Young Jeezy swears he’s not a rapper, let alone a rap star. With the release of his sophmore album, the self-professed motivational speaker moves closer to being a bona fide lyricist. Just don’t ask him to relax.
Young Jeezy is a simple man. He has no diamond fronts in his mouth, wears no flashy, colorful T–shirts, and his sneakers look like they might actually have been worn more than once. His face is slim; his body is slight. (He’s lost 30 pounds in the past two years.) But the unassuming look does not mean he has the time or the inclination to sit for an interview.
“How long is this story supposed to be?” Jeezy barks at me.
About 2,000 words.
He strokes his chin and turns his eyes to the ceiling.
“How many pages is that?” Jeezy asks.
About four…
Jeezy sits up straight at a mixing board at Manhattan’s Sony Music Studios and folds his hands together.
“I got shit to do,” he says softly. “Let’s just do a one–page story. How long you need to talk to me for that?”
It’s a bit unusual for an entertainer to shun the press, but after just hosting a listening session for The Inspiration, Jay “Young Jeezy” Jenkins’s highly anticipated sophomore major–label album, it’s perfectly understandable why he is not interested in speaking with someone from GIANT. If you’re reading this magazine, the 29–year–old Jeezy doesn’t make music for you. His straight–from–the–gut perspective on street life is fine–tuned and earmarked for one constituency and one constituency only: drug dealers. If you’re not on the block (or in Jeezy’s parlance, “the trap”), then your enjoyment of his music is merely a by–product of his commercial success.
