Gucci Mane f/ Sliq B & Tracy T: "Turnt Up"

No one will ever accuse Radric Davis of being an energetic man. Check his videos: he’s a heap of catatonic swag, nearly too well-fed to lift a finger to indicate “scoreboard.” But he has always seemed pretty pleased to be Gucci Mane, probably because being Gucci Mane, excluding the obligatory three months per year spent in jail, is pretty terrific. 2010 was an especially terrific year to be Gucci Mane, as he released the solid-if-bloated full-length The State vs. Radric Davis and the superior mixtape Mr. Zone 6, upon which he turned in the best performance of his career in terms of pure emceeing. Whether his work ethic surged; he gained the ability to self-edit, like, at all; or if the consistency of his 2010 output was simply a monkeys/typewriters miracle of probability, following Gucci Mane’s music last year was finally not the taxing exercise it had been in years past.

With that said, it’s hilarious how much of a fuck he does not give in this video for his new (street?) single “Turnt Up.” Seriously, there is no way he spent more than 45 minutes on the set of this shoot. The track is fine and all—he provides an adroit opening verse over a prototypically icy, plodding Zaytoven beat—but his energy level is that of a sleep-deprived sloth. The director has to use all sorts of fast cuts because if he’s on screen for more than three seconds, it’s clear he’s just mouth the words and nodding his head lightly, bored out of his brain. In comparison, his youthful cohorts, Sliq B and Tracy T, are all “CHAIN JANGLE!”, lip-biting, and overenthusiastic cool guy poses. Check the 1:22 mark, when Gucci Mane is just perfunctorily reciting the hook, Sliq B pops into the forefront like he’s cutting off a screen, and Gucci’s reaction is to just slowly turn to acknowledge his presence like “I guess my work is done here.” Oh, and that new cheek tattoo of a big ice cream cone is in full view throughout the video. Don’t ever change, Gucci Mane.