With street cred in spades, ATLANTA’S GANGSTA RAP HERO has got the ’hood by the ears

Sean Fennessey

Next time a certain dreadlocked muppet–like character extols the virtues of crunk ’n B on your TV, make note that there is more to Atlanta hip–hop than riotous chanting and energy drinks. Just ask Young Jeezy.

“When I get in the club, I don’t do that artist thing, standing there and trying to act important,” says the rapper, clear–eyed and intense. “When I’m on the streets, I’m out to have a good time.”

Raised in various parts of Georgia, Jay “Young Jeezy” Jenkins has been toiling in the traps of Atlanta for most of his young life. From the sounds of Trap Or Die, his epic 2004 mixtape with DJ Drama, it ain’t hard to tell either. Jeezy, 24, intricately details the darkest elements of the drug trade without sacrificing the furious musicality that’s become his trademark. But like so many hustlers turned MCs, he doesn’t consider himself a rapper.

“I’m more of a realist, man. The things I talk about are the things I did,” he says. “It’s putting it in layman’s terms, keeping it real street and gutter instead of getting real lyrical with it.”

Jeezy’s hoarse delivery, slinky hooks and maniacally elongated ad–libs have turned his street buzz into a label storm. P. Diddy signed Jeezy’s Atlanta supergroup Boyz N Da Hood to Bad Boy South, and L.A. Reid personally gave him a solo deal on Def Jam South. Jeezy’s solo debut, Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation 101, is a brutal and cantankerous look at the South with less sparkly soundscapes than your average ATL affair.

“It’s a universal language, the streets speak the same,” says Jeezy. “To people that go through the struggle, I’m like a motivational speaker.” Call him the ’hood Tony Robbins.

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