The dozen or so cop cars all swooped in at once.
“It was so synchronized,” Tauheed Epps, the Grammy-winning hip-hop artist and entrepreneur known as 2 Chainz, told an audience at Atlanta’s Tara Theater recently in a tone tinged with nostalgia and awe. “Doors opened up at the same time. It was almost beautiful, but it wasn’t.”
He said he witnessed the police arriving from the front window of a dope house where, as a 12-year-old, he’d been serving as a lookout. Before he could react, he said, law enforcement with battering rams had knocked into the building so hard he felt the foundation convulse.
As he described the moment for the audience as a whole, he looked directly at a few faces in particular. His mother, Chavon Spears, sat in the first row along with other family members. “I’d like to apologize,” he told them in his trademark drawl. “You know, as a 12-year-old lookout man, I should have gave you all a heads up.”
“Have mercy,” one of the front row attendees shouted amid chuckles from the rest of the room. The apology landed as half-joke, half-truth with the archness that he’s known for in his music. This event was a promotion for “The Voice in My Head Is God,” his memoir that debuted this month as a New York Times best seller, but in his hometown it was greeted by affirmative nods, claps and crowd feedback befitting a preacher’s sermon.
He peppered the night with moments of revelation — crises splashed with comedy — that are hallmarks of his nearly 30-year rap career. His semi-biographical tales of thriving through a mix of hard work, skill and intuition stood out among a genre filled with hustlers because his punchlines were punchier than most. His breakout verse, on the platinum-selling 2007 single “Duffle Bag Boy,” has him entering the Gucci store by announcing, “Honey, I’m home.” He turns the name of the luxury brand Givenchy into a believable sneeze on “All Me” (2013).
Now, at 48, 2 Chainz is, like many of hip-hop’s elders, charting a next act. He leveraged rap fame and his business acumen to open restaurants, a strip club and a nail salon and secure an ownership stake in the local College Park Skyhawks, a team in the N.B.A.’s developmental G League. The memoir felt like a way to broaden the audience for his storytelling.
“I have so much more to offer,” 2 Chainz told the audience. “It was important that I had a book that tapped into an audience outside of hip-hop.” The process started with 2 Chainz collecting stories from his life, sharing them with his co-writer, Derrick Harriell, and finding the common themes of trauma or celebration.
“I can’t write no book like this at 20, even 30,” he said. “I gotta have lived through some stuff. I gotta make my mistakes. I gotta win enough to get the wisdom part and then I gotta lose enough to speak honestly.”
One theme came up often. “Intuition is very real for me,” he said while decked out in dark glasses, adorned in chains and wearing a Nautica Challenge Jacket and Balenciaga shoes and socks. “I almost feel like it was like a secret sauce or almost like a cheat sheet.”
He said he had not listened to his intuition when he tried buying new rims one day back in the 1990s as an Alabama State University scholar athlete (he played basketball there). The would-be seller “being ugly is what warned me that this could not go. When you look like that, you’ll be having a hard time,” 2 Chainz said.
The man tried to rob him.
He adhered to his intuition when he left a studio where he recorded early in his career. The location doubled as a dope spot and, after he learned an electricity bill there had gone unpaid, 2 Chainz was spooked.
“Cause look, don’t nobody know we back here selling dope, but Georgia Power know we stealing lights,” he said. Someone shot up the studio days later, he said.
A few of the stories 2 Chainz recalled for the book surprised even his mother, who described him as having always been smart and curious. She spoke with one eye trained on an audience member who had brought a cat to the theater. “I’m scared of cats,” she said.
After the event, she shared a bit about their lives. “We had a ratchet past,” Spears said. “His father in and out of prison, single parent trying to raise him. With the help of God, we were able to do that.” She added, referring to the memoir: “I think it was kind of like therapy for him to get it out and move on.”
After the event, 2 Chainz went back to working on music in his studio, which is decorated by framed jerseys of sports stars like LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard and music awards he’s won. One day crossed into another. He said planned to work through the early morning.
After leaving his longtime label, Def Jam, in 2024, he is planning to drop a collaboration with Statik Selektah titled “POLO (Playaz Only Live Once)” with features from artists including T.I. and Mary J. Blige.
“You have to keep going and hope that the fans follow,” 2 Chainz said. “You have to change. You have to evolve. That’s what I’m here to do. Somebody wants a 2012 version? That’s actually impossible.”
He pulled up a new logo from his phone, a black and white image of the number “2” connected in the middle by a couple of chains. “It’s so clean,” he said. “It’s so simple. If I was a Fortune 500 company and I was trying to change something, but stay the same, this would be the logo I would choose.”
While he’s always appreciated support from his fans, he said he’s been touched in a new way by reactions to the memoir, especially by those who get emotional explaining how much impact it had on them. It’s cast a new light on his own struggles and eventual success.
“When you’re going through it, of course, it’s hard,” he said. “It’s a lot of weight on you. But after the storm, beautiful, man. That’s when the rainbow come up.”
Jonathan Abrams is a Times reporter who writes about the intersections of sports and culture and the changing cultural scenes in the South.
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