Gucci Mane Mocks Jeezy’s Album Cover Outfit Ahead Of Their ‘Verzuz’ Battle

Up until now, the “battle” aspect of the popular live stream series Verzuz has been a technicality. For the most part, the event has been celebratory, looking to highlight hits and little-known underground classics as its participants good-naturedly trade stories and praise for each other — although some of the early R&B battles did get delightfully shady. That trend may very well change with the upcoming show featuring bitter rivals Gucci Mane and Jeezy, whose decade-long feud saw the duo butting heads over money, song credit, and the 2005 shooting of Jeezy’s friend by Gucci Mane.

Gucci seems to have taken a pugnacious stance to the whole thing, selling the animosity like a professional wrestler cutting a promo. Not only did he share memes taunting Jeezy over the death of his friend — whom Gucci claimed to have shot in self-defense — but now he’s also taking potshots at Jeezy’s upcoming album cover. Jeezy smartly deemed November 20 the perfect time to release his new album, The Recession 2, to take advantage of the Verzuz buzz, but his cover art has become the target of jokes online thanks to his outfit, which fans deemed incongruous with his history and catalog.

Gucci Mane couldn’t resist getting in some jabs of his own ahead of their meeting tonight, appearing in a video on the Verzuz Twitter account. After assuring skeptical fans that the battle was real, he then set his conditions: No more sartorial snafus on the part of his opponent or he’s out. “For everybody who asking me, the Verzuz is real,” he confirmed. “Me and Snowcone will be in the same room. But this what I wanna know. Is fashion a part of the Verzuz? Because I’ma have that shit on tomorrow and if buddy have that same funny ass shirt and that dumb ass hat he had on that God damn album cover, I ain’t doing it.”

Watch Gucci’s mocking video above and catch the battle tonight at 5 pm PT / 8 pm ET on Apple Music and Verzuz’s Instagram Live.