After managing to reinvent himself for a few key quadrants - from the kind of guy who treats r/hiphopheads as gospel, to a sophisticated listener lured by the magnetism of tightly looped beats from revered indie beatmakers, to the longtime devotee who fell in love with the verisimilitude of his older material but finds this sustained career arc nice - his portfolio is the stuff of indie-rap fantasy.

Gibbs now seems to be opening yet another act. But with 2014's collaborative album with Oxnard producer Madlib, Piñata, listeners heard Gibbs reborn: a real-deal gangster rapper who could sail on top of a beloved sampler's frayed analog beats to universal acclaim. Along the way he tore through a hot streak of undeniable street-rap mixtapes from 2009's The Miseducation of Freddie Gibbs until 2012's Baby Face Killa. What to make of the pride of Gary, Indiana, signed to Interscope in 2006 then unceremoniously dropped without releasing an album, who latched onto Young Jeezy's CTE World label a few years later before acrimoniously departing to start his own imprint in 2013. Scott Fitzgerald said about American lives and second acts, Gibbs is on his third or fourth by any account. It's a rewarding listen from an artist still in his prime that leaves questions about what might come next.įorget what F.

Titled after a snatch of a line from 'Education,' a key track from 2019's Bandana ('Drugs for free / Soul sold separately'), Gibbs is an amalgamation of every facet of his artistry on this record: the hustler, the dealer, the street veteran, the effortlessly gifted MC, the audio tour guide through a beatmaker's fanciful compositions. Now 40, he's dispatched an emotionally nuanced record, one that's neither a self-indulgent victory lap, a re-telling of the origin story for newcomers or a bespoke project laced with beats from a hypebeast icon. Only Gibbs has cycled through a handful of these moments already - and delivered with aplomb. The new Freddie Gibbs album, $oul $old $eparately, arrives with the prestige and buzz of an artist's Big Moment.

Gibbs is so skilled in the booth you have to meet him halfway to extract the penitence and sorrow in the marrow of some of these songs.

Freddie gibbs - shadow of a doubt vinyl