In 2009, Gibbs released four mixtapes, headlined by the landmark midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmuzik.
His first tape, Full Metal Jackit, was released in 2004, but it was the late 2000s when things began to turn for him. With all due respect to Jesse Powell, Gibbs is the biggest artist not named Jackson to come out of Gary, Indiana.
To know Gibbs is to understand why Alfredo arriving in the heat of societal upheaval makes sense. “I been through it all,” he said before his voice trails off. Sitting in interrogation rooms for hours on end for crimes, including murder, he never committed. Gibbs recalls a ton of tense interactions with the police over the years. But negative interactions with police are part of the cost of doing business in black America. It just made me feel more despondent about the future because they keep doing it.” “No disrespect to family at all, but the video didn’t surprise me. “Rest in peace to George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery,” he said. At its core, Alfredo is poetically ghetto, with The Alchemist’s production fitting Gibbs’ graphic, methodical flow perfectly.īefore the first question can be asked, Gibbs is intentional with his thoughts. But Gibbs knows his music lands at a point when history is being made, as a health crisis and Black Lives Matter protests reverberate worldwide.Īlfredo is Gibbs’ highest-charting album to date, peaking at No. Gibbs should be experiencing a lot of things: touring, making music videos, doing press runs. For many black men and women like Gibbs, that weight is a generational heirloom - being black in a country that adores black culture, but not always the creators of it. “Brass knuckle lyricism,” music critic Yoh Phillips dubbed it the day of its release.īut when Gibbs answers the phone on a recent Friday evening, there’s a familiar weight to his voice.
Freddie Gibbs ’ Alfredo, his album alongside producer and frequent collaborator The Alchemist, is as prolific a project the chronically unpredictable 2020 has seen or will see.
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