Freddie Gibbs

One Liner: The best pure rapper at the Festival.

Wikipedia Genre:  Hip hop, gangster rap

Home: Gary, Indiana

Poster Position: 8
Both Weekends.

Saturday at 5:20 on the T-Mobile Stage.

Thoughts:  I really like this guy.  In this age where most rappers leave me unimpressed and wishing for a return back to the olden days of hip hop, Gibbs brings good beats and a dexterous flow with cool stories and turns of phrase that are fun again.  

I've reviewed of a few of his albums in the past, and Alfredo almost cracked my top albums of 2020 list.  Alfredo ended up nominated for Best Rap Album at the Grammys (but lost out to Nas' King's Disease), so I almost have good taste.

Freddy Gibbs & Madlib - Bandana.  (2019) Dude.  I like this guy.  I already knew I liked Madlib's production, but Freddie Gibbs is legit.  The beats are strong, the flow is nice, the lyrics are good.  Huh.  The track with Killer Mike (from Run the Jewels) and Pusha T is very cool.  The one with Anderson.Paak bangs too.  I'm a little surprised that I don't know more about this guy - he seems legit (although maybe just going by boring name Freddie Gibbs instead of making up a Lil' name is hurting the guy).  He also has a few good skits in here - the guy who might go to death row cracks me up (which sounds weird, but trust me).  The top track is "Crime Pays" with 23.5 million streams.

Good video - not the best song on the album.  The beats are cool because they seem more like samples - tasting of old school soul vibes (with the exception of the trap-ish first half of "Half Manne Half Cocaine").  And Gibbs just fires all over them - his delivery is fast and brash and powerful and lithe.  I dig the overall vibe of the album.

Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist - Alfredo. (2020).  The opening track isn't a big time track - it sounds like a guitar lick from an old Funkadelic song, looped around to allow Freddie to freestyle all over it.  I think Gibbs has one of the best rap cadences around right now - he can speed up and slow down and fit himself right into the beat like a bouncing slice of silly putty.  Maybe its just these beats, which are almost all laid back and smooth as hell, that fit Gibbs so well, but it just feels like both sides created their half of the wheel for each other to fit together perfectly.  I loved their collaboration last year - Bandana - and am likewise on board with them here.  Like, the beat of "Something to Rap About" feels like you are in a lounge in the 70's, sipping on a smooth cocktail, your lady on your arm, smiling at the other folks coming in the door and tipping your drink their way.  "Baby Shit" feels like I'm floating in a modernist pool on a space station after having too many drinks.  "Skinny Suge" is like they took a noodling session from a Dead song, added a killer beat, and then gave it heroin.  I thought "Scottie Beam" was going to be the top track, but it's actually "Something to Rap About" (probably because it features Tyler the Creator).  Just over 5 million streams.  But that one doesn't have an official videJuo, so I'm going "Scottie Beam" instead.  10.9 million streams.

Damn.  That video was unexpectedly explicit as shit right there at the start.  I mean, I knew from the lyrics he was pissed at cops, but hey-o.  I'm not in love with Rick Ross.  On the one hand, I like the insult of "you need a dictionary to write your raps," but on the other hand, what does Spider-Man have to do with a pinnacle?  He can go hang out on the top of a building?  So can a pigeon?  Anyhoo, if you are in the mood for music that sounds exceedingly chill, but the lyrics are actually pretty damn hard, then go right here.

Real name is Fredrick Jamel Tipton.  Which is fascinating.  He chose this as his rap name?  Seems like Tipton would have been more memorable to me.  In one interview I read, he said his mom is not a big Freddie Gibbs fan.  In another interview, there is this exchange when he's asked about the name: " “That’s my real name. You wanna see my ID?” And like that, it’s settled. Gibbs hits his blunt and leans back in his chair, exhaling as he waits to see what else I’ve got. He has no interest in what I’ve heard, or in explaining that Fredrick Jamel Tipton became Freddie Gibbs after Tommy Gibbs—Fred Williamson’s character in the 1973 blaxploitation flick Black Caesar. He’s not going to tell me that he legally changed his name or what prompted it. Freddie Gibbs is Freddie Gibbs, that’s all I need to know, and that’s how this is going to go."  So, there you go.

He's from Gary Indiana, but for some reason I thought he was a Detroit guy.  His Wikipedia says that he went to Ball State University to play football, but got expelled, so then he enlisted into the Army, but got a dishonorable discharge soon thereafter for smoking weed.  Keeping in that same vein, he originally signed with Interscope Records but got dropped by the label before he ever released an album.  

After that, he started releasing mixtapes like crazy.  According to Wikipedia, that finally paid off with the release of Baby Face Killa in 2012, which had a bunch of big collaborators and a song featured on Grand Theft Auto V's in-game radio stations.   

The thing is, those two albums I have discussed up above only barely scratch the surface of the guy.  He's got 19 albums listed on Spotify (some of them are re-releases or a version that is just the beats from the album, but still).  2018's Freddie is HARD.  Like, after re-listening to Alfredo and being all relaxed like I just left the spa, you turn on Freddie and the beats are more like the school bully loaded your ass into the big industrial dryer in the gym and turned it on tumble dry.  No track on that album cracks 10 million streams, so it looks like it didn't hit the big time.  But it's a tough, brawny trip into Freddie's world.

2012's Baby Face Killa, that mixtape mentioned above, is soooooooo looooooonnnnnnngggg.  Freaking 18 songs and an hour and thirteen minutes?  Damn!  But the beat on "Kush Cloud," with Krayzie Bone and SpaceGhostPurrp is a cool, spacey track like something from early A$AP Rocky or latter day Radiohead.  The top track from that album is the second one, "Still Livin'," with 8.4 million streams.

Man, the OJ chase was so weird.  I still dig the old Bronco, though.  This song came out in 2013, but it literally sounds like it could have come out right now.  Has a little taste of the trap drums, bouncing 808s - good head bobber.  I like it.

Oh, I forgot about this one - "Old English" - with Young Thug and A$AP Ferg - this single came out in 2014 and was hot stuff for a while.  57.6 million streams.

Just a single, not on any of his albums, and he's the second rapper who comes along on the track.  So, if you were to try to rank those, I'd easily put Thug's verse last, and then Gibbs comes along with so much more bravado and power to his vocals.  Just cleans it up.  

As of now, his last album was still 2020's Alfredo, but he has three singles that have been released in 2021.  "4 Thangs" with Big Sean, "Gang Signs" with ScHoolboy Q, and "Big Boss Rabbit."  I like all three new tunes - his flow continues to rule - although the first one is too short.  Here is "Gang Signs," which is the one with the most streams at 17.3 million.

Poor sad bunny.  Sweet ride, though.  Looked like a hard day for Mr. Bunny there, but pretty profitable!  And just because the intro to this video made me laugh, here is the one with Big Sean.

I'd absolutely go see this guy live.  I don't think there is a better rapper on the poster.