TheLegendsLeague | Bryan Espiritu

The Death of the Free Gucci Mane Tee

By now you all know about this shirt that I designed a while back. It’s been on a few of your favorite sites, including Nah Right, Urban Outfitters, and Octobers Very Own, and has been bootlegged by numerous, non-creative money leeches across North America, and I’m sure in parts spattered around the globe. And why not? It’s a great combination of visual irony and the feelings of Gucci Mane fans everywhere.

Free Gucci Mane.

Whether he deserves to be freed isn’t arguable as far as I’m concerned. But I’m not a judge. I’m just a graphic designer with some ideas and interpretations of things that I like to translate into social commentary via my clothing line, your clothing line, the clothing line that everyone loves to love and some people love to not like, Ideall Clothing. The Official Clothing Line of TheLegendsLeague!

(insert applause).

Since the release of this tee, the response and demand for it has been amazing. But after selling out of my first run, I vowed never to reprint the shirt, which was really only made as a response to a conversation with a young man you may have heard of named, Drake.

You see, initially we were gonna make a “Gucci Mane Saved My Life” tee. But then the law’s flailing hammer dropped on Radric Davis and I got some ideas to do what I did how I did it. And then it was done. “And the crowd went wild, as if Holyfield had just won the fight.”

As time passed, the demand for the tee resulted in my flooded inbox, some heavily chuckled laughter, and the occasional night spent twiddling my fingers like a crafty conspirator planning to overtake the world. And then, the inevitable happened. He violated his probation.

Quickly, the thoughts started racing in my head. They want it! They need it! And who has it? I had it! Do you feel the power? Do you feel it?!!!!!

So the calls were made. (All 2 of them). And production was a-go for another swift run of the brilliant T-Shirt once bound to an indefinite state of moratorium.

It was like the ghost had been risen! The creation, rebirthed! The cash registers overflowing with life! It was an intense feeling of passion and emotion and a touch of lust, with a stroke of genius.

(Well, not really. But it makes for good story telling.)

And then, my own inevitable flailing law hammer came crashing down on me.

I was sent a letter from the litigation counsel to Warner Bros. Records, Inc. to immediately put a stop to the production and sale of the globally adored and locally confusing “Free Gucci Mane” tee.

(insert somber tune)

The dream was over. All hopes to make a cool million off of graphic design and visual irony based on the short comings of others and the sentiment of their fans had been crushed by the one thing that assisted in my Frankenstein creation. The long arm of the Law!

Drat!

So I hopped into the car and drove slowly home, down side streets and scenic routes that were sure to cast long shadows and solar flares into the affordable sedan I had used that day to pick up my mail, while I listened to songs of slow and emotional anguish, only sparingly interrupted by the abrasive sound of a drum. Thump Thump. (That was my bleeding heart by the way. Not the drum.)

As I walked into my office, I deleted the shirt from IdeallClothing.com, the site (which now features NEW Manila Guerilla tees, a NEW Must Do It tee, and the NEW Clipse x Wristpect FullyWholly tee), I sent the remainder of the stock flying into my fireplace, lit solely by the heat of my pain, and I sat, quietly reminiscing over what we once had.

Me and the Free Gucci Mane Shirt, that is.

It was nice.
It was painful.
But such is life.
My little angel.

(I actually just wrote that poem right now. Don’t steal it for your break-ups you thieves!)

So, that’s it. The Death of the Free Gucci Mane Tee.

Those of you who own this piece, consider yourselves owners of a piece of Ideall Clothing’s short history. Those who don’t, I’m sure someone at a flea market somewhere at a hood near you will be recreating it. And those of you who don’t even care about this shit enough to have read this silly sob story, go on with your day. There is more to life than those of us who record it through the arts for the sake of your entertainment.

With LLove&Respect as usual,
be.
- O.G. Creator of the Free Gucci Mane Tee.