Who says Young Jeezy doesn’t like to do interviews [click to read]? While "Da Snowman" has a reputation for sometimes being impatient with prying press, preferring to not oblige inquiries into the origins of his street-hardened song lyrics and instead let his (thug) motivational music speak for itself, he was surprisingly eager to talk to HipHopDX recently.

Clearly Jeezy was excited to discuss his third Def Jam-sponsored solo album, The Recession, which is currently heating up the charts (after debuting at #1 in its opening week) as it rapidly races towards what will surely be a third platinum plaque for the man born Jay Jenkins. The Georgian spitter even showed his southern graciousness when asked to address the mixed reviews his latest long-player has received [click to read] and some of the criticisms about the album’s format and content.

Even when talk turned to more salacious topics, including if Rick Ross is one of his “pretenders” and who "Mr. 17.5’s" “mini-me’s” are, Jeezy remained calm and composed, skillfully dodging every trap laid for the “Trap Star” to talk recklessly. He maintained his measured openness while explaining why he isn’t “Jockin’ Jay-Z” when it comes to talking about this country’s currently devastated economy, if he was supposed to work with Eminem as rumored on The Recession, and why he’s cool with giving Barack Obama an extra big piece of his hard-earned cake if the Illinois Senator becomes President. And finally, Jeezy made it abundantly clear that simply talking about keeping it real is just that, talk.

HipHopDX: I wanna ask the most important question I have for you first, and that is when are you recording an entirely Don Cannon produced album? ‘Cause after “Go Crazy” and now “Circulate” [click to listen] a Don Cannon produced Jeezy album is officially a necessity.
Young Jeezy: Aww man, shit, you just put one on my mind. I don’t know, I might need to get in wit’ him, huh? Shit, I’m ‘bout to call him up, see what he wanna do. Yeah, that “Circulate” go hard though, I can’t even front. But I told him though, I was like, “You know, we did ‘Go Crazy,’ [click to read] we did all this other shit… ‘Mr. 17.5,’ [click to read] I say if we go back at it for this album we gotta make it better. It gotta be better than those two.” And I think he came wit’ it, man [click to view].

DX: Aww yeah, definitely. Now we don’t get to hear that sample-driven masterpiece until the halfway point on The Recession, and you’re getting some mixed reviews for that decision. Some folks think it’s great – a return to your first album’s sound – and some think stacking so many synth and 808 driven tracks one right after another makes everything sound alike. What do you say?
Young Jeezy: I mean, I think that’s Jeezy though, bruh. I think that’s what I’ma do. Like the cats that ride to my music and down with my movement… You gotta understand too, I’m from the south. So that’s our sound. That’s pretty much what we do. And I just think at the end of the day, it’s like when you buy a Jeezy record, you know you gonna get some of that. So I just kinda wanted to set it up so it kinda told a story. So that was the story I was telling until it got to… Like “Circulate” was at the middle point, now we talking to the masses.

DX: On “By The Way” you spit: “Turned a brick into a clothing line, a Boost commercial/And he’s still talkin’ yo, so who’s commercial?” Do you feel like The Inspiration’s sound was too commercial and you had to turn back to the darker, gritter sound of Thug Motivation for The Recession?
Young Jeezy: Uh nah, that’s just how I felt, mayne. You know, sometimes you wake up and you think out the box, and sometimes you wake up and you wanna be in the box. I woke up [and] I just wanted to go hard. My whole shit was like I wanted something that I would ride to, 100% guaranteed. And I just felt like that was the way, just do me and just do the best records I could do and just put ‘em together and just make that shit tell a whole story. It starts off with “The Recession” that’s talking about shit being fucked up, and it ends with “My President Is Black.” So it’s like throughout that whole shit it just tells a story.

DX: I wrote the review of The Inspiration [click to read] for XXL, but my editor reduced the XL rating I gave it to an L. I actually dug the more polished sounds of “Dreamin,” “Go Getta,” “What You Talkin’ ‘Bout,” etc, and thought Inspiration was better produced than Motivation. So will you ever rock to those kinds of productions again?
Young Jeezy: Oh of course, man. But it’s different [now] because it’s like a different game for me. It’s like you can give a nigga that, then he’ll want the other shit. So it’s just different, because I can do both. But this the catch though, a lot of muthafuckas can’t do both. They can just only stay in one lane. So I’m quite sure, like on my next album it’ll probably be some shit ain’t none of us ever heard because I wanna take it there. I wanna create a new sound. Continued on page 2 »