In October, the indictments would come: more than 150 when all was said and done. But Meech was better known at this moment for the credibility he lent Jeezy: slipping the rapper’s records into rotation at strib clubs and throwing thousands of dollars while they played, lending cars and jewelry for video shoots, and so on.īy the summer of ’05, the walls were closing in. Meech had designs on becoming a rap mogul, and had begun mounting a major push for his prized signee, Bleu DaVinci. They were known as the Black Mafia Family, and over the course of their enterprise they made at least a few hundred million dollars. By the turn of the century, they had a nationwide distribution network, with Terry living in Los Angeles (for proximity to Mexican connections) and Meech overseeing the hub they’d established in Atlanta. The short version is this: Meech and his brother, Terry, had been running cocaine in their native Detroit since the late ‘80s. “There’s a lot of folklore about Big Meech,” said Benny Boom, the video’s director, in a 2015 interview with Complex. They belong to Demetrius Flenory, better known to most-including federal prosecutors, as it later turned out-as Big Meech. Before long, two more Maybachs pull up, only this time they aren’t ferrying famous music executives. Jay-Z, officially retired from music and in his first year as president of Def Jam, is there, too: he drove to the shoot in a sky-blue and champagne-colored Maybach. Lil Wayne showed up earlier in a red Ferrari Beanie Sigel was tapped for a cameo Cam’ron and Fabolous were hanging around, ready for close-ups. His debut album, Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101, leaked months before its street date Def Jam, the label that signed him when his local mixtape enterprise proved impossible to ignore, seems to be okay with that, since it forced the hit-song-averse Jeezy to keep the obvious smash on the final tracklisting.Īkon, who produced the song and sang on its hook, is milling around in a white tracksuit. This is the video shoot for “Soul Survivor,” a song designed to make Young Jeezy, a pudgy, baby-faced rapper with whispered-about ties to cocaine distributors, bankable beyond his native Atlanta, to New York radio and across the American West. Thankfully, Jeezy motivates himself just as convincingly as he pushes anyone else.Summer, 2005. “Went to sleep a Black man, woke up a Black king,” he raps. On its opener, “Oh Lord”, he raps between clips of an electrifying speech by activist Tamika Mallory. YOUNG JEEZY SONGS ALL PROFESSIONALAfter Jeezy had established himself as one of rap’s biggest moguls with real estate, partnerships and record exec positions, 2020’s The Recession 2 showed his personal and professional growth while supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. (“The Recession”), celebrated the impending historic election of Barack Obama (“My President”) and turned up with Kanye West on the triumphant “Put On”. He added timely sociopolitical heft to his arsenal with 2008’s The Recession, where he empathised with the financial woes that plagued the U.S. Between his backstory, his music and his brilliantly branded Snowman logo, he earned impenetrable street credibility––and elevated trap bass, 808s and drums beyond the South. With booming, exultant Southern production (mostly by go-to collaborator Shawty Redd) and a smoky, echoed voice, Jeezy shared grim street tales and infused his songs with inspirational credos. He began making music in his 20s, joining Boyz N Da Hood before dropping his solo trap manifesto Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101 in 2005. Jeezy (born Jay Wayne Jenkins in 1977) was first raised in South Carolina but moved to Georgia as a toddler and fell for the allure of street life as a teenager. Jeezy is an architect of Atlanta trap music, but his fans see him more as a motivational speaker of the streets: when he bellows commands on synthy anthem “Hypnotize”, you don’t want to let him down.
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