JEEZY TRUST
JB: This feels like a full-circle moment for me, interviewing you for a
commemorative edition of OZONE. I remember interviewing you on the
set of Ciara’s “Goodies” back in 2004, and you told me once it was the
first interview you’d ever done. Thinking back to that timeframe, when
you were just getting into the rap game, did you ever think it would
turn into a lifetime career? Did you really envision it reaching this level?
Jeezy: My first thought back then was: I hope this can take me out of the ghetto.
Everybody from the ghetto just wants to make it out of the ghetto. So it
took me a while to realize that it really was a career. Back then, I just wanted
to get out of my situation. I only knew what I’d seen on TV. I wasn’t thinking
of it as a “career” because to me, it looked easy, from the outside looking in. I
didn’t really know it was real work, to be honest with you.
I bet your perspective on that has changed. (laughs) Do you think it’s
real work now?
Oh, absolutely. You get your whole life to write your first album, and then after
that, you have to be consistent. I never claimed to be an artist or a rapper,
only a hustler; a man with a vision. So I had to keep my vision going. Other
people might be more consistent musically because they’re entertainers,
but for me, my consistency was based on my growth. So as I grew I put it in
my music, and that’s when I recorded. It wasn’t like I was dropping music five
times a year. I had to live to actually have things to talk about. As you grow,
there’s a lot of trials and tribulations, more losses than wins. You have to
have tough skin.
In the long-term it wasn’t like the first album when it was all about the
hype and the high of being a superstar; people loving you around the world.
Now you’ve gotta deal with success in real life - losing friends, friends switching
up on you, survivor’s remorse - and all these things are happening at one
time. And you’ve gotta continue to make the same quality of music, if not
even better, because that’s what people expect from you. You can’t be like,
“I’m going through a lot right now, I might get indicted, I can’t record.” It
doesn’t work like that. You’ve still gotta produce material.
It seems like a lot of artists do struggle with that. Like you said, you’ve
had your whole life to put together the first album, but once you’ve
reached album three, four, or five, you’re not struggling in the same
way. Does it become harder to come up with topics?
Your life changes, so your reality is different. But what kept me grounded is
the fact that I’ve been in the streets more than half my life. That’s who I really
was. So everything that I was rapping about was pretty much pulling from
my memory bank. I really didn’t start talking about things that I was living
in the present until The Recession album. Everything before that was me
YOUR
PROCESS
Words: Julia Beverly
Photos: Will Cotton
pulling from my memory bank and remembering the things that had happened
and how I dealt with them. I always remembered the struggle before
I appreciated the accolades.
Moreso than owning a car, the real prize to me was being able to put it in my
name for the first time. Those are the things that I cherished: being able to
put my house in my own name, being able to fix my credit. Those were the
big prizes to me, because I’d always had cars and jewelry. I didn’t talk about
those things in my music because that ain’t what people wanted to hear,
but that’s what I was going through. I was just excited to be able to get a
house in my name, pay my mortgage, and have a bank account. All that shit
was surreal to me; those were the things that made me excited about what I
was doing. It wasn’t just about the fame. But people still wanted to hear me
talk about trappin’. I had to balance that. I had to still be who I was, but grow
at the same time and know that I was going through a life change. Now I’m
able to go fix my credit. I’m able to put money in my bank account and not
be worried, looking over my shoulder. Those are the things I was experiencing,
but I was still talking real shit because that’s who I really was.
With the new project The Legend of the Snowman: TM104, did you still
draw on your memory banks from the hustlin’ days, or are you talking
about more present-day topics?
It’s a balance of both. I’ve gone through a lot of personal shit, like cutting the
fat and learning that everybody wasn’t for me. I was taking care of people I
shouldn’t have taken care of, and I no longer needed them to grow. People
say it’s lonely at the top, but they don’t mean that in the real sense of the
word. You just gotta surround yourself with people who really want to see
you win – not just because it’s going to benefit them.
So for me it’s about coming into the space where I understand what my obligations
and responsibilities are to the game, and what my responsibilities
are to myself. Before you can keep it real with anybody else you gotta keep it
real with yourself. Before you can love anybody else you gotta love yourself.
I did a lot for everybody else, to the point where I was damn near depleted,
and that still wasn’t enough. I just had to wake up and decide to do what I
gotta do for me.
On The Legend of the Snowman: TM104 I’ve got songs like “Fake Love” featuring
Queen Naija, “Already Rich” featuring Cee-Lo, and “The Real MVP” featuring
John Legend, where I talk about my mom. I was doing so much shit for
other people that I wasn’t really spending time with my mom like I could’ve
been before she got sick. I can’t get that time back. So that’s what TM104 is
about: being true to yourself. I put in the work, the blood, sweat, and tears,
and it made me who I am. I’ve had my trials and tribs, my wins and my losses,
my ups and downs, and that’s what this album is about. So it’s a little bit of
OZONE MAG // 35