Crib Notes

Back when we included Fabo of D4L in the 2007 CL music issue, he seemed like the member of the Bankhead snap rap clique who was most likely to blow — not the D4L boss and former trap star Shawty Lo, who wound up dropping two solo albums and garnering a strong regional following in recent years. Fabo was also the member who drew the most criticism, mainly from hip-hop purists who felt the “Laffy Taffy” sound and Fabo’s colorful dances were destined to kill the culture.

But just when it seemed his detractors were about to get the last laugh, Fabo disappeared into the ether.

In the video clip above, he stops to talk to MTV’s Shaheem Reid on the red carpet of the ’09 BET Hip-Hop Awards, filmed in Atlanta earlier this month, and tells him that he returned to high school to get his diploma and is currently studying “business and management” at Ashworth College in Georgia.

I’m getting great grades. I ain’t no honor roll student or nothing like that, but I’m making it. I’m trying to better myself, not wanting this to be the last stop for me. Having a couple of more kids and watching them grow, being there with them. I been in the streets all my life, it’s time to do something for me and my family, you feel me? So I went back to school. That’s a great thing!” (more…)

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ON THE GRIND: Only hours after being released from jail in March, Gucci Mane hit the recording studio.

DOWNLOAD Gucci’s latest mixtape, Writing On the Wall

During his latest stint in jail, Radric Davis spent much of his time contemplating how he could change his life. The veteran Atlanta rapper known as Gucci Mane had built a tremendous regional following based on his oft-autobiographical songs about partying, drug trafficking and street conflict. But the same lifestyle he rhymed about had repeatedly landed him behind bars, ironically stifling his hopes for national fame.

“I got a lot of ideas together,” he says of the six months he served for violating the terms of his probation, stemming from a 2005 incident in which he beat a promoter with a pool cue. “It was a time for me to refocus. I took it and made the best out of a bad situation.” He devoured all of the inspirational material he could get his hands on, he says, from the Bible and rap magazines to a title from the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

Continue reading “Fresh from jail, Gucci Mane’s star has peaked”

(Photo by Donna Permell)

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(SEE PHOTO GALLERY OF TODAY’S SENTENCING PRESS CONFERENCE)

A funny thing happened to Clifford “T.I.” Harris in the year leading up to the sentence hearing, held earlier today, on his federal firearms conviction: the 27-year-old Atlanta rapper turned his life around — and, apparently, a lot more lives in the process.

T.I. declared it so. His team of defense attorneys agreed. Even former Ambassador Andrew Young and Bishop Eddie Long said they recognized the change in him when they addressed the court on the defendant’s behalf.

But perhaps it was best acknowledged by U.S. District Judge Charles A. Pannell, Jr. when he told T.I., “I congratulate you on the work you’ve done so far. If you had failed I would’ve sent you to prison [and] I would’ve probably held Mr. Nahmias out the window of the 23rd floor.”

Everyone in the courtroom laughed at that, including David E. Nahmias, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. Without his belief that society could be better served by sticking T.I. with 1,500 hours of community service rather than the four to six years of fed time warranted by the crime, the mood in that courtroom — located on the 23rd floor of the Richard B. Russell Federal Building — would’ve been quite different today.

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