Only Internet rap critics complain about whether or not a rapper whom 99.9% of the world has never heard of is overrated. If there was a secret PR formula that Freddie Gibbs and his team possessed, he wouldn’t be living in the seediest part of Van Nuys, with overturned shopping carts littering the sidewalk and dudes mean-mugging you on the walk in. He wouldn’t have had to sleep on couches for the first six months of his return to Los Angeles. He would’ve dropped an album on Aftermath in 2006 and you would have heard him of him a long time ago, via the vast Interscope marketing machine.
Nor has any myopic or misguided nostalgia for UGK driven his rise in notoriety. If anything, 2Pac and Bone Thugs are more salient influences. Occasionally, good music can win critical plaudits off the merits of being good music (shocking, I know)–especially when many of his peers are shackled into making ill-fitting pop concessions or diluting their product with redundant mixtape after mixtape. Truthfully, I didn’t even realize how exceptional Gibbs’ music was until after I interviewed him for the LA Weekly, returned to the songs, and realized that everything that he’d told me was already there. He has a powerful story, he’s from a city whose story has rarely been told, he’s a skilled writer, and his flow is wicked. Find me another rapper with that same skill set and I’ll write about them. So will everyone else.
In the meantime.
LA Weekly: The Miseducation of Freddie Gibbs
Download:
ZIP: Freddie Gibbs-The Labels Trying to Kill Me
ZIP: Freddie Gibbs-”Midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmuzik”
ZIP: Freddie Gibbs-”The Miseducation of Freddie Gibbs”
22 comments
realdeal says:
December 3, 2009 at 9:34 am (UTC -7)
its amazing to see someone that real on the cover of LA Weekly.
DocZeus says:
December 3, 2009 at 9:57 am (UTC -7)
I didn’t realize Gibbs was on “The True.” Weird.
Thomas says:
December 3, 2009 at 10:02 am (UTC -7)
Been bumping these albums for the last month. He’s the real deal. Looking forward to the read.
Ivan says:
December 3, 2009 at 10:07 am (UTC -7)
Great response to a certain someone’s post…
archibald says:
December 3, 2009 at 11:17 am (UTC -7)
I like that follow up. I always told everybody that great music, truly great music, always finds a way to be heard.
Alex Ludovico says:
December 3, 2009 at 12:30 pm (UTC -7)
I feel like you know so much about my city now. I never talk about Gary, even tho I’m sitting in my house here as I type this. Although I’m the polar opposite of the archetype of a person from Gary, I can’t help but feel serious pride that someone from my city that no one seems to care about is getting nationwide shine. Its a beautiful thing.
Sermonator-X says:
December 3, 2009 at 1:25 pm (UTC -7)
That interview was pretty cool. Meeting these artists and cracking blunts with them must be pretty cool as well. Pretty, pretty cool…
Vicarious Music says:
December 3, 2009 at 4:08 pm (UTC -7)
[...] The Miseducation of Freddie Gibbs (Full Feature) addthis_url = [...]
Freddie Gibbs Covers L.A. Weekly « Daily News says:
December 3, 2009 at 6:25 pm (UTC -7)
[...] @ FSD (via NR): Click here for the full feature entitled The Miseducation of Freddie Gibbs. Hit the jump for Part 2 for his infomercial for The Labels Tryin’ To Kill Me, which is [...]
noz says:
December 3, 2009 at 10:17 pm (UTC -7)
You still don’t get it, do you?
brandonsoderberg says:
December 4, 2009 at 12:40 am (UTC -7)
Put-off by the “authenticity” angle of the article, awesome this dude’s on the cover in theory (in practice he bores me but that hardly matters), and annoyed that this cool not-bullshit-rapper’s success is now usurped by a mad-muddled point by Nozzy Bear about how no one can write about rap right except for him.
Rappers of a certain ilk do indeed crossover beyond their super-concentrated fanbase and this does not make them or the people who like them who aren’t “supposed” to like them bullshit.
love,
brandon
DocZeus says:
December 4, 2009 at 7:20 am (UTC -7)
“about how no one can write about rap right except for him.”
That’s pretty much the entire point of those articles.
dronkmunk says:
December 4, 2009 at 7:46 am (UTC -7)
I really don’t get the love for Freddie Gibbs. I been listening to both his albums, sorry, mixtapes all morning…I thought we were all sick of 5o cent? This is basically GRODT lite. Gangsta Rap is dead, and if it isn’t we should let it die, not have a revival.
And besides, every time I hear his name I think of the Bee Gees.
Deen says:
December 4, 2009 at 8:08 am (UTC -7)
Happy Ether Day.
Now that I got that outta the way, if you don’t get Gibbs or you don’t like gangsta rap, go listen to whatever pussified shit you prefer and leave us alone to enjoy our shit. Everything ain’t for everyone…
dronkmunk says:
December 4, 2009 at 2:05 pm (UTC -7)
Harsh, bro.
student says:
December 4, 2009 at 3:14 pm (UTC -7)
“You still don’t get it, do you?”
that there is one o’ them loaded questions, methinks
David says:
December 4, 2009 at 3:31 pm (UTC -7)
i wish he could spit a hook like 50
real says:
December 4, 2009 at 3:54 pm (UTC -7)
Yeah David. That’d be fucking dope if Freddie Gibbs recorded the new “Candy Shop”…
Chef Rae says:
December 4, 2009 at 4:22 pm (UTC -7)
I wish every rapper could spit a hook like 50.
Deen says:
December 4, 2009 at 8:17 pm (UTC -7)
I wish Jay-Z was Nas.
Chef Rae says:
December 4, 2009 at 8:31 pm (UTC -7)
I wish Noz was Nas.
Flowers says:
December 6, 2009 at 4:07 pm (UTC -7)
Freddie Gibbs isn’t Young Buck. Have yall ever considered that?