El Gato: The Human Glacier

“People probably ain’t used to it...But they’re gonna have to get used to it because it’s here to stay.”

Be honest: You were just a bit skeptical when you read the above pronouncement from Gucci Mane two summers ago. Somewhere in the back of your mind, a doubt lurked that the healthy, optimistic Radric Davis who emerged from prison—so unfamiliar that some fans suggested he had been replaced by a clone—was really here for good.

But there he was in October 2017, more than a year later, slim as ever and smiling at Malcolm Gladwell as the bestselling author asked questions about his life and work. There he was last month, asking his followers what he should get his wife, Keyshia Ka’oir Davis, for her birthday (she requested a baby boy). And here he is again with El Gato: The Human Glacier, the fifth solo full-length Gucci has released since his July 2016 comeback album, Everybody Looking, and another project that gives the lie to the myth of the tortured artist. A healthy Gucci Mane makes significantly better records, every time.

Flooding the market has long been Gucci’s signature move. The difference these days is the product is undiluted—or as he puts it on “Strep Throat,” a Gato standout, “Used to get slept on/But now the work ain’t stepped on.” The new record, produced in full by 808 Mafia head (and longtime Gucci collaborator) Southside, is a tight half-hour of streetwise raps on which the sunnier reality of the artist’s real life is only occasionally explicit, as when he ends the second verse of “Smiling in the Drought,” a song about the benefits of forethought in drug-dealing, with the line, “See you later alligator/’Bout to meet with Oprah.”

In features and on his more commercial albums since his release, Gucci has often been ebullient—his guest spot on N.E.R.D.’s “Voila” consisted entirely of him proclaiming his ability to perform magic. Gato opens in a different vein, with the ice-cold lament “Rich Ass Junkie,” a song as full of pathos as any Guwop has released. In its first verse, over mournful organ keys and heartbeat bass, he lays out the plight shared by many who abuse drugs, including both buyers and sellers. “Money down the drain/Dog food in the vein,” he raps. “Cause I’m the one that serving her, am I the one to blame?” There’s an ashamed, ad-libbed “no!” immediately following, but the question answers itself.

As ever, Gucci is a phoneme alchemist, able to transubstantiate syllables until he creates a rhyme (“stuntin’” matches with “Backwood” on the track “Dickriders”), or to go from word to concept to song like a masterful improviser taking suggestions from an audience. The best examples here are the one-two punch of “Mall” and Side EFX,” the latter of which includes the instant-classic Gucci-ism “Bitch you thirsty like a cactus.” And he’s still got one of the best ears in rap. There’s not a miss among the beats here, and even Southside’s stranger choices reveal themselves as fitting backdrops for Gucci’s pop instincts. On “Sea Sick,” for instance, the rapper revs up his flow midway through the song, neutralizing the beat’s grating recorder sound by calling attention to its tempo instead of its pitch.

In the first week of 2018, Gato became Gucci’s 18th top 10 debut on the Billboard rap charts, tying a record held by middle-aged veterans E-40 and Tech N9ne. All of which is simply more evidence of the artistic benefits of clean living: When stable, Gucci easily approaches the realm of genius, consistently building hype for each new product. It’s no wonder that Gato, a platonic version of one of his early street mixtapes, has been able to stoke as much interest as the more commercial records he’s released lately. As Gucci has entered this new period of his life, he’s accomplished an extraordinary amount. It’s not gauche or even suspect to hope and pray that he keeps it up.