Evan Nabavian owns several Harold’s franchises.

It helps to enumerate the reasons why Freddie Gibbs might be the best rapper alive. He straddles seldom-crossed genre boundaries while pleasing everybody. He channels 2Pac as readily as Trick Daddy or Bone Thugs. When Snoop Dogg freestyled over two Madlib beats, it was an exciting novelty. Meanwhile, Gibbs inscribed his name in the Otis Jackson canon. It’s a challenge to name his last flop—maybe that Statik Selektah EP?—and a high-profile label deal gone sour didn’t set him back a minute. If you’re a good rapper or producer and there’s air in your lungs, recording with Freddie Gibbs is probably on your to-do list.

“My Dope House” with Kaytranada reaches another plateau. Gibbs has shown no reluctance toward singing. ESGN and Baby Face Killa were dotted with melodies, often abetted by familiar crooners like Z-Ro and Kirko Bangz. “Money, Clothes, Hoes (MCH)” happens to be my own personal “We Are The Champions.” But Gibbs really wails on here. His voice shakes on the hook when he contemplates his mortality. His words are the same but his tenor betrays more emotion than usual from a rapper who never smiles in videos. Gibbs made “My Dope House” as if to stomp on today’s trap singers and also to add another specialty to his repertoire. He just doesn’t get tired of being good at things.

Thomas Johnson rides for black diamonds

Freddie Gibbs’ music has always straddled the line between thuggery and attempts to reconcile it. His narration of failed relationships, how he funded his pre-rap career, and the strains of slanging reveals a persona both heartbreaking and menacing. But for all the remorse, there’s never been an inclination to change.

Like all his best, “The World Is My Ashtray” thrives off the damage he’s done to his own psyche. For more than two minutes he recounts spurned advice from his mother and grandmother, the need to rob, disillusionment with the government, even self-consciousness. The nicest car is going to pull the most, and if you can’t buy one, stealing is always an option. That and Xanax.

Gibbs can’t escape the dissonance of his lifestyle. Acknowledging misdeeds doesn’t mean that you’re ready to change, and Gibbs probably never will — at least on record. He openly admits: “Might not rap forever so I’m thuggin to my last day.” When there’s this much to get off your chest, change isn’t required—only therapy. Being self-aware and thugging isn’t necessarily novel, but when you’re this self-aware and rap this well, it always feels fresh.

“The World Is My Ashtray” begins as Gibbs mutters “You ain’t really built like me.” For most that would be a boast. Here, it’s just another confession.

Images by S Dot B

A Pimp C parable underscores the latest Gangsta Gibbs mini-movie: “Dear Lord, I know you don’t condone the things I be doing out here in these streets. And I hope that, you can overlook the wrong that I had done in my life…I don’t know no other way to survive out here. I got a whole bunch of people depending on me.”

Beyond sheer rap ability, what’s always separated Gibbs from those who traffic in narratives that would give El Chapo ideas, is the sense of perennial conflict. It’s between him and his enemies, but it’s also internal. The Wire quotes in here paint him as the rap Avon Barksdale, and just like in any great character, the closer you look, the more complexities appear.

“Fuckin’ Up the Count” is one of those videos that forces you to pay attention. In many ways, it’s an unofficial sequel to “Thuggin,” in which Gibbs went full ski mask way, creating terror as unsettling as a 1970s hijacker. This video is built on creeping menace. It starts with playgrounds and swings, young teenagers happily walking to school, becoming neighborhood D-Boys on the corner because there aren’t any internships out here.

It ends with the body in the trunk and a best friend forced to be the one committing the final blast. In between, Gibbs plays the evil spirit, the Omerta mastermind but also the one merely telling the story. He presents it as it is, offering no sentimentality or judgment, save for the final repercussions. But if you look closer, there’s that pervasive sense of sadness. These are the tragedies that he’d rather prevent, but he’s forced to place the need for survival above all.

Courtesy of Frank Dukes and Boi 1-Da, the beat bends with a sinister slant that could really only be tackled by someone who knows where the bodies are buried, because he buried them there himself.

We take Gibbs for granted sometimes. Is there anyone who has been this consistent for so long? Inasmuch as one weak record or wrong step and it could be over. No reality shows or branding opportunities. He’s not out here collaborating with Taylor Swift or selling Meek Mill brand oral care products. He doesn’t rap over the Bad Blood beat, he embodies the notion of bad blood. His Snapchat comedy might flesh out the full character, but when it comes time to create, there’s still no one colder.

Deen is not here for your Woody Allen apologies.

2016 was a crap year for a good chunk of the planet but Freddie Gibbs would probably argue that he had a worse year than most. Artistically, he started the year with promise via a series of fantastic loosies, including what I still consider the definitive version of Kanye’s “No More Parties in LA,” and coasting on the great reviews of his last full length project. On the personal front, he was settling into fatherhood and success. In the spring, he headed out on the European leg of his tour and by the time his feet touched America again he’d lost a father figure and muse (RIP Big Time Watts), became terrifyingly familiar with Austria’s legal system, and nearly lost everything from his freedom and family to his friends and reputation.

Lately, it’s nearly impossible to find an artist or public figure that isn’t—to use the buzzword of the moment—problematic in some fashion. Nonetheless, one of the last things a fan wants to deal with is an artist accused of sexual  assault. Tax evasion? That’s light work. Assorted misdemeanors? Barely registers. Some Cosby shit though? Umm … FUCK!?!?!!!

The first of Dave Chappelle’s recent specials (The Age of Spin) contains a fairly accurate illustration of the mental and moral gymnastics involved in processing a favorite being accused of horrible actions. Based on the mixed reaction to Chappelle’s attempt, I’m tempted to conclude that there’s no ‘right’ way to process these issues in public but there are several wrong ways to do so. Even so, I’ll briefly attempt to process my thoughts in regards to Freddie Gibbs and his legal issues.

I’ll apologetically admit that my knowledge of everything that’s happened in his life of late doesn’t affect my enjoyment of what I consider to be one of his best efforts to date. I’m disappointed in him and my default stance on sexual assault cases is to believe victims, but between a finding of innocence and him acknowledging and then limiting explicit references to the case, I mostly feel comfortable with judging the music on its merits — like I did before all that shit went down.

Some listeners might find the project more palatable if Gibbs’ attitude with specific respect to his legal issues wasn’t defiance, but I’m not sure there’s a way to marry typical rap bravado to an apology you believe you aren’t required to give after an acquittal. There’s also the fact that if you “listen between the lines,” Freddie offers a clear theory/defense of what may or may not have happened in Europe—which, in MY opinion, doesn’t completely absolve him of responsibility but allows me to remain a fan of the man and his music. I’ll leave it to you bright humans to figure out exactly what the man says, but “Homesick” would be a good starting point.

As for the music, it’s fair to say that an 8-track project hasn’t qualified as an album or “playlist” since folks were rocking Jheri curls and mullets. However, you’d be doing yourself and the artist a disservice if you paid scant attention to this tape just because it isn’t as long as the typical album.

I might be projecting a bit but the eight songs on YOL2 serve as a reintroduction (and resurrection from Gibbs’ perspective) to the continually developing artist some of us have known for almost a decade. Between albums, mixtapes and loosies, Gibbs’ discography is so extensive that he’s already made versions of all the songs on YOL2, but I’d argue that he’s rarely made them this organically and cohesively within one project. For instance, “Alexys” might be a BadBadNotGood and Kaytranada production, but it features the same sonic aesthetic and dense rhyming we heard through Piñata, his star-making collaboration with Madlib. “Dear Maria” is another mixed metaphor song that likens the drug game to women in the vein of “Natural High” from A Cold Day In Hell. “Amnesia” is his best trap rap anthem yet. “Phone Lit” and “Homesick” expand the looser rhyming approach he started experimenting with on Shadow of a Doubt.  You get the idea.

Combining all these sonic ideas on one project works so well on YOL2 because Gibbs has found even more variations on his already malleable barrage of flows and just as importantly, his chemistry with ESGN Records in-house producer, Sidney ‘Speakerbomb’ Miller (as well as a group of prior collaborators such as Blair Norf and Pops). Speakerbomb’s contributions to Shadow of a Doubt hinted at this development and his versatility allows him to function as sort of the 40 to Gibbs’ Drake (blasphemy, I know) and the result is Gibbs’ most tightly focused and fitting project yet. For the record, Piñata was and remains great but ultimately, it was the equivalent of a mainstream Hollywood talent making an acclaimed indie movie. Freddie Gibbs is too versatile for me to consider Piñata his best work, Madlib stans be damned.

In under 32 minutes, Gibbs manages to to utilize ideas ranging from multi-suite songs, live elements, doubled vocals, harmonies, background vocals, and transitions, without allowing the songs or the entire project to bleed into the grandiose bullshit the big stars of the genre tend towards. On top of that, you pretty much hear every kind of ‘mainstream’ song filtered through the prism of who’s, for my money, still the best technician in rap today. Think of any rapper that’s mattered over the last three years or so. Now think of their trademark style of music then listen to this Gibbs project and be honest with yourself. Yup, I thought so.

For my final admission, I’m relieved that we didn’t lose Freddie Gibbs. There aren’t many rappers with his talent or range, especially without the backing of large corporate machines and I believe he more than proves that YOL2. This is the album the man had to make at this point in time, not just for his place in rap or for his fans but mostly for himself and the people (that used to be) around him.

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MobbDeen freestyles over “Everybody Loves the Sunshine.”

Gangsta Gibbs dropped last year’s You Only Live 2wice, long time fans probably had thoughts, however fleeting, that he’d lost his smile—on some Shawn Michaels shit. Even though his slightly darker sonic and lyrical turns on that project were understandable given the legal issues he’d dealt with just prior to its release, there was always a possibility that he was going to stay on that path for the foreseeable future. That wouldn’t necessarily have been a bad thing but a large part of Gibbs’ appeal is how he combines his sense of humor with his almost always antisocial subject matter.

Well, if you were worried then you needn’t have worried. Freddie is Gangsta Gibbs’ most hedonistic collection of songs to date—an artistic ‘turn’ that’s always welcome around these parts. Around the time Gibbs linked up with Mike Dean for “Sellin Dope,” he started occasionally employing a deliberately looser, improvisational, and sing-songy approach to lyricism that has added even more variety and dynamism to his music. Freddie sees him FULLY tapping into that vein for an entire project with delightful results. This is about as far as Gibbs would allow himself to lean into the trap/“mumble” subgenres of rap, and since he can do everything, the final product is predictably incredible.

There’s nary a breakbeat or jazz inflected beat to be found here—perhaps with the exception of the Roy Ayers/Mary J. Blige sample on “2 Legit”—thanks to the production talents of two guys more readily associated with larger production collectives (Dupri from League of Starz and RichGains of Blended Babies), and Kenny Beats fresh off his excellent work with Key on 777. Everything here outside of a ridiculous Silk-aping interlude that includes the now customary Big Time Watts (RIP) chatter is a bass heavy banger and since it’s summer, I don’t mind at all and neither should you.

As such, Freddie simply delivers a great collection of ten of the most fun Freddie Gibbs songs ever. The darkest moments come in the form of admissions of prescription drug use relapses and the references to the life he’s hopefully left for good but they pass so quickly via his playful delivery and the catchiness of the production that you don’t dwell on that stuff. No high concepts or killer narratives, just an extremely accomplished and versatile wordsmith having fun on the mic for 25 minutes that pass quickly and leave you wanting more.

That’s not to say these songs lack the depth or quotable we’ve come to expect from Freddie—far from it. The longest song on the set seemingly only stretches over three minutes because he recruits a singer to close things out and those of us from the GZA wing of rap school appreciate the continuing dedication to the maxim, “half short, twice strong.” The brevity also extends to guests: 03 Greedo is the only other rapper that appears on the project on the alternately playful and sinister “Death Row.”

Gibbs took the time to record Bandana (the sequel to 2014’s Piñata with Madlib) and complete a bloodletting of sorts on YOL2 by addressing his legal and personal issues from that period. From the Teddy P tribute cover art to the contents within, Freddie suggests that Gibbs is energized and possibly happier than ever thanks to lord knows what and all this listener has to say is “CHEERS!”

Freddie is definitely a highlight in a discography already filled with highlights and it’ll certainly serve as an alternative for Gibbs fans that aren’t necessarily enamored with the more sample based portions of his music (yes, these folks exist—Piñata wasn’t for everyone and the same will apply to Bandana). I have to admit, it’s nice to root for a rapper that’s capable of almost anything, and that’s exactly what Freddie Gibbs is.

Steven Louis is the Mike Miller of the bakin’ soda.

Fetti, the nine-track collaboration between Curren$y, Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist that dropped on Halloween, is lush and endlessly listenable roman noir. It was teased almost two years ago, while the music was completed in two days — the opening track has Gibbs sneering about Manafort’s plea & Le’Veon’s holdout. Two of the best and most consistent rappers of the past decade, at the direction of a prolific crate-digger. Of course this shit bangs. Still, with so many recent joint albums leaving much to be desired, and with some of those brazenly, flaccidly existing for algorithmical cross-promotion, it’s worth reiterating that Fetti feels organic and purposeful. The three of them together are 10-time All-Defense, god dammit.

The song that I keep coming back to, again and again, is “Willie Lloyd,” an adrenaline shot delivered solo by a breathless Gangsta Gibbs. “Willie Lloyd” makes the pupils swell and the heart race. Four ominous, dusty-ass notes loop as Gibbs quite literally raps nonstop for two minutes straight. It’s a punishing, relentless performance, one of my favorites of 2018, and it thrills as much as it anesthetizes. “Willie Lloyd” is a cocaine high.

Willie Lloyd was also a person. He grew up on the Chicago’s West Side, and at a young age joined the Unknown Vice Lords, a faction of the Almighty Vice Lord Nation based in the Lawndale neighborhood. Lloyd declared himself “King of Kings” and ascended to power while serving an 18-year prison sentence for his involvement in the murder of a state trooper in Davenport, Iowa. He showed a flagrant, joyful disdain for the criminal justice system. When he was released in 1992, he was picked up by a convoy of limos and gifted a mink & a Mercedes.

Lloyd later faced an insurgency from his own lieutenants. The ensuing power struggle resulted in a highly publicized and policed turf war. With state prosecutors frothing at the mouth, Lloyd was eventually caught with a gun as a convicted felon, and incarcerated another seven years. Lloyd was free again in 2003, this time working as a mediator and mentor in various school programs, before he was shot six times in Chicago’s Garfield Park. He lived as a quadriplegic until 2016.

Willie Lloyd’s story is one seeped in violent paranoia and the insatiable pursuit of power. Cocaine highs, and all dopamine rushes, are about incentive salience. The intensity, the tailored beauty of hunting down your desired outcome with tunnel vision. It makes perfect sense that this rush of a rap song is named after Willie Lloyd. Gibbs raps with a commanding, addictive energy. Insatiable, but also with a well-worn glance over his shoulders.

“I know Folks, Crips, Bloods, Renegades/got respect drippin’ from a nigga name/finna load heat-seekers and the gauge/drugs loaded in me when I hit the stage,” Gibbs spits to wrap up “Willie Lloyd.” It caps an exhausting, exhilarating run that taps into American folklore with lived-in energy. Pure, pure dope.

Passion of the Weiss is a star fleet of hustlers who all have other jobs in addition to contributing for this website. Please support the site’s continued existence by subscribing to our Patreon.

Douglas Martin had a pair of Air Max 90s with a sick grey and white colorway back in the day, before he started rocking dirty Vans plastered with skulls.

I. CINDERELLA’S PRISSY SISTERS WOULD HAVE PISSED THEIR PANTS TO KISS HER

You remember the Welcome to Los Santos, the Grand Theft Auto soundtrack curated and produced by Alchemist and Oh No, and how fucking fire it was. Anything that has Tunde Adebipe, Earl Sweatshirt, Popcaan, and Action Bronson on the same collection of songs is most certainly worthy of my attention, that’s for sure. It’s certainly worth the price of having some dope music as a soundscape for riding around, pulling heists, and occasionally firing rocket launcher at cop cars. The Wavves track was attempting some sort of groove they’re not really good at, but the attempt was respectable. So it goes in the life of outlaws; sometimes you encounter a punk band trying some weird shit that doesn’t really work for them.

“Fetti” is the shining star of the entire project, featuring Curren$y and Freddie Gibbs — two rappers so startingly, consistently great at what they do, their greatness is “regular” and thus undervauled, especially in the case of Spitta — technically divergent as rappers but spiritually aligned in a way mystically uncommon for any two artists looking to collaborate. That sort of chemistry which has a 1 to 10,000 ratio easily. Add in the eerie main melody of Alchemist’s beat — which sounds kind of like the scene in a robbery movie before the scene where the cops swarm in — and that is most certainly a recipe for a vivid drawn, massively enjoyable song for which to blast at obscene volumes in your old school Chevy.

Spitta possesses a flow as smooth as filtered water or something you would put into your coffee to make it less coarse, which seems to lull listeners who aren’t listening to his words closely enough. (His blunted drawl adds to the warm, hypnotic, indica-grade effect.) But if you know, you know; his writing rewards close listening. He’s sometimes effusive and sometimes dismissive; his gifts with narrative are astounding; as much game as he gives away, the fact that he’s mastered the art of the hustle financially is an obvious sign of karmic reward. Here, he rolls in a Corvette with a stock tape deck and his girl drops off bandos at night like the Tooth Fairy.

I think Gibbs’ verse here is what really unlocked his gifts to me; much, much later than many of my colleagues on this site. (Yeah, I know; shame on me and whatnot, whatever.) Every aspect of how a rapper can be measured is so precise: His sense of rhythm, the imagery and emotion and hysterical shit-talking and knowledge of history (political, cultural, artistic). I mean, it’s all there when he opens his verse here:

Dirty needle to the mainline
You play kissy-face with your bitches; nigga, I tame mine
Strap her down with two bricks and straight put that bitch on a train ride
If she ain’t ’bout that cheddar, I give these heifers no hang time

Paul Thompson once described Gibbs’ style as “athletic,” which is about as accurate a description as there has ever been. Dexterity and muscle. His flow would glide through the NFL combine workouts. A close friend — you’d know him if I told you his name — and I were talking about Piñata, and how people (probably including myself) overrate it a little. My evaluation was, “Gibbs is so good at everything, you’ve just gotta pick your lane.”

II. YOU TALK BUT NEVER ATTACK; I WALK WITH GOD, I’M RELAXED

My El Camino broke down before I could Andretti on ’em.

The day Dynamite Kid died, I was all in my feelings. Not necessarily about the wrestler himself, even though I did respect him. His matches with Tiger Mask are all-time greats, an All Japan Pro Wrestling match between the Malenko Brothers and the British Bulldogs blew my mind when I was excavating corners of wrestling I wasn’t familiar with, and there are a good number of generational talents who emulate him to this day. (One such wrestler who is not around today was Chris Benoit, but this isn’t a Supreme Blientele essay.)

So I do what I frequently do, get stoned at 11 o’clock in the morning and scribble into a $20 notebook I bought with a Barnes & Noble gift card my now-sister-in-law gave me.

A few days later, my friend from the Eastside picked me up and we swept through North Tacoma, just going on one of our famous drives, listening to Gibbs lattice cut through Alchemist’s somewhat dreary beat for “Willie Lloyd.” We briefly chatted the Vice Lords and riding down Pulaski in Chicago and what we would do if we got a Rockefeller grant. I’d probably begin a frontier into one of my media/journalist dreams, a pro wrestling publication built on great feature writing instead of news, rumors, and speculation. Profiling great regional wrestlers and regional wrestling scenes way outside of the mainstream. I’d be okay with people calling it the Pitchfork of wrestling if it made me rich.

He’s not sure he’d stop doing what he’s doing. The thrill of his occupation is what drives him.

The two of us spend a lot of time philosophizing the art of the hustle. He says I’m not going to get what I want looking for jobs, being on somebody’s staff. “If you’re going to do it your way, you have to be your own boss.” He understands I want to go into a place and help build its name, but he wants me to build my name. The fabled Aroma of Tacoma — sulfur from the paper mills, I was told weeks after I moved here at fifteen — is no match for Bubba Kush on fire.

As the Impala we’re riding in is bathed in soft blue street lights, we’re discussing recent career moves and ambitions. “Everybody you work with knows you’re talented. You went from ace shooter to consigliere on pretty much a whim. It’s what I’ve been telling you for like a year now; you can finish these projects if you get out of your own way.” These past few years have been an exercise in letting go long enough to secure the bag.

When we’re two blunts in, both of us are prone to soul searching and compulsive snacking. The cashier at Memo’s asked us if we had any extra weed. Thankfully, he found a baggy in his glove box. She told him next time we came up while she was working, our order would be on the house; she assured us she’d remember his car.

III. RAP SHIT GOT ME PARKING BENTLEYS ON THE LAWN

Fetti, Gibbs and Spitta’s collaborative project with the production prowess of the greatest rap producer since Return of the Mac dropped in 2006, delves into the jewels revealed on “Fetti” and adds a healthy handful of the ennui of hustlers along with. Curren$y writes about how he rolls with peacemakers because he’s too fly to stay strapped all the time and he observes the fake tough guys always making a ruckus. Gibbs speaks on street taxes and warns against too much disclosure on social media, lest you want your sister to get kidnapped. He mentions a friend getting shot in the thigh and bleeding out. I know I write a lot about the spiritual heft of what black men carry; it’s a difficult but essential morass to write about.

As for Alchemist, what hagiography is there to offer which doesn’t read what has already been written? Mileage my vary, but a strong case could be made for Alchemist being the top producer of his generation. A monolith of a catalog follows his name; sometimes a slog through darkness, sometimes a joyride with the sun beaming in your face, sometimes the twinkling stars of a night drive, but always crystalline and always consistently great. A great many producers have tried to copy his style over the past two decades, but it’s always a few degrees off.

Alchemist’s style can’t necessarily be identified by easily digestible terms, but like most singular artists, you know it’s him when you hear it.

Juxtaposed with the menacing “Willie Lloyd,” a showcase for Gibbs to use a semi-automatic cadence and a verse as referential to Das EFX as the Almighty Vice Lord Nation, Curren$y’s “No Window Tints” is an open air tribute to brand new luxury cars, bicoastal brunches with bottomless mimosas, and how fate sometimes delivers a left turn at the last minute. With its mournful guitar line shaped into a climactic penultimate scene, “Tapatio” finds him with a woman riding shotgun with watery eyes, crying and laughing because she’s high as fuck, while Gibbs is ducking chicks like The Matrix if they don’t give head and the psychic strain of syrup withdrawals and eviction notices.

The nine tracks on Fetti are split pretty evenly between breezy and bellicose; Gibbs slipping in and out of coked out, gangsta Freddie Jackson mode, rapping nimbly with his Virgil Abloh-edition Nike Air Max pressed against the pedal of a car you couldn’t afford to trick out as hard. In the ad-libs of “The Blow,” Curren$y is laughing at himself for something he wrote which looked great on the page but was a mouthful to rap. Belly is referenced and respects to Mac Miller are paid on “Bundy & Sincere.” “New Thangs” is breezy and blunted, hotel suites and unscuffed trainers and steel-bodied old schools rolling down the street with something being rolled inside.

“Saturday Night Special” finds Spitta coloring in the first half of Alchemist’s quietly twilit beat (with saxophones serenading some far off cloud of smoke); sticking to his modus operandi and recalling the days where MCing was an art all rappers practiced, riding clean “like I put a set of gold thangs on a bar of soap.” Gibbs dails back the clock to 2003 where he put Gucci print on practically everything he owned, bumping Adrenaline Rush at obscene levels, courting controversy like Malcolm X’s perm, and offering a kiss off: “Bitch in my line said, ‘You wanna eat and drink and smoke and shit?’/Before I hung up, I said, ‘Call me when you want some dick.'”

Even in its tensest verses, both Spitta and Gibbs are feeling loose and free, using this mutual energy in separate sessions to facilitate a project sounding absolutely seamless.

It’s astounding how great work comes with ease when you have a collaborator on a wavelength just as rare as yours and the two meet seamlessly. It’s not something to be taken for granted, as evidenced by Fetti being such a sterling, lasting document of three top-notch artists showing the breadth of their talents.

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Only union Joel Biswas got is the Western.

Once upon a time, Madlib and Freddie Gibbs inhabited distant extremes of the indie rap spectrum. Gibbs is an implacable purveyor of ice-cold Midwestern coke rap whose fidelity to his style feels like a form of athleticism, while Otis Jackson Jr. is a chameleonic L.A. crate-digger whose eclectic modus operandi is best understood by what he hasn’t sampled. But when the two joined forces for 2015’s Piñata, the seeming odd couple of hustler and auteur revealed chemistry that felt instantly canonical. In hindsight, that shouldn’t have been a surprise – both are prodigious in their output, promiscuous in collaboration and unswervingly focussed on lanes of self-expression they’ve carved out on their own terms, albeit in radically different expressions of the form.

Madlib cut his teeth as part of Oxnard’s vibrant late-nineties backpack scene, before pursuing his muse in ever more quixotic ways – from collaborative albums with Dilla to stately official remixes of the Blue Note catalogue, to the art-rap goofs of Quasimoto, to the live experiments of Yesterday’s New Quintet to his celebrated work with MF Doom, Madvilliany. Gibbs on the other hand is more survivor than eccentric, withstanding formative years in the major label wilderness to author a stunning run of releases through his ESGN imprint, tirelessly refining his outsize charisma, molasses-soaked voice, and forensic examination of the drug game to become the Midwest’s most vital rap export since Bone Thugs (or at least early Kanye). The two brought out the best in each other; Piñata’s desolate soundscapes showed a restraint far-removed from Madlib’s usual kitchen-sink style, while Gibbs delivered his strongest ever writing, revealing melancholic cracks in an otherwise bulletproof persona.

The result was an album that warmly evoked memories of classic DJ-MC partnerships, not least because of a presence of a thematic arc that compared favorably neo-noir crime masterpieces like The Diary or Only Built For Cuban Linx.

Five years and many false-starts later, the two re-emerge with Bandana an album that triumphantly belies its lengthy gestation through sheer vital power. It is more sonically varied than its predecessor, more willfully chaotic and more crammed full of ideas. Gibbs raps with the frenetic urgency of a man who knows he’s on borrowed time, so deep in the fast-life that unexpected revelatory moments of reflection gasp for air amid the machine-gun velocity of his criminal vignettes, while Madlib uncorks a heady brew of ear-worm jazz and soul loops that continually push Gibbs harder and make the album’s compact running time feel breathless and packed with incident.

Things start perfectly with a typically obscure Madlib snippet of Japanese dialogue before the sumptuous horn loop of “Freestyle S**t” sees Gibbs wax melodic about his pre-rap hustle, vividly interspersing reminiscences about selling crack in front of the Jackson’s family home in Gary, Indiana with rapid fire Rocky references, bitter musings on the emptiness of rap success and a hunger that remains unsated even as his weed habit inches towards the powders he’s whipping up in the microwave. The second track “Half-man Half-Cocaine” fast forwards the listener into Gibbs’ long now, painting a nightmarish portrait of Mr Kane, hustler extraordinaire moving ounces on the cash app, fingertips numb from handling crack, rap reduced to an afterthought. It’s as if last year’s “Freddie” album has been distilled to a vicious trap rap ur-text so explicit that you can taste the drip.

Indeed, it is the juxtaposition of the unflinching moral blankness of Gibbs’ gaze and his gospel-soaked urgency of his delivery that is at the heart of this album. “Crime Pays” revels in the transient material pleasures of Gibbs’ chosen dark art over a twinkling Rhodes serotonin rush that gets warmer with every listen. It’s seductive, kush-scented low-rider music but even in these lush surroundings, Gibbs cannot escape the realization that even as author of his own economic emancipation, he’s still a slave twisted in the system.

“Flat Tummy Tea” mixes trapanomics with Five Percent teachings but even his jeweler’s best efforts at pharaonic adornment can’t stop him drawing dark parallels between himself and the bodies once stacked on slave ships to service cash crops of a different kind. For Gibbs, even redemptive Hollywood slave epics are a reminder of the true state of affairs and “If we don’t take it, we don’t deserve it back.” “Situations” delves into harrowing personal backstory with antenna finally attuned to ironies both personal and cosmic, noting that “Obama got elected today/ I got arrested” or detailing an astonishing scene of public violence witnessed as a child at an arcade. When Gibbs raps “When my daddy ran over Eddie with that motorcycle, he ain’t been that n*gga since,” it’s impossible to know who the real victim is. On the elegiac “Practice,” Madlib’s exquisite vocal loops finds Gibbs’ mournfully detailing the cost of complex romantic entanglements before ultimately realizing that the street is his most toxic mistress.

With “Palmolive,” he drops the best verse of the album over a yearning guitar and vocal loop – a breathless dirge of blistering internal rhymes (“my neighborhood is something like Fallujah/Vladimir banana clip moving Russian Kahlua shooters”) before a rollicking Killer Mike hook and a stand-out appearance from Pusha T provide a flawless counterpoint, the art of hustling elevated to outlaw grandeur. Madlib is in full auteur-mode here. “Massage Seats” is a collage of skeletal dance hall voices and decaying drums. “Fake Names” deploys tense strings before an inspired flute-loop turns the song inside out, one of many memorable beat flips that keep up the album’s relentless pace and underline the contradictions at the heard of Gibbs’ persona. “Education” is a posse cut for the ages, with Gibbs playing the street corner prophet alongside Yasiin Bey and Black Thought, over production that is sublime enough to make you overlook Gibbs’ coming out as an anti-vaxxer on his verse.

Beyond the dazzling flows and production, Gibbs’ embrace of fatalism over nihilism gives the album real emotional heft as he turns over explore every facet of his hustler persona in search of deeper meaning, prodded impishly by Madlib’s sonic insistence. Bandana is a hip-hop crime opera for the Adderall generation in which chasms of moral ambiguity are not so explored across individual songs as they are traversed bar by bar, moment-to-moment – a thrilling high-wire act from two masters who make thrilling, angry music that is as messy as it is alive.

We still twist up in the Chevy or the ‘Lac, goddammit. Please support your perennial Street Pulitzer nominees by subscribing to Passion of the Weiss on Patreon.

Steven Louis is not an essential business.

As legend has it, one of the most famous Italian pasta dishes ever exported was born out of sheer exasperation, by the banks of the Tiber River on the dawn of the First World War. Alfredo di Delio, a modest restaurant owner in Rome, needed a recipe that would appeal to his wife, Ines — she had recently given birth to the couple’s first son, and her appetite was subsequently drained out. Alfredo took fettuccine and doused it with parmesan and extra extra extra extra butter. It worked, because why the fuck would it not work?

The chef, nicknamed “Il Maestro,” kept the secret confined to his trattoria until 1927, when Chicago-based restaurant entrepreneur George Rector sang the dish’s praises in the pages of the Saturday Evening Post. An international culinary phenomenon was thus born, but rather than fully indulge in the history of maestosissime fettuccine all’Alfredo, let’s just call this delicious ingeniousness for what it really is: service of the pickiest of fiends. Oh, your body is rejecting the mere idea of eating after childbirth? How about just butter, cream, cheese and pasta? Yeah, thought so. Alfredo knew what was good well before The O’Jays put the rest of us on game. Gotta give the people what they want.

I can’t speak for anyone reading this, but I sure as hell feel like a 20th century Italian housewife right about now. Living through the fallout of a generational pandemic can feel stupid, confounding, unsatisfying and unreasonable. I’ll admit that I haven’t consumed a whole lot of new music, or new anything really, since the quarantine began — fresh releases require a certain level of buy-in from the consumer, and who is really in the mood to consume at a time like this? Gangsta Gibbs and Uncle Alc know that. They respect it. To those searching for product in a climate starved of subtlety, here’s ALFREDO, a 10-track 35-minute EP that feels luxurious and totally fulfilling despite the insanely straightforward, almost reductive ingredients.

One emcee, one producer. Bars on bars on bars, over soul samples and dusty psychedelia. Baritone about vital cocaine sales and expendable tour pussy. A sense of time to tie this all back to our bizarre moment — at least a half-dozen references to The Last Dance, one inspired Joe Exotic name-check, all delivered from a six-foot distance and behind a designer face mask — and no-frills features that pull from the short list of best rappers alive. Serving those fiending for this is a civic miracle — something to shoot up with as the remaining space around us narrows, constricts and withers to warmed banality.

About a year ago, I talked to those close to Freddie Gibbs about the decade anniversary of Midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmuzik, widely considered the artist’s breakout mixtape. DJ Skee told me about a desperate, talented emcee fighting for his career after major labels scrapped his debut LP. Ben “Lambo” Lambert, long-time manager and confidant, spoke of frantic initial pitches to Joe “3H” Weinberger at Capitol Records, sleeping on couches from Gary, Ind. all the way through the San Fernando Valley, and negotiating with confused A&Rs for the free release of shelved master recordings. It was a radical reclamation project, a young man from an abandoned American enclave, triple-timing with melodic urgency about the industry forces and DEA agents simultaneously hassling his career.

Fast forward more than 10 years and ALFREDO still rings with this very same magic of self-realization. It’s almost indistinguishable, save for the aforementioned cultural references. It’s what makes Freddie Gibbs so damn automatic. ALFREDO is loaded with verses about cooking crack while tending to the hygienic needs of your young child. It’s stuffed with regrets and boasts, contradictions and charms, and Freddie is rapping as if his legacy is very much still up for debate. So, fuck it, if America is finally “returning to normalcy” — benefiting the ultra-wealthy at the expense of literally everyone else, profiting rather brazenly from the prison-industrial complex, etc. — at least we get one of our few good constants: Freddie Gibbs creating with an all-time prolific beatsmith, out-rapping everybody on the planet.

“The revolution is this genocide / Execution will be televised,” he raps on “Scottie Beam,” presumably recorded weeks before Minneapolis police murdered George Floyd on camera. Why is an arresting officer pulling Gibbs over in sunny Los Angeles? Well, he was swerving to avoid potholes, and you can check the city budget on that one. Why is Freddie Caine, an American gangsta of modern mythological proportions, bragging about his drivers license and car registration being totally straight? Well, he really doesn’t want to have to kill one of these overzealous cops, that’s all. He warned the Gary Police Department in 2005 that he had more guns than they did. What you think, he sold em all? Rick Ross delivers a stellar feature that certifies him as Recession-proof twice over. 

On “Look At Me,” the Alchemist lays an eerie pitched-down loop of The Moments, completely devoid of percussion beyond the echoing tick sampled on each downbeat. Gibbs uses the soundscape to loop his own slithery, rubbery flow. It’s such straightforward artistry that it’s almost disarming; the simplest, barest of ingredients, distilled to whatever decadence makes sense right now. You expect the flow to switch or the drums to kick, when really you should just shut up and eat your pasta.

What of the ever-distant past? The premises and occurences of lifetimes ago, queued up to inform this surreal present of ours? To Freddie, all that went down just so that he would have shit to rap about in quarantine. More uncut self-actualization on “Something to Rap About.” God made him sell crack cocaine despite the draconian penal code around the very act; didn’t young Fred know how much the listener would need this, all these years later? God gave the man a paltry $40,000 first advance, plus trouble with the IRS to go with it. God gave him that night in Vienna. All for the fiends, all for us. Tyler The Creator traverses time in a much sunnier fashion, reporting live from the boat he hasn’t bought yet. Soaking in the Mykonos rays he’s very much not allowed to travel to, with a pocket full of seawater and the distinct taste of sugar and citrus under his teeth, he raps about propelling forward. The whole EP feels stuck in amber, an approximation of where we were before all this, like everything else seems to feel.

On “Skinny Suge,” the EP’s other melancholic, guitar-plucked track, Freddie admits to a time when he was selling dope to afford to rap, when his uncle fatally overdosed and he knew the distributor responsible but none of that mattered because he was off his ass with emotion and felt a pistol on his forehead. ALFREDO is comfort-zone, follow-the-recipe stuff for two of independent music’s biggest and most uncompromising Gs. It’s supposed to be effortless for them, while indulgent and thrilling for us. Of course he gives the Buffalo kids ample timespace to catch and then hide a body. Of course all this music bangs so very hard and pure. Cheese and butter and carbohydrates make an appetite out of nothing.

Destiny, or timing, or bars, or fettuccine. ALFREDO is unobscured art, scratching at itches when everything feels so discomfiting in the first place. If the fiends are indeed multiplying, someone might as well serve ‘em.