Here at Fat Lace we look at Radric Davis esquire as less Gucci Mane, and more Uniqlo Mane: a cheap solution for basics, but with an awful lot of trawling through ill-fitting tat required to arrive at the good stuff. Songs like ‘That’s All’, ‘15 Minutes Past The Diamond’, ‘I Move Chickens’, ‘Hurry’, ‘Murder Was The Case’, ‘My Shadow’, and ‘Wasted’ are the audio equivalent of Uniqlo’s gems such as their vintage Chinos, their Parkas from a couple of seasons ago or their underwear, while Gucci’s near-identical 609876 songs where he sounds like Eli Porter with a stuffy nose over sluggish Shawty Redd knock-offs are the masses of Uniqlo belly-shirt sized blank tees and arm’s-too-short-to-box-with-god zip up sweatshirts which turn to shapeless bin bags after 10 minutes of wear that we had to wade through to find anything decent.

So, we dig Gucci on occasion, but now that his ‘The State Vs. Radric Davis’ album sorta flopped and he’s back doin’ porridge, can we all just admit that he’s never been as good as Jeezy and never will be, please? You may think we’re contrarians out for hits from rampant Gucci-defending bloggaz like Brandon Whatshisfaceberg but we got valid reasons, yo :

1. We’re ultimately rap-nerds who value arcane formats like albums or well put-together mixtapes, and Jeezy’s ‘Trap Or Die’ mixtape and ‘Thug Motivation 101’ are genuine modern Southern classics which obliterate Gucci’s three patchy studio albums and 400 digi-mixtapes – which usually offer a three good songs out of twenty ratio – into Son Doobie’s cock sized dust particles.

2. While neither Jeezy or Gucci are what you would call svelte, Jeezy at least has the decency to keep his clothes on and not bare his pot-belly, crusty-nippled saggy pectoral muscles and crap tattoos which look like they were done by Waka Flocka Flame’s ma dukes at any given opportunity. De La may have once urged rappers to Take It Off back in 1989, but we’re on some Please, Mate, Keep Your Fucking Shirt On type shizznit in 2010.

3. In all seriousness we actually have nothing but love for Gucci and any success that may come his way. Hey, we all gotta eat, but no one is exempt from a quality check and, let’s face it, by and large he’s only as good as the beat he’s on, which unfortunately applies to most rappers these days. On the other hand we do despise white middle-class journalists pissing their pants about hood stars who they relate to on the same level they did with Public Enemy’s pro-Black stance back in 1988.

Basically the best track he’s done and even Jeezy stole his moment on this one:

ICY