Nearly six months removed from being released from jail last December, Gunna is finally back to putting on music.
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At midnight ET on Friday (June 2), the Atlanta-bred emcee delivered “bread & butter,” which he used to clear the air about his handling of the racketeering case brought against his record label Young Stoner Life and its boss Young Thug.
Produced by Turbo, who previously worked with Gunna for hits like “Drip Too Hard” and “Sold Out Dates” with Lil Baby and “Yosemite” with Travis Scott, “bread & butter” sees Gunna employ his patented gentle rapping over powerful trap drums.
In the song’s hook, Gunna discusses how people close to him ended up being absent when he was at his lowest point mentally, specifically during his legal battles.
Yeah, I’m right back and I lost mad commas
I had been down bad inside a dark tunnel, yeah
Fuck them boys, I found out who my real partners
And who was only with me ’cause I had dollars
Additionally, the verses of “bread & butter” see Gunna address allegations that he “snitched” on his fellow YSL label-mates by taking an Alford plea of guilt, in turn hurting Young Thug’s chances at earning freedom. Indirectly, he appears to single out his former beloved collaborator Lil Baby, who dissociated himself from Gunna after he was released from jail.
Gunna calls out Baby for his apparent hypocrisy, considering the head of Baby’s label Quality Control, Pierre Thomas, was revealed to have cooperated with police officers during a 2010 Atlanta murder case that involved his friend.
Peepin’ shit, I’m seein’ n****s fall back
You bitch-ass n****s got me as the topic of the chat
You switched on me when you know you in business with a rat
And the boy that’s like your brother, and nobody speak on that
Along with Baby, Lil Durk also separated himself from Gunna recently. Durk, who worked with Gunna for hits like “What Happened to Virgil?” and “Off White VLONE,” said during a recent interview with hip-hop personality DJ Akademiks that Gunna was a “rat.”
“That man told. You should’ve went in there and kept your mouth closed… If you a rat, I fuckin’ hate you. Cause I love Thug,” he said.
The release of “bread & butter” comes after Gunna recently previewed two unreleased songs via Instagram. Earlier this year, Akademiks reported that Gunna is working on a new album, so perhaps these snippets he’s been teasing will join “bread & butter” on a potential track list for an upcoming project.
The last time we heard from Gunna musically was when he put out his single “Banking On Me” on Valentine’s Day in 2022, a month after he dropped his third studio album DS4EVER, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. With his return on Friday and the potential for another LP soon, Gunna’s new era will likely be full of intriguing storylines, as his longtime friend Young Thug still awaits trial in Georgia for his racketeering charges.
(Photo by Kevin Mazur/MG22/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue )
