As you may have gathered from the headline, I have an unhealthy obsession with Gucci Mane. If you don’t know who he is, here’s a quick summary: rapper from Atlanta, grunts a lot, has a posse of weed carriers that yell BURRRRR at the top of their lungs throughout most songs, likes wearing jewelry, has a penchant for all things yellow, releases songs at such a rate that make Lil’ Wayne look lazy, smokes blunts a-plenty and has expensive taste in everything. He has also just been released from jail, for, let’s say, the second time. I know what you’re thinking. Not really all that different a story from most rappers, right? Well, I’m not going to call you racist, but I am going to tell you that you’re wrong.

Gucci Mane is incredibly unique in an incredibly subtle way. It’s not even that he has any songs that are particularly outstanding, or particularly different from 90% of the below-par southern rap out there. Gucci may have a galactic ego, but this is nothing new either. It’s more the way that he goes about his trade, rather than anything else. He doesn’t seem to be bothered with highlighting his punchlines in his rap. Or anything, really. It’s all terribly lackadaisical. Everything, and I mean everything, falls out of his heavily sedated mouth in the exact same monotone pitch. Finding his best lines are kind of like finding the Where’s Wally of rap, and just as rewarding when you do.

And, as I’ve alluded to already, the thematic trends of his rhymes generally pertain to what’s on his wrist, how swell his car is, degrading the opposite sex, shooting people, getting shot, how large and phallic his chain is etc. The thing is, he just does it better than most. He also only changes the tempo of his rhymes in very subtle ways, depending on the beat (which is mostly noticeably cheap and tinny sounding). The main point here being is that whilst it’s nothing revolutionary, you never get bored of it. It lulls you in. Gucci Mane is the Medusa of southern rap.

Listening to Gucci at times though, you do fear that may have a perilously low IQ. It’s true, to some extent, that most of his critics call him a retarded grunter. But deep down, if you delve into his unique monotone cadence (and trust me, I have done this plenty), you get the distinct, autistic kind of vibe that he might just be some kind of genius.

More than all of this though, some of his rhymes make me chortle, lol, rofl, what have you. “You are not the owner of that car that is a loaner / I got money stacks that’s tall as you cause that’s just my persona”. Oh Gucci! But I can’t say that I approve of his peculiar, unhealthy obsession with the colour yellow. Yellow wouldn’t even make my top 5 colours of all time. But who am I to question the tastes of a man who has a penchant for wearing gigantic bejeweled Bart Simpson chain around his neck. So hey, I’m just gonna let that slide.

Most of his clips seem to be instruction videos on how to make a rap video. This I enjoy. There’s always the perfect quota of “dancing women”, chains, insults, and most importantly, muscle-bound-weed-carriers menacingly lurking in the background, flailing their angry limbs at the camera.I’m just glad that prison has released him at last so that he can humour me some more before someone shoots him. Gucci Mane is a good man.