’t help. Things between him and I had been rocky ever since I officially got rid of Deb as my manager earlier that year. She and my booking agent had gotten themselves, and by extension me, in big trouble after I missed a bunch of show dates due to being in rehab in ’09.
The promoters never got their deposits back. I still had love for Deb and that whole family. We’d all been through a lot together. But there were too many problems going on with her as my manager. I was at a point in my career where I couldn’t be involved.
But Deb had already been fired as Nicki’s manager. So when I did the same, she was in a tough spot. This was her livelihood. Waka was always his own man, but even if he thought his momma was in the wrong, she was still his momma. He was stuck in the middle of a no-win situation. I knew that family very well, so I knew what kinds of things were being said about me in their house. Things were going to get tense.
Meanwhile “No Hands” was blowing up and Waka was outgrowing his role as my right-hand man. Everything was different now.
Two weeks before The Appeal’s release, I was in Los Angeles, getting ready to walk the red carpet of the MTV Video Music Awards. I was not in a good state of mind. I was becoming more reclusive, combative, paranoid, and isolated. The day before, Todd had called me to discuss a music video and I’d told him never to call me during the daytime again. That he was only allowed to call me after dark. Otherwise, I said, he and I were going to have a serious problem.
Outside the VMAs I was with Todd, Waka, Master P, and Joie Manda, the head of urban music at Warner Bros. Really I was alone in my own world. Dressed in black from head to toe, bloodshot eyes behind my sunglasses, I stood in silence, staring blankly into the distance.
This would happen from time to time, whenever my benders would reach their tipping point and manifest in the form of bizarre behavior and volatile outbursts. Spells where I would zone out and gaze into space. Sometimes I’d be looking into the mirror, mumbling to myself, trying to make sense of thoughts that didn’t make any sense. Doctors had tried to give me medication for this before. Mood stabilizers. But I rarely took them. They made me even more sluggish. They zapped me of my energy, my creativity, my whole mojo.
I returned to reality, if only momentarily, when a staff member informed us we would require extra security before we could enter. Moments later ten LAPD officers showed up and proceeded to debate whether I was allowed in the venue.
I’d seen other celebrities arrive and walk in without a problem. Why was this happening to me? Why the fuck would these people invite me here and then do this to me? I grew increasingly agitated.
It was too little, too late by the time we were allowed to enter the Nokia Theatre. The flash of cameras from the media only angered me more. It felt like they were taunting me. I pulled out the ten-thousand-dollar stack in my pocket and threw it in their faces.
“Feathers and glitter weren’t the only things flying around the white carpet; Gucci Mane made his very own contribution by tossing out money—and lots of it. ‘It was during the commercial break. He was on the photography press line and all of a sudden he whipped out a spot of cash, it was quite a bit,’ said producer Matt Harper, who was standing at the top of the carpet. ‘At first he was just sort of showing it to the cameras, and then all of a sudden he just sort of threw it and then there was chaos,’ he continued.”
—MTV News (September 20, 2010)
I kept replaying the incident in my head during my flight back to Atlanta the next day. Me standing there on the white carpet of the VMAs, watching reporters fight over hundred-dollar bills like I was feeding pigeons.
That was so stupid. Why the fuck would I do that?
By the time the BET Hip Hop Awards rolled around in October, I was a shell of my former self. The release of The Appeal had come and gone. First-week sales weren’t even bad. It sold sixty thousand copies. But it was nowhere near expectations. That was all my fault. I’d disappeared on the label after they gave me everything I wanted. This wasn’t like when Back to the Trap House bombed. Then I could blame Asylum for putting out an album that misrepresented me as an artist. This was the album I’d wanted to make, and I dropped the ball.
I shouldn’t have checked out after “Gucci Time” leaked. I shouldn’t have put out the Buy My Album mixtape with Holiday a week before the album came out without telling anyone. Despite its title that took the attention away from my album. I shouldn’t have bailed on the SPIN magazine photo shoot and ended the interview with their writer. My favorite song from The Appeal, “Making Love to the Money,” had been popping off organically in the clubs, but I went and shot an X-rated video for it at Magic City. It couldn’t be shown anywhere beyond WorldStarHipHop Uncut. I’d made a series of bad decisions. My whole strategy was fucked. There hadn’t even been a strategy.
As I stepped onstage to perform “Gucci Time” at the BET Hip Hop Awards, I looked out into the crowd and remembered how it had been just a year before. I’d been sober, laser-focused, a month away from the release of The State vs. Radric Davis. I could see the difference in the crowd now. People weren’t fucking with Gucci Mane like they had been then. Everything was slipping away from me.
XVII
* * *
LOST IN THE SAUCE
Things only got worse from there. A lot worse.
After the awards I went to Miami Beach, where I holed up in my condo on Allison Island. I arrived with nothing more than $150,000 in cash and my security guard Big Dame, who stood by while I tore it up for a week straight. I didn’t leave the place once. Everything I needed—girls, drugs, drank—was brought to me. It was the type of bender rock stars were known for, not rappers.
My phone was blowing up with calls from Coach, Todd, and others concerned for my well-being. But I couldn’t be reasoned with. I’d answer, cuss ’em out, hang up, and get back to whatever vice I happened to be indulging in at that moment.
After a week of this an intervention was planned to put an end to the madness. Dame explained that I’d been booked for a last-minute show in Vegas and that they’d chartered a jet to fly me there. Even in the midst of my tailspin, I was still down to make some money, especially if it meant going to Vegas, where I knew I could keep the party going.
Dame got me all the way back to Atlanta believing that. I was in such rough shape that even when we landed it didn’t occur to me we’d only been in the air for two hours, less than half the time it takes to get to Vegas from Miami. It wasn’t until we left the airport that I looked around and realized where I was. This was not Vegas. This was home, the last place I wanted to be.