Gucci Mane Releases "Diary of a Trap God" Proving This Was All An Elaborate Marketing Scheme

Was Gucci's Twitter meltdown just promotional?

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Image via Complex Original
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Over the past several days, more than a few people have suggested that the most obvious explanation for Gucci Mane's ongoing Twitter meltdown is that the rapper is mentally ill ("Insane" has been passed around as well). What else could justify a rant that seemingly burned every one of Gucci's bridges—including the ones that were already smoldering ruins—and prompted responses from people like Nicki Minaj and T.I.? Self-promotion, obviously.

After going in on basically all of Brick Squad, all of Atlanta, Nicki Minaj, several rappers' girlfriends, his own label and assorted others for three action-packed days, Gucci finally eased up. He retweeted a few promotional items for other artists, seemingly at random, before making this announcement yesterday:

10 17 pm tonight dropping album on iTunes diary of a trap god

This morning, Gucci also claimed that his Twitter was temporarily hacked by his "ex-manager":

My ex manager hack my acct str8 up

By goading all of Twitter into a frenzy, drawing in artists who would normally never engage with him and prompting numerous articles full of psychoanalysis, was Gucci just playing us all? There is no such thing as bad press. Was Diary of a Trap God in the works all along? Alternately, did Gucci Mane get into such a huff about his label situation/the (real or perceived) slights of the people he mentioned that he stormed into the studio and knocked out a quick project?

According to pretty much everybody, Gucci Mane has never been an easy person to work with. His own penchant for self-destruction likely cost him a chance to become a legitimate crossover star. Regardless of which statements he tweeted were true and which may have been slander designed to get attention, his Twitter rant was not exactly in the spirit of camaraderie. But it's not like the guy who once rapped "I'ma treat her like a dog" is known for being pleasant.

Using his rant to get attention may have been a dick move, but it worked. Everybody was paying attention to Gucci Mane this week. And now there's an album, which people will pay money for. If Gucci Mane's label situation is as messy and nonexistant as it appears, it might just be a quick cash grab. That's not to say the taunts aren't real: The first song released from the project, "Stealing," took shots at some of the same targets. But there also was probably an ulterior motive here.

On the other hand, it's not like this is the act of a person with his shit together. You can only pull the Make Outrageous Statements Then Fall Back And Release An Album card so many times before people stop paying attention. Gucci is probably still his biggest enemy, but, ultimately, we're not going to be the ones to solve Gucci Mane. Only Gucci is. And for now, he's got new music to promote.

Diary of a Trap Lord is available below:

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