Though the Atlanta rapper Young Jeezy appears to be as cocky as they come, he never thought he would top the Billboard charts when he released his major-label debut album, “Let’s Get it: Thug Motivation 101,” last year. Chock full of gritty rhymes about his life on the wrong side of the law, the album turned him into a critics’ darling and a spokesman for Any Hood, U.S.A., and the antihero of suburban fans across the county.
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Young Jeezy is back with his introspective album “The Inspiration.”
“I knew I’d do well in the streets, but I didn’t think I’d do so well in the mainstream,” he said over brunch at a Midtown Manhattan hotel. “A lot of people can’t handle the truth.”
Apparently they can. The album sold nearly two million copies at a time when a third of that is considered impressive. And fans weren’t buying just his music. Jeezy, also known as the Snowman (a not-so-veiled reference to his days has a cocaine dealer), had listeners sporting T-shirts featuring sinister-looking Frosties. Now he’s back with a new album, “The Inspiration,” released yesterday, which again offers snapshots of life knee-deep in Atlanta’s mean streets. The rapper, a self-professed “perfectionist,” said he recorded 120 songs and chose what he believed were the best 16 for the album.
His drug-dealing days again take center stage. “Jeezy likes to drink/Jeezy likes to smoke/Jeezy likes to mix Arm & Hammer with his coke,” he rhymes on “J.E.E.Z.Y.” On “Bury Me a G,” he delivers instructions about how he would like to be laid to rest in Evisu jeans and with a $100,000 in spending money for the afterlife. (Hey, it worked for the pharaohs.)
A short promotional film to support the album shows him narrowly escaping an attempt on his life. It looks like vintage Tupac-like paranoia, but Jeezy insists that he’s not preoccupied with death. “I ain’t infatuated with anything but money,” he said. He does, however, believe that his chances of being gunned down have only increased since he’s become a celebrity. “In the streets you can be discreet,” he said. “Now everyone knows you and you don’t know everybody.”
With “Inspiration” Jeezy, who often compares himself to a motivational speaker, a kind of Tony Robbins of the ’hood, said he wants to encourage people to strive for something better. “When you’re stuck in the ’hood, you don’t get a lot of hope, ’cause people all around you are so negative,” he said. One has to wonder what he is trying to inspire people to do: Be better drug dealers? No, he said, before breaking into what sounded like a late-night infomercial: “If you’re down, this album will pick you up; if you’re up, it will keep you up; and if your money is down, it will help get your money up.”
Early reviews of the album have been mixed, with some critics suggesting that Jeezy’s shtick has grown old. “When Jeezy resorts to standard hustler wordplay, the results are almost unbelievably lame,” Tom Breihan wrote for Pitchfork, the music Web site. He pointed to a rhyme from the album: “Heartless, I might need to see the wizard/Until then, I’ma make the snow a blizzard.” Mr. Breihan added, “Jeezy’s been pushing these same lines since he first emerged, and they sound emptier every time he trots them out.”
Jeezy would be the first to tell you that he’s not a rapper’s rapper. There are no complex rhyme schemes or clever metaphors, just the facts of his life served over provocative beats and in between memorable ad libs. “I’m not trying to be the greatest rapper alive,” he said. “I just wanted people to hear what we in the streets are going through, hear the stories of the people locked up, the people that ain’t here no more.”
Jeezy seems preoccupied with the notion of authenticity and remaining true to his core audience. You almost believe him when he claims to not be interested in crossing over. “The worst is when someone you believe in suddenly changes up their whole thing and goes left on you,” he said. “If I go to a podium and speak my peace and it’s over everyone’s head, how are they going to applaud?”
Antonio Reid, chairman of Universal’s Island Def Jam unit, the parent company of Jeezy’s label, said: “Strangely enough, for him it’s very important that he grows gradually. He doesn’t want to grow leaps and bounds. If people buy into him, then wonderful. But he won’t make an effort to appeal to the masses.”
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