Noisey: You just got back from Chicago, right? How was your trip?įreddie Gibbs: It was cool. There were no major label publicists to tell him otherwise. Sometimes his answers to questions led to hilarious and candid tangents, but the words “off the record” were never said. Relaxed yet engaged, Gibbs laughed and joked with a regularity that was almost disarming given his frequently grim raps. With a glinting Jesus piece dangling from his neck and a container of his new weed strain, Freddie Kane OG, in his pocket, he was unfettered by security or squad.

It’s as if Gibbs and his circle of producers-as well as engineer and longtime collaborator Sid “Speakerbomb” Miller-discovered another constellation while sitting atop the kush clouds.Įarlier this week, Gibbs dropped by the VICE office in Venice, California. And all of it occurs over music that expands the sonic boundaries of gangsta rap.

The glassy-eyed introspection and reflection of last year’s Madlib produced Piñata are present, but the regret has largely been shelved, supplanted by a level of swag that would leave Soulja Boy reeling.

“Fuckin’ Up the Count”) on songs like “Careless” and “Basketball Wives,” his crooning qualifies him to be the sixth member of Bone Thug-N-Harmony. “I wanted either all bad reviews or all good ones.” To that end, the rapping is markedly melodic, his Midwestern double-time infinitely more fluid and his inflection continuously varied (e.g. “I just wanted to make something that people were either going to love or hate,” he told me, adding that he wants to be seen in the same category at the end of the year as the Futures and Drakes.

Freddie gibbs - shadow of a doubt