\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div> \n\tAfter a little back and forth with them, they finally agreed to it. When the needle reached my skin and I felt nothing, the defeat returned to my body. I just sat there while the artist inked me up. When it was finished, I looked in the mirror. The tattoo looked much bigger than I\u2019d imagined it would be. There were some red lightning bolts coming out of the top of the ice cream into my brow line, because I\u2019d said I wanted some rock \u2019n\u2019 roll shit. Well, there it was. By the time I walked into Patchwerk, everyone knew about the tattoo. The news had already spread. Before the day even ended, people were randomly showing up to the studio to stare at my face.<\/p>\n \n\tI got a call from somebody. I think it was someone from my record label.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cYou\u2019re a marketing genius,\u201d he said. \u201cThis was so smart of you to do.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIt wasn\u2019t just my label, either. People around me seemed to be so impressed by this move. I had never felt more offended by a bunch of compliments. I was mad at myself and <\/em>them for it. Deep down that ice cream cone on my face was an act of rebellion, but it was also a cry for help. I didn\u2019t exactly do it to make the judge understand that I was having a mental health crisis, but I did want the world to recognize it. I wanted everyone to see that I was in distress. If the headlines said that I was crazy, then this was me confirming it.<\/p>\n \n\tNobody did.<\/p>\n \n\tInstead, the whole situation went viral, from going to jail, to (briefly) being committed, to getting the ice cream cone tattooed on my face. These were all bad things, but somehow they were made good in the eyes of the people being amused by them. Locally, I felt that the most. In Atlanta, people were watching me like I was in a comedy skit. People I knew were trying to come see me, just so they could see the tattoo. Sometimes they would tell other friends, \u201cAye, bring Gucci over here,\u201d just so they could look at my tattoo. They didn\u2019t think, Man, what\u2019s going on with him? Is he okay? <\/em>No, they just wanted to see what I did to my face. I believe in my heart that they knew I was in a fucked-up place; it was impossible not to see that. Meanwhile, I was just stumbling around, showing off my face, and feeling disgusting inside. People interviewed the tattoo artist about my visit, so he got his little fame off it. I didn\u2019t even remember pictures being taken during the ink, but they were. And even in those pictures of me getting the tattoo and right after I got it, you can see the numb look on my face. I look like I\u2019m not even there. My eyes are in a daze. I would never have made that decision if I was thinking rationally or processing what was going on around me. It\u2019s like you\u2019d never catch me walking into some barbershop because I saw a sign that said \u201cHaircuts,\u201d and yet I went and did this to my face at a place that said \u201cTattoos.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tI remember Martin Luther King Jr. Day was just a few weeks after I got the tattoo, and so people took photos of Dr. King and put my ice cream cone tattoo on his face. That picture showed up on party flyers in Atlanta, and it was all over the internet. I even had fans who went and got the same tattoo on their <\/em>faces! Everyone thought I\u2019d crafted the greatest plot twist of all, where I flipped the news in my favor and had my fans all in on it too.<\/p>\n \n\tAll it cost me was my dignity.<\/p>\n \n\tThe reality was everyone saw dollar signs, so eventually I did too. Now those party flyers were leading to packed nights at the club for the promoters. I was getting shows booked on the strength of people wanting to show up and see this tattoo in person. I was sitting in the middle of a downward spiral, and I was being congratulated for it. On top of that, people saw an opportunity to make some money off me. That\u2019s when I believe the manipulation started. My rates for appearances on songs started dropping, not because of the dip in my popularity. If anything, I was getting even more <\/em>popular now that I had this thing on my face. But it was easier to negotiate on my behalf if I wasn\u2019t lucid enough to chime in. So let\u2019s say, for example, a Gucci Mane feature was $20,000 on any given day. I had people around me making deals for a Gucci feature for $10,000, and then they would pocket $2,000 for a commission. If they asked me for a verse, I\u2019d just record one and hand it off. When I say I had no idea what was going on, I mean it. The one thing I could do effectively was record a verse.<\/p>\n \n\tEven in my worst state, I could do that much.<\/p>\n \n\tI could also show up to local places and do these little performances. I couldn\u2019t travel far, not with my probation. I was unfit for travel even if I could tour. People around me still wanted to make their money, so they started booking me for club appearances in Atlanta. That gave fans an opportunity to see the tattoo in person. People started telling the clubs they had to pay a fee\u2014like $10,000, for example\u2014and they\u2019d deduct $2,500 from it and have me thinking it was just $7,500 to show up. Then when I\u2019d get to the club, some of my other \u201cfriends\u201d would show up and I\u2019d just start handing out money. The next day, people would say to me, \u201cDo you remember handing each of your friends $1,000 a piece last night?\u201d I didn\u2019t. Nobody was giving that money back, knowing I had no idea what I was doing, and knowing that I had no business being in the club like that. I was never the type of person to walk through some small club for $10,000 and then lose half the money by the end of the night. That just wasn\u2019t me, but I wasn\u2019t there mentally.<\/p>\n \n\tSo really, did Gucci Mane even show up?<\/p>\n \n\tA few months later, in April, I was arrested again for an incident that happened back in January. I didn\u2019t even remember it happening, but I knew it was going to have major repercussions for me, given the charge. This time, I tried to do right. I entered into a ninety-day rehab program, and I dried myself out. I dressed respectably for the hearing, and I tried my best to show that I was a changed man. I showed them all of the music I\u2019d released and how productive I was. I had mental health professionals with me, explaining to them that the drugs mixed with a mental health condition assisted in the crimes, but I was off the drugs now. I wanted to prove to the courts that I could really change and that I didn\u2019t need jail, I just needed a little help. But by then it was too late, and they weren\u2019t going to listen. It was one thing when my attorney was telling them I wasn\u2019t in a good mental place to be tried, but it was another for them to have me sober so that they could sentence me and I could feel it and hear it with a clear mind.<\/p>\n \n\tThey sentenced me to six months in jail.<\/p>\n \n\tI think about those white kids who shoot up schools and are considered \u201cmentally ill\u201d and put into facilities instead of prisons. How people want to call them \u201ctroubled\u201d and say that we should all feel sorry for them because they are going through things due to their mental health, even if the lives of other kids were lost. How even the courts will sympathize with them. And then there\u2019s me: a young Black man with clear mental health issues, committing what I\u2019d like to believe were far lesser crimes and being constantly thrown into jail with a mood disorder diagnosis. I felt it on both sides. My probation officer was a Black woman who I felt very obviously didn\u2019t like me. I felt she was jealous and spiteful. She didn\u2019t seem to like how I made my money, and she made that very clear. And then we had the old white judge, a man who didn\u2019t look at me, he looked through me. I had no one on my side in that equation, whether they looked like me or not. Sometimes I wonder if the court was just as amused to give a jail sentence to a Black man with an ice cream cone on his face as the people around me were to stare at it.<\/p>\n \n\tI didn\u2019t need to be in jail or prison, but I didn\u2019t need to be out there roaming the streets either. Part of me feels like the judicial system was just so sick of me. They got tired of me showing up to court after committing some crime and then being thrown back into jail and back out on the streets a short while after that. I was a celebrity, but still a civilian who had to have jail time and probation, just like everyone else. The courts didn\u2019t want to hear about my mental health woes, but they knew they couldn\u2019t have me stand trial in an altered state, either, so once I was lucid, it was game on. They didn\u2019t sympathize with me or see that I needed real medical attention with consistency. They just saw me as this guy with no regard for the law whatsoever, so what should they do? Punish me. I do believe that the healthcare system cared enough to want to help me, they just didn\u2019t know how to do it. The hope was that a doctor would evaluate me and say, \u201cLook, he has bipolar disorder, and during these episodes he commits these crimes of aggression.\u201d It might have been the correct diagnosis to save me from the spiral. That wasn\u2019t what happened. Instead, they said that my drug abuse made me spiral and become violent. Maybe that was true, but their solution was for me to simply \u201cstop taking drugs and you won\u2019t have those episodes.\u201d That wasn\u2019t true either. Not when I had a lingering mental health condition. When I was in that spiral and feeling like nothing was helping to bring me joy, pain, sadness . . . anything outside of anger . . . telling me to stop taking drugs would only make me want to start taking them even more.<\/p>\n \n\tThe truth is: I should never have been released from the mental health facility. I should never have been given that option. I wasn\u2019t well at all, and the tattoo was the visual representation of that. I was spiraling, and I can say now that I was in a psychotic episode, but at the time I didn\u2019t even know that I was in it. I don\u2019t doubt that other people could tell, but they still let me out to wander the streets. Even before the ice cream cone, people saw me getting more and more tattoos on my face and nobody asked any questions. I should have been scolded for leaving the hospital. I should have been told to stay there and figure my shit out, and after I got the tattoo I should have been advised even more strongly to seek treatment. But when you\u2019re feeling numb and that act of rebellion becomes something everyone loves (even if it\u2019s for the wrong reasons), you start to believe it was a good idea too. You start buying into the \u201cmarketing genius\u201d of it all.<\/p>\n \n\tWhat\u2019s worse is that my team watched this all go down, and I don\u2019t recall that anybody ever said a word. I\u2019m not holding everyone accountable here; I\u2019m sure they were good people at the end of the day. But I think after the tattoo incident and more jail time, everyone kind of gave up on me before even trying to save me. It was almost like they saw this man falling apart, so how could they figure out how to keep the business moving? I was clearly in a daze.<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s embarrassing to think about it all now, but what it really signiied was that through all of this\u2014through all of those viral moments, show appearances, songs, tattoos, crimes, whatever\u2014I still felt nothing. I desperately wanted something to \u201cwake me up,\u201d because I felt like I was asleep the whole time.<\/p>\n