![]() ![]() When he first started, as a member of the ’90s Oxnard rap crew Lootpack, he was a loose affiliate of the Likwit Crew, a group of workmanlike Californian rap head-slappers. Madlib, by contrast, has always been an experimenter. ![]() So he got himself dropped and learned to exist on the internet, where he found an audience that loved that throwback gutter-talk shit. But in the ’00s, when he signed his first misbegotten Interscope deal, that approach was no longer a populist one, and Gibbs was adrift. Once upon a time, that might’ve made him a star, or at least a cult favorite capable of moving vast quantities of CDs to a devoted audience. Instead, Freddie Gibbs is an unflashy artisan, and he’d probably be happy rapping over 808 thuds and G-funk synth-whines for the rest of his career. He knows how to rattle off syllables with astonishing speed while staying in the beat’s pocket and maintaining a calm, conversational presence. He understands the concept of flow like few others. As a pure technical rapper, he’s breathtaking. He talks about growing up amidst violence and poverty with a rare gravity, and he brings granular detail and clear bloodthirsty delight to his drug-trade stories. Gibbs comes from the burned-out and forgotten city of Gary, Indiana, and he makes snarling, unpretentious, head-down gangsta rap music. The combination of Freddie Gibbs and Madlib makes no sense, which is why it makes the most sense. ![]()
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May 2023
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