Rapper Jeezy

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of maximumfun.org and is distributed by NPR.

**Jesse Thorn** (0:10)
It's Bullseye. I'm Jesse Thorn. In the early 2000s, when he was still in his 20s, he was young Jeezy. He was brash and audacious. On his major label debut, he called himself your favorite rapper's favorite rapper.
The beats back then, as you can hear, were also brash and audacious. Big orchestral hits, bold synth stabs, and then an 808 drum machine, always an 808, cranked up into the front of the mix.
That's trap music, an Atlanta original in its biggest, most bombastic form. And on those records, let's get it, Thug Motivation 101, The Inspiration, The Recession, Young Jeezy helped bring Trap to the mainstream. The production was groundbreaking, but as a rapper, what did Jeezy bring to the game? Well, there's that audacity we talked about, and his voice, gravelly, impossibly deep. And while he isn't the most intricate writer, he is immensely quotable. On Good Kid Mad City, Kendrick Lamar's masterpiece, Kendrick name drops and quotes Jeezy directly.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:42)
So what's that Jeezy song say?

**Jeezy** (1:44)
That's the last time I checked, I was the man on these streets.

**Jesse Thorn** (1:49)
Today, Jeezy is 48 He dropped the young from his name over a decade ago. When I talked to him in 2023, he had just published a book, Adversity for Sale, You Gotta Believe. These days, he's performing a residency in Las Vegas. You can see him at PH Live at Planet Hollywood. Here's a single from the man himself, MJ Jeezy.
Before we get into my interview with Jeezy, I do want to let you know that there are some heavy subjects in this conversation, drug use, violence, some other things. So if you or someone you're listening with is sensitive to that, we wanted to give you a heads up.
Jeezy, welcome to Bullseye. I'm so happy to have you on the show.

**Jeezy** (2:56)
Oh man, that was some great theme music right there.

**Jesse Thorn** (3:00)
I love, I'm going to be frank with you, I love it when I can see somebody were playing their record into the headphones and I can tell that they like it.

**Jeezy** (3:09)
Yeah.

**Jesse Thorn** (3:10)
You know what I mean? I like it when somebody is vibing with their own music.

**Jeezy** (3:13)
You know what I mean? Yeah, no, it's a vibe, man. I remember making that record and it was crazy. I was in for a lot of them because I used to hang down there when I was younger.
And when I started to gain some fame in the music business, I remember I went back and had this video shoot and all these kids kept screaming, Michael Jackson, Jeezy. And I'm like, yo, they're talking about me. And it became a thing in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. So every time I'm there and people see me out, they just call me Michael Jackson, Jeezy.

**Jesse Thorn** (3:45)
That's good. It's good to have a spring break nickname in Fort Lauderdale.

**Jeezy** (3:47)
Right.

**Jesse Thorn** (3:52)
Well, I really enjoyed your book. Thank you for it.

**Jeezy** (3:55)
Oh, man. I received that, brother.

**Jesse Thorn** (3:58)
Let's talk a little bit first about your childhood. Your father was in the service, and a lot of the time, he didn't live with your family or you didn't live with him. But you did live with him for a time when you were little.

**Jeezy** (4:15)
Yeah. So we lived together until my parents got a divorce.
So I lived in Hawaii. I lived in Japan and a few other places. And when they got a divorce, that's when I went back to South Georgia.

**Jesse Thorn** (4:30)
How old were you when you lived in Japan?

**Jeezy** (4:33)
I can't remember the age. I was young, maybe nine, 10, something like that. I came back to South Georgia around the time that I was 13, 14, maybe 15 years old.

**Jesse Thorn** (4:43)
I can't even, like on the one hand, I can imagine going to Japan at nine or 10 in the sense that when you're nine or 10, you're still figuring out who you are as an independent human being and how the world works. So maybe the fact that the whole world is upside down is not as big of a deal.
But on the other hand, you're still figuring out who you are and how the world works. So the whole world being upside down is a completely gigantic deal. You know what I mean?

**Jeezy** (5:12)
Well, what it was, was I was removed from what I knew, which was my comfort zone, a family, the neighborhood, grandma was cooking. And I basically was put somewhere that I had to adjust. And what I did was took a lot of the bad habits that I already had and just really went to work there because it was like new territory. And the thing that happened that was significant when my parents got divorced and I had to move back there.