The other day I saw Gucci Mane sneering at me from the cover of the latest issue of The Source and was completely helpless, so I bought it without pause: Gucci Mane is too much to resist.
Gucci Mane (born Radric Davis), for those unlucky enough to not be in the know, is a rapper (longtime readers will remember this from the intro column).
That is to say that Gucci Mane is one who raps.
That is to say that he is one who often says words in an order such that they sometimes rhyme and often sound connected, related and clever.
He doesn't have much talent to speak of, but he is sort of the best. Gucci Mane personifies the old maxim that showing up is 50 percent of success. He releases mixtapes at an astronomical rate: On Oct. 17, 2009, he released three mixtapes (all equally great and hypnotizingly stupid) for free, the Cold War trilogy of "BRRRussia," "Great BRRRitain" and "Guccimerica." It's moves like those, coupled with Gucci's whole demeanor (the constant repetition of his catchphrase, "Brrr!", the tattoo of an ice cream cone on his face and his general success) that make many wonder if somehow Gucci might actually be a genius.
Or maybe he's just some idiot who hit on the cultural zeitgeist.
Or maybe being the most brash and brazen is the other 50 percent of success.
Whatever it is, Gucci Mane is inarguably successful. But success doesn't come without detractors. For every Gucci fan, there is a Gucci hater. Every time I want to call him a genius, I also want to call him an idiot.
Contemplating my own relationship with Gucci Mane, I opened the April issue of The Source. The first thing I saw was a pull-quote from the rapper himself: "I actually welcome [criticism] as a part of success. I don't want everybody to like me."
It's like Katt Williams says: You need haters to know that you're doing something right. It takes something notable and worthwhile to make people pay attention long enough to open their mouths and say something nasty.
Whenever Gucci does anything, rap commentators get up in arms either defending or lambasting him. He is quite possibly the most divisive figure in hip-hop today. And it's this very divisiveness that makes him so unifying, because we can all agree that Gucci is important: Love him or hate him, he means something.
He closely follows in the footsteps of figures like Galileo Galilei, Che Guevara, Ronald Regan, Malcolm X and Jesus Christ, and his revolution is in the name of gangster rap.
But Gucci isn't the only one with haters. Lately, I've been lucky enough to have some of my own (to quote Maino, "Hi Hater!"). I've written "Makes it Rain" for a full academic year now, and over that time I've gotten plenty of positive feedback and encouraging words, but more excitingly, just as many nasty emails, comments and remarks.
Each barb fuels the fire, and I wish I could trade some of the random people who have stopped to chat after recognizing me from my ridiculous columnist picture for another Internet schmuck to tell me that I suck.
I'm not going to pretend that a couple of detracting comments are the same as an entire community saying that I'm an idiot, but I get the sense that that would be empowering. Gucci doesn't let the hate stop him for a minute, though: There is a track on "The Return of Mr. Zone 6," Gucci's latest album, called "This is What I Do." He makes no apologies for what he does, merely stating that he does it.
And come to think of it, actually, that sounds stunningly similar to something that a man much more divisive than Gucci (or I) once said: "I am that I am."
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Mitchell Geller is a senior majoring in psychology and English. He can be reached at Mitchell.Geller@Tufts.edu.
