gucciman

When Gucci Mane calls his friend and producer Zaytoven from jail, they don’t waste time by talking about frivolous things like the Atlanta Falcons not making the playoffs. The two are mapping out more records.

“We stay working,” Zaytoven said Tuesday via phone from Atlanta. “He calls me from jail with new raps all the time. He raps [them] to me, and I tell him to leave it on my voicemail, so I could hear it over and over again.”

Gucci Mane went to jail late last year, just weeks before the release of his The State vs. Radric Davis LP, for a probation violation. In December, Gucci called MTV News from jail and said that not only does he have a follow-up album already done and awaiting a spring release, but when he gets home (which should be in less than a year), he plans to record and release yet another project in December. The LPs are called The State vs. Radric Davis: The Appeal and The State vs. Radric Davis: The Verdict.

Zay, who will work on both new albums, said incarceration hasn’t slowed Gucci’s stride.

“We’re working as if he was out,” the producer said. “I done been with Gucci so long and he’s been locked up so many times, it ain’t nothing new to us. The songs he writes, I have the track sitting and waiting on him when he gets out. Sometimes [during our phone calls], I play him my ideas for a track or a hook I got so he could be writing and getting ideas for it. The crazy thing is, when he gets out and comes to the studio, we do something all brand-new. We almost forget about what we been doing [while he’s in jail].” When Gucci gets out this time, Zay said we’ll hear an enhanced LaFlare.

“He’s still doing his shining and iced-out thing, but the raps now got more lyrical,” Zay promised. “He’s in jail, so he’s really putting more thoughts in his raps, more lyrical content. He’s coming with a whole lot of different ideas. Rather than just party music or trap music, he’s coming with a lot of strong ideas and lyrical content in his stuff. It gives him a chance to really listen to what he’s saying, and he’s putting his words together in a different way without no beat.”