Young Jeezy - 1000 Grams Vol. 1 Mixtape (2010) [CTE] // Grade: C

Young Jeezy’s 1000 Grams Vol.1 opens with a minute long phone message. It’s oddly enough, a sort of a take on Mahatma Ghandi’s “Be the change you want to see”quote. He talks of getting money, and how his collection of wealth and stuntin’ should serve as a motivation for people to get money. Jeezy is talking about motivation through personification. The message is  set to music that sounds like an overture from The Last of the Mohicans score – that is to say epic, grandiose and swelling.  I could use these sentences to sum up all of Jeezy’s discography. This is why I celebrate his entire catalog.

The first real song on the mixture is “Death B4 Dishonor”, Jeezy over Rick Ross’ “B.M.F”– the most bombastic and chest puffing song on the radio in a couple of years. This is followed by “Choppa N Da Paint”, Jeezy over Waka Flocka Flame’s “Hard In Da Paint”, a song so gigantic and evil sounding that I’m sure at least 25% of violence in the south can, at least, be tangentially attributed to it. This is followed by “Dope Boy Swag”, Jeezy rapping over Soulja Boy’s “Pretty Boy Swag”, the plodding and sinister beat that was dedicated to male beauty. The first half of this tape finishes with “Powder”, Kanye’s “Power” reinterpreted as an ode to opulence through cocaine acquisition.

These tracks are where Jeezy is usually at home, these are the type of beats he’s owned over the last five years. Cold, boisterous and larger than life – he usually drops his patented brand of Tony Robbins via The Wire motivational philosophy, espousing hard work, a belief in self and amoral adherence to capitalism in it’s purest form.  But on this mixtape, Jeezy unfortunately doesn’t sound like he believes his own rhetoric.  It’s a lot of “hey, drug dealing makes you rich”, but missing the motivational elements that transcend actual drug dealing. Jeezy sounds like he’s on autopilot– there’s few punchlines and none of the subtlety that he usually has. In the rest of his work Jeezy has used his “Ha, Ha” ad-lib like Pikachu uses the syllables in his name – that’s to say a non linguistic form of communicating his emotional state. Expert Jeezy observers can distinguish between the jovial “Ha, Ha”, the pensive “Ha, Ha” and the saddened “Ha, Ha”. There’s only one kind of laugh on this mixtape.

The last song on the tape “Porsche Music”, feels like where Jeezy has been headed over the last two years. It’s Jeezy rhyming over a lush and soulful instrumental that contrasts perfectly to his gruff baritone. We’re used to him over the cold and synthetic beats like “B.M.F” where everything is dark and bleak. But, Jeezy recalling (creating) tales of drug deals and trafficking over a track that bleeds emotion sounds amazing and is the only track on this tape that needs to be on your “best of the Snowman” playlist. Hopefully, this song is a preview of whats to come on Thug Motivation: 103.

Download Young Jeezy’s 1000 Grams Vol. 1 (Click Here)

- Behold the Destroyer