Jeezy has a lot to celebrate these days. Following the conclusion of the first leg of his Thug Motivation 101 20th anniversary tour in Detroit, the beloved emcee revealed to VIBE that his new mixtape with DJ Drama is set to drop on his birthday.
“We celebrating 20 years of ‘TM: 101,’ which has been amazing. Been a milestone in my career taking an orchestra on the road, but also wanted to keep it going,” Jeezy stated. “I feel like I’m in the zone. I feel like I got my second wind in the creative space so much so that DJ Drama and I are dropping a new project on 9/28, which is my birthday.”
The project is titled Still Snowin’ and is part of Drama’s Gangsta Grillz series. The rapper described it as “one of his favorite projects ever.”
Funny enough, there was a moment in time where this project may not have even happened because of a strife between Jeezy and Drama.
“There was a real situation where we wasn’t really seeing eye-to-eye, and I think the fact that we brought it back full circle and being able to do this with so much love just speaks to our character,” Jeezy reflected. “You don’t really get a lot of friends in this s**t. You just don’t. You don’t get people that’ll stick with you. Me and Drama would probably be 25 years in because it was before I really had a major [label] release that we got down.”
He continued, “When I look back and I see him backstage, just smiling, it just makes me happy to see the crew there. To see the guys that I started with. You don’t really end with everybody you started with, but the people that understand the vision [and] the goal they’re gonna be there. He’s always been that type of person.”
With Still Snowin’, Jeezy praised the fact that their chemistry is still intact. “We still talkin’ that talk and we just on another level,” said the best-selling author.
Later in the press conference, Jeezy announced that he would be extending his TM: 101 Live anniversary tour with a Las Vegas residency.
“I got a lot of calls about why we didn’t do the West Coast, and it was very interesting because we were already working on something,” Jeezy teased before the big reveal.
His residency will be housed at Planet Hollywood. The first part, which is masquerade-themed, will take place on October 31 and November 1. The second part will be Nutcracker-themed and occur on December 19 and 21.
When praising the upcoming residency, Jeezy quipped, “If you don’t call that Black excellence and leveling up, then I don’t know what is.”
This time, he is bringing a 101-piece orchestra, conducted by Derrick Hodge. Hodge’s COLOR OF NOIZE ensemble accompanied Jeezy during the initial tour run. The Sin City shows will also be produced by the incomparable Adam Blackstone, who was behind the Waiting To Exhale tribute set at ESSENCE Fest 2025.
Overall, the term “thug motivation” means more to Jeezy today than ever before.
“[Back then], I was just tryna get out of my circumstances, but now when I hear ‘Soul Survivor’ or ‘Trap Or Die,’ that’s me. I lived through that. I been through that,” he confessed. “It’s real life and real records. They say you have your whole life to make your first album. ‘Thug Motivation’ was an amazing album, but I can tell you 20 years later, it really resonates with me now. I am a soul survivor.”
Revisit Jeezy’s major label debut below. Presale tickets for the residency go live on Wednesday, Sept. 17 at Tm101live.com. General on-sale starts on Friday, Sept. 19 at 10 a.m. local time.
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