Young Jeezy releases 'Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101'

Why it matters

Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101 came out on Corporate Thugz Entertainment/Def Jam on July 26, 2005. Young Jeezy (Jay Jenkins) at this point had been working the Atlanta trap-rap circuit for several years and had already built a substantial mixtape following with Trap or Die earlier that year. The album debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 and went platinum. The album is one of the architectural commercial records of the early Atlanta trap wave. The production roster is the early-trap dream team: Shawty Redd, Mannie Fresh, Don Cannon, Jazze Pha, Bangladesh. Jeezy's writing is direct, motivational, deliberately repeatable. "Soul Survivor" with Akon, "Standing Ovation," "And Then What" with Mannie Fresh. The big idea on Thug Motivation 101 (which would carry across Jeezy's next decade of records) is that hustle-rap could be inspirational in the way self-help books are inspirational, without losing the street specificity. Jeezy did not invent that mode; T.I. and Trick Daddy and others had been doing versions of it. But Jeezy consolidated it. By 2008 he had a song called "My President" celebrating Obama. You can chart the trap-rap arc through this album.