Ice Attack

the take

I felt a bit nostalgic when I revisited this Gucci Mane mixtape some time ago, as it brought me to a more curious time in my life in terms of music discovery. That said, I was kind of wondering if this project is still remotely decent after all this time. One of my biggest gripes about mixtapes during this era is the number of songs that appear on new projects after finding placements on older bodies of work. I'm not saying the tracks are bad, but I don't always feel the obligation to put these on a playlist or something. I'm okay with letting them rock if I'm playing "Ice Attack" from front to back and it goes with the DJ's mix nicely. "Stoopid", "Hold That Thought", and "Work Ya Wrist (Remix)" fall under the aforementioned category (but still knock). As for the rest of the mixtape as a whole, this is really the beginning of the era of prime Gucci Mane and Zaytoven. Gucci isn't the most skilled or lyrical rapper, but he stays in his lane, having fun on the microphone by spitting whatever's on his mind. His words doesn't always hold any weight, which is where Zay's beats help carry him to new heights, which isn't a bad thing. Gucci Mane has always been the most comfortable with Zaytoven, and that couldn't be any more evident here. Great examples include the following favorites to me: "Ice Attack", "Pillz", and "Benchwarmers". The majority of highlights on here is located in the second half of the tape, and the first half kind of drags on at certain points, but is worth getting through to reach the holy grails of Gucci's discography. Looking back, "Ice Attack" is actually better than I initially thought. Glad I ran this tape back for old time's sake.