Deen’s been sleeping so much he started getting carded again.
Hola. Hope you enjoyed the holidays. I didn’t – being crippled and all, but that ain’t your problem. Guess it’s back to the grind again for all of us. And by “all of us” that means Gangsta Gibbs too. You must have been insane to think we’d kick 2013 off any other way.
Young Jeezy’s Its Tha World tape dropped in mid-December – you know, around the same time Gangsta Gibbs announced that he was done with CTE. It seemed like an amicable enough split and I hope it stays that way, but I was really hoping that we’d hear some final Jeezy + Gibbs collaborations on the tape. Lo and behold, the tracklist leaked and there was no Gibbs to be found. Tragic, yet understandable.
Nonetheless, I figured that it was less a case of Jeezy just filling the mixtape up with non-Gibbs featuring tracks and more Jeezy straight yanking Gibbs verses off the tape. Given their working relationship over the past two years, there was no way Snowman recorded 17 mixtape tracks without leaving a few spots open for Gibbs. And the minute I saw the tracklist, I took an educated guess at which tracks Gibbs might have been on prior to the split. My number one guess? “Just Got Word” featuring YG and produced by Warren G. I’m sure I tweeted that shit. Go check if you’re that bored.
Anyway, I was right. As always. I’m batting about .900 with rap predictions. Vegas needs to open some sort of line of this kinda shit. Then I’ll finally be able to pay for guilt free sex at the strip club. It only took 3 weeks, but we have a non-Jeezy version of the same track – with YG intact and some Lil Sodi guy. You already know which one I prefer. The same applies to Gibbs’ effort with YG (“Every City“) over DJ Mustard’s instrumental for 2Chainz’s “I’m Different.” Took that one about a month after 2Chainz’s album dropped to leak as well.
Was finna yap a bit more about how Gangsta Gibbs is making a trend of creating slightly more interesting versions of songs by more popular rappers without those songs actually being “freestyles” in the MP3/blog-era sense, but the more interesting takeaway from these two songs is Gibbs’ increasing immersion in the “New California” scene. I don’t expect him to ever stop repping Gary, IN, but 2012 saw Gibbs work with A LOT of cats outta California. From Dom Kennedy to Madlib to YG to Problem to E-40 to DJs Dahi, Fresh and Mustard, Gibbs was hard at work all over Cali. I suppose this trend makes sense given that he’s been in Los Angeles for a good minute now, but it’s an observation that escaped me until I started writing this shit.
The significance of this observation? None whatsoever, but you try writing some shit after taking 2 weeks off, then come see me. In any case, “Do It” (or “Just Got Word” – whatever) remains one helluva smooth track and Gibbs easily has the best verse of anyone who has rapped over it. That said, maybe the real takeaway from this song oughta be that Warren G should really get more production work these days…
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