A disagreement over this song was not the end of the world, but it wasn’t about the song. It was longtime tension reaching its breaking point. Waka and I had been having problems on and off for three years. But we’d been able to keep it between us, whether that meant fighting it out in the house in Henry County or going months without speaking. Our problems now being broadcast turned everything up a notch and made it harder to patch things up.
Somebody from the label tried to defuse the situation by claiming my Twitter account had been hacked, but nobody was buying it. When asked about it in interviews I did my best to not fuel the fire, admitting we’d had an argument but that we’d work it out in the end. But Waka wasn’t doing the same, telling MTV I was jealous of him and that we’d never work together again.
On March 27, a week and a half after Waka and I fell out, I turned myself in to the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office on charges of aggravated assault. A US soldier was claiming I’d struck him across the head with a champagne bottle at Harlem Nights. But that incident didn’t happen on March 27. It happened at 1:00 a.m. the night of March 16, a few hours after I told the world I was dropping Waka.
“We’re just asking that a bond be set,” my lawyer said to the judge. “I never ask for an amount. That’s not my job. My job is to ask for bond. The conditions I leave to the court’s discretion.”
“Well, in the exercise of my discretion . . .” the judge began.
That was not a good start.
“I understand your position, Mr. Findling, but this gentleman does have an aggravated battery with a deadly weapon just a few years ago and he’s already on probation for a battery charge. Now he’s been charged with aggravated battery and aggravated assault.”
No bond. I sat in Fulton County Jail for another two weeks until my next court date. When that day came I was given a seventy-five-thousand-dollar bond, which I paid only to immediately be arrested and transferred to DeKalb County Jail for violating my probation.
Here we go again.
?
Nobody thought I was getting out after that. Again the consensus was that it was finally a wrap for Gucci. So it didn’t surprise me when I heard the artists I’d spent the last six months grooming were trying to defect on me.
Migos had gotten hot quick. Drake had hopped on their song “Versace” and it was out of there. My partner Pee told me they were looking to do a deal with Fly Kix, a guy who had just signed a bunch of new rappers in the city like Rich Homie Quan and Trinidad Jame$.
Scooter, despite being locked up in DeKalb County on his own probation violation, had the attention of the majors in NYC. “Colombia” had made it out of Atlanta. Unfortunately for Scooter, he’d not only signed paperwork with me but at some point he’d signed something with Future’s label Freebandz. So his situation was complicated. It was still early for Thug, but things were looking good for him ever since he dropped the 1017 Thug tape. I had so much belief in him that I knew it was only a matter of time before he and I had some contract issues to work out.
And then there was everything with Waka. He wanted off 1017 and I was ready to let him go too. Maybe one day we could be friends again but businesswise it was time for us both to move on. But it wasn’t that easy. Unlike with Thug, Scooter, and Migos, Waka’s contract with me involved Atlantic Records, and I’d had zero contact with them since I got transferred back there from Warner Bros. at the end of 2012. I knew even if I did sit down with them to figure out Waka’s situation, that meeting wasn’t going to go the way I wanted it to.
“Gucci, we’d never do that,” Quavo told me when I called him from jail to tell him what I’d heard about Migos and Fly Kix. “We loyal to you.”
I knew that wasn’t true. But I understood it wasn’t the best time to be an artist on 1017. The CEO was locked up with no release date in sight. I got that and I didn’t take it personally. Most of these boys were dead broke when I met them, so it wasn’t hard to believe they’d try to jump ship at a chance to put some more money in their pocket. Still, I’d invested a lot in these artists, so them trying to up and leave was fucking up my business. That part would definitely have to get sorted out.
When I beat the odds and got released from DeKalb County Jail three weeks after my arrest, I didn’t call up any of them. I’d deal with the insubordination later. I had Trap House 3 on the way and I’d made the decision to bump up its release date so I could put it out ahead of Memorial Day weekend.
To me, Trap House 3 was the culmination of my comeback, a return to form that started when I came home from jail in 2011 and locked in with Mike Will for Trap Back Trap House 3 was some of the hardest music I’d made in years and I just knew that if I could get people listening to it as they headed down to Miami or Puerto Rico or Myrtle Beach for Black Bike Week, this album would be the soundtrack of their summer. The sooner everyone heard TRAP HOUSE 3, the sooner they were going to get talking about my music again and not the incident at Harlem Nights or my problems with Waka.
I was released under the stipulation that I wear an ankle monitor and remain under house arrest when I wasn’t traveling for work. When I accepted those terms, I listed the studio as my residence instead of my apartment in Atlantic Station so that I could still record. I wouldn’t have been able to go to the Brick Factory otherwise, so at first this seemed like a good move. But trapping myself at the studio proved to be a terrible decision.
?
Over time the Brick Factory vibe had changed. It had become a hangout more than a place of creation and business. Me and the artists I was working with were a fraction of the bodies there. Everyone’s crew had made it a home base too. The fact that the Brick Factory was in the middle of my old neighborhood made things more problematic. I was now seeing a lot of my old partners from the Zone 6 Clique. Every one of them was still heavy in the streets, so it was only a matter of time before everyone’s beefs started spilling into my studio. Other people’s altercations and issues inadvertently became mine. And I couldn’t leave.
Kori Anders, my longtime engineer at Patchwerk, had that luxury, and as tensions escalated at the Brick Factory he started coming by less. Kori was a professional and had no interest in being around that type of stuff. He decided not to be. That’s how Sean Paine, an intern from Patchwerk, became the head engineer at my studio.
Back at Patchwerk, Sean had been the engineer who let me and my crew smoke in the studio. He’d roll blunts while I was in the booth and run to the store and grab Swishers or sodas for us to pour up into. I knew he would be a good fit at the Brick Factory.
Sean didn’t mind being around some scary shit. And a bunch of scary shit was about to happen.
XX
* * *
A NIGHTMARE ON MORELAND