This article originally ran in 2014; we’re dusting it off for Freddie Gibbs’ birthday on June 14th.
In elementary school, Freddie Gibbs wore his clothes backwards to be like Kriss Kross, the Atlanta duo that reversed their jeans and Knicks jerseys on the way to adolescent rap stardom. This is easily the corniest rap-related decision Gibbs has ever made.
Hailing from Gary, Indiana, he debuted with his pair of Full Metal Jackit mixtapes in 2004. Within a couple years, he’d draw attention from the scouts at Interscope, then the home of Eminem, Gwen Stefani, Robin Thicke, Lloyd Banks, and others. He’d soon find himself stranded without a deal, and his mixtapes from 2009, The Miseducation of Freddie Gibbs and, mere months later, Midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmuzik, became triumphs of resilience due to the circumstances. Everything since then, from his signing and eventual fallout with Jeezy’s CTE World to Piñata, his collaboration album with California vinyl addict Madlib, might as well be extra credit.
Not that Gibbs was ever one to throw in the towel, anyway. Living in Gary, a city of 14 to 16 percent unemployment, is a hard-knock existence – 2013’s ESGN, which prominently featured Gary natives yet to hit it big elsewhere, stood for “Evil Seeds Grow Naturally,” Michael Jackson and the whole fam are from Gary, but Gibbs’ most lasting musical loves would turn out to be 2Pac and Scarface. He joined the army after high school and was eventually discharged for smoking weed, but he’d carry the disciplinary tools he learned in the service over to the recording booth.
One way to keep it real is to keep it evocative. Thankfully, Gibbs writes his lyrics with their eventual videos already in mind, dotting seen-it-all narratives with the details of everything from the makeshift bed/sock drawer of his infancy to the city bus rides on which he had formative sexual encounters. Up-and-comers like Deniro Farrar and Lil Bibby are penning similar stuff, and they’re great at it, but both will have to wait years before they’ve built a portfolio as deep as Gibbs’. Here are 10 of our favorite songs.
— Michael Madden
