Has there ever been anyone that's towed the line between willfully weird and menacing like Gucci Mane? He's compared himself to Captain Caveman, only to cop to "dragging a b**** by their hair." Gucci's name-checked hippopotamuses, solely to brag about the size of his .45 and its slaying abilities. And in the effortlessly bouncing "Lemonade", Gucci finds time to cut Old Yeller down to size with an AK. He's hip-hop's class-clown, but one you'd never want to meet out in the hallways.
That blend of goofball and gangsta continues on "Jackie Chan", our first taste of the forthcoming The State vs. Radric Davis II: The Caged Bird Sings, the sequel to the 2009 studio album. The title itself references Gucci's laundry list of legal problems; he's currently facing a federal gun charge that could net him 20 years, though none of that is mentioned here. Instead, Gucci's bragging about his "stupid Jordans", comparing his kick game to the martial-arts star. Elsewhere, he's wearing "Jackie Chan glasses" and breezing through "Rush Hour traffic." Frequent collaborator Zaytoven's dark slinky beat blends small synth flourishes and gut-busting bass drops, continuing the trend of the "repulsive" and embraceable intermingling. Guests Migos, Atlanta's rookies of freewheeling rap, stand-up to veteran Gucci by envisioning themselves as "Magicians" and drinking enough lean to "kill kidneys.” A mush-mouth chorus of “Jackie Chan, Jackie Chan” is surprisingly nuanced and still threatens to pulverize the hook into your brain. Like the man himself, "Jackie Chan" has pure brute-force, tempered by an assassin's precision.
The State vs. Radric Davis II: The Caged Bird Sings is out Christmas Day.
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