The title of the album is named after Ice Davis, the son of Gucci Mane and his wife, Jamaican model Keyshia Ka'oir. Ice was almost six months old when the album was released Ice Daddy is the first album by Mane to be released since the birth of their son on December 23, 2020.[2] Ice also features on the album's cover art. The release date of the album is also the two-year anniversary of Mane's single, "Proud of You", a promotional single off of his thirteenth studio album, Delusions of Grandeur (2019).
Release and promotion
On April 29, 2021, Mane announced the title of the album alongside its cover art, stating that it would be available to pre-order the following day.[3] However, on the same day, before the release date was revealed to the public, Billboard gave its release date out.[4] On June 10, 2021, Mane appeared on an episode of YouTube Released for the week for the premiere of the official music video of his single "Like 34 & 8", which features American rapper and fellow labelmate Pooh Shiesty; in the episode, he confirmed the track "Posse on Bouldercrest", a remake of American rapper and record producer Sir Mix-a-Lot's single "Posse on Broadway", from his debut studio album, Swass (1988), and announced that Sir Mix-a-Lot's chorus on the original song would remain on the song, but did not announce the features on the song. Gucci revealed the album's tracklist on June 16, 2021.[5]
Singles
Gucci Mane released the lead single of the album, "Shit Crazy", featuring American rapper BIG30, as part of the pre-order of the album on April 30, 2021.[6] The second single, "Like 34 & 8", featuring American rapper and fellow labelmate Pooh Shiesty, was released on June 10, 2021.[7] "Poppin", a collaboration with American rapper and fellow labelmate BigWalkDog, was released as the third single on June 17, 2021, one day before the release of the album; however, Gucci uploaded the song to his YouTube channel on May 24, 2021, and this also became BigWalkDog's first song through 1017 Records to be released commercially.[8] The fourth single, "Posse on Bouldercrest", featuring Pooh Shiesty again and American rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot was released along with the album on June 18, 2021.[9]
Writing for Clash, Robin Murray felt that the album "leans on his trademark brand without adding anything new to the overall picture" and it indeed "struggles to maintain a momentum over its 17 tracks", but later clarified that "it's not a failure".[10] On a negative review, Tim Hoffman of Riff Magazine compared the weaknesses that he felt were present in the album to that of American rapper Moneybagg Yo's chart-topping fourth studio album, A Gangsta's Pain, opining that it "delivers what is effectively two or three good songs that are then replicated to pad the runtime" and it "delivers on quality guest features like E-40 and Project Pat while delivering a handful of decent beats to carry some of the songs".[11]
