1017 Brick Squad Records

Yesterday, a subculture despised by all; today, rap is the new mainstream. Music for the masses, owing everything to its New York hip-hop origins and the strip clubs of Atlanta, where rap became trap. Trap, the monstrous baby of the streaming industry, appeared so quickly that its origins aren’t quite clear. Who first spoke about trap in their music? Who, in Atlanta, claims that crown?

Is there a seminal artist to whom trap owes everything? Obviously not. That would be too easy. The style is a mix of many references and proto-trap musical experiences happening outside of Georgia, from UGK of Texas, to Memphis’ Three 6 Mafia, through to Big Tymers of Louisiana. However, it is a young trap artist from Atlanta – T.I. – who is officially recognised as being the one to have baptized the genre, naming one of his studio albums Trap Muzik (his second release, from 2003).

But an alternative, and much funnier, origin story exists. And it allows us to enter the world of trap music via one man – Gucci Mane, armed with his label, Brick Squad. 

Gucci is the Joker to rap’s Gotham – a teacher's son gone mad after killing one of his attackers in an historic clash that mixed him up with Young Jeezy. Gucci, an uncontrollable guy whose flow is as malleable as a slime ball, would – alongside T.I. and Jeezy – build the trap sound we know today. And like the Joker, he had a plan: become the mogul of Atlanta, its artistic director, the official mayor of the city. And Guwop, the Trap God, who alternates between prison and studio sessions, has succeeded. Knowing the importance of self-organisation, he created So Icey in 2007 which would soon become 1017 Records, better known as Brick Squad.

From his luxurious base, pumped full of steroids and promethazine, he would sign, discover, and set loose almost everyone on the current scene. He discovered Migos. Future, Young Thug, French Montana, Young Dolph and Young Scooter – they’re his too, as well as Waka Flocka Flame, OJ da Juiceman, Peewee Longway, Wooh Da Kid…For Mister Zone 6 the list goes on.

Few know it, but if Nicki Minaj knows how to rap, it's because Gucci taught her. A pioneer of MCs, the Trap God also discovered a plethora of producers: Southside, Lex Luger, the barber’s boy Zaytoven and Metro Boomin' have all walked through Bricksquad’s corridors. Did you know that Mike Will Made It was nurtured by Guwop?

Essentially, from 2005 to 2015, to break into the Atlanta scene, you had to catch Gucci Mane’s eye. Bricksquad is very much like it’s boss: colourful and unpredictable, sometimes vicious, but always spectacular.