How Gunna’s New Album Tackles His Snitching Allegations Head On

Certain songs, like “IDK Nomore,” fixate heavily on the fallout, as well as the seven months he spent incarcerated. “Took months without no syrup, ain’t no morе codeine in my liver,” he raps, implying that his time in jail helped him rid his body of the addictive substance. Elsewhere on the song, he’s rapping more opaquely about relationships turned frosty, which will surely fuel endless online speculation. “We burned the bridge and cut the ties and forever apart/And I know there be a time you really show who you are,” he says wistfully on the album outro.
On lead single “Bread & Butter,” Gunna labels a former friend a hypocrite for bashing him but being closely tied to someone with a history of cooperating with authorities. “You switched on me when you know you in business with a rat / And the boy that’s like your brother, ain’t nobody speak on that,” he raps. (Some have interpreted the lyrics to be about Lil Baby and Quality Control Music CEO Pierre “P” Thomas, though Gunna chafed at this speculation personally.)
With “Turned Your Back,” Gunna refutes rumors that he is looking to leave YSL for a new label home, something that he’s previously pushed back against via social media. “I heard the rumors sayin’ I’m packin’ up and flyin’ out / We ain’t goin’ nowhere, I’m stayin’ here, gon’ fight it out,” he pledges. Gift & A Curse is, of course, released through YSL and 300 Entertainment.
Perhaps no track is more direct in its opposition to the snitch narrative than “I Was Just Thinking,” which sees Gunna not only rapping about the isolation he felt while locked up (“Twenty-three and one, how you feel when you alone? / That’s four walls talkin’ to you, tellin’ you you gone”), an effective continuation of the moving open letter he penned from prison last June, but he also speaks to Young Thug directly. “Only I done cried ‘causе this feelin’ for my bro (King Slime) / And you know my mind, you done watched that n-ggaa grow / Know you hearin’ the lies that your lil’ brother might fold / Yeah, I had popped out, but don’t let ’em say I told,” he sings on the album’s penultimate record.
The final song, “Alright,” strikes a tricky tonal balance, with Gunna admitting to his emotional struggles in the wake of his release (“All I feel is pain, but it’s gon’ be alright / Dirt all on my name, say I’m wrong and I ain’t right”), but ultimately settling on a cautiously optimistic tone (“A lot of people changed, it won’t ever be the same / But it’s gon’ be alright”). It’s a logical note for the album to end on, as Gunna has his freedom, but an uncertain future at the center of hip-hop.
Gunna is rapping like the rent is due.
With his back against the ropes, Gunna comes out of the gates on Gift & A Curse rapping ferociously. In the past, his singsong cadences have occasionally suffered from drowsiness, making Gunna the least interesting part of a few of his own biggest songs.
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How Gunna’s New Album Tackles His Snitching Allegations Head On