Young Jeezy Changes His Thug Motivation With The Times

The folks on Capitol Hill aren't the only ones focused on the world financial crisis. Young Jeezy is well aware of the economic woes of the day, which play a role in his upcoming album TM 103.

Starting with his 2005 debut album, Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101, Jeezy stood as a voice of the streets his entire career. In 2006, he dropped The Inspiration: Thug Motivation 102 and two years after he dropped his third LP, The Recession. On September 20, the Snowman will return to motivate the thugs on his oft-delayed TM 103, and for him the evolution of the TM album reflects the hard times that many Americans have fallen upon.

"TM 101 dropped at a time when money was so plentiful that you could've had too much of it at some point, and everybody was happy," Jeezy told on Tuesday while backstage in Atlanta at the second of his Thug Motivation 101 six-year anniversary concerts. "Everybody was flamboyant, everybody was living, and nowadays it ain't like that. So when I dropped TM 101, my whole focus was, we're gonna get this money and that's what it's about. We're gonna get this money, we're gonna live life, we're gonna have fun."

In 2011, people can't spend money as frivolously as they once did, so Jeezy wasn't about to stick to the old topics.

"The evolution of that, 103 is more sort of like situations, like, OK, yeah we got to the money, we lost it two or three times, but what are we gonna do to maintain?" Jizzle asked before rattling off a few more hypothetical questions. "Are we gonna maintain? Are we gonna get back? Are we gonna stay focused on the get back, or we gonna get off track? Are we gonna pay attention to what they're talkin' about, or pay attention to what we need to do? That's what the evolution is about."

The Georgia rapper has seen his music labeled as trap rap — a brand of hip-hop that focuses primarily on the Southern drug dealer. While that is a fair assessment of Young Jeezy's sound on the surface, the rapper also believes that he is spreading a motivational message that can help his fans make it through their own trials and tribulations. It's a musical tactic that he credits to the late Tupac Shakur.

"It's about knowing what to do. When I was growin' up and I was listening to 'Pac, all his situations apply to me today. I never knew that, I was just listening to the music and I thought it was good music," Jeezy said. "Everything that he said applies to me today. Keep ya enemies close, money over bitches — that's real talk."