Business
He Got Game
New hip hop royalty Freddie Gibbs is on the move
Freddie Gibbs has an unusual recent success story. Apparently, he doesn’t need any major label system to achieve strong sales, as his new album ESGN debuted at #7 on iTunes’ hip-hop charts as a self-released record with virtually no radio play. So, just how d
New hip hop royalty Freddie Gibbs is on the move
Freddie Gibbs has an unusual recent success story. Apparently, he doesn’t need any major label system to achieve strong sales, as his new album ESGN debuted at #7 on iTunes’ hip-hop charts as a self-released record with virtually no radio play. So, just how did he do it?
“I think it’s just due to perseverance, man,” Gibbs explains. “I just expect my core audience, that’s been with me since day one, to really grasp my music. And it seems like more people are grasping it. Every new fan is a blessing. I’m not tripping no matter what way it goes. I’m glad that people are receiving the music well.”
The album’s acronym title stands for ‘Evil Seeds Grow Naturally,’ but the way it’s written out on the CD cover—in bright neon red, no less—looks a whole lot like one particular sports and entertainment cable channel. Not surprisingly, Gibbs is also a big sports fan. “I’m watching ESPN right now,” says Gibbs over the phone. He didn’t have to clear his album title with that particular network, however. “Hell no!” he replies, when asked if he checked with the TV giant first. “As long as I didn’t call it ‘ESPN,’ it’s all good. It’s totally different.”
Gibbs would rather talk about sports, than sports business, anyway. “It’s probably a three-way tie,” Gibbs says, when pressed to name his favorite sport, “between basketball, baseball and football.” Gibbs is from Gary, Indiana, which has always traditionally been a basketball state. But this man loves all three major American sports, equally. “I played all three,” he recalls. “I’m probably best at football.”
About the real meaning of ESGN, Gibbs explains, “It just embodies everything about what I do and what I am. I think I’m the natural bad guy, the black sheep of this industry, so I want to convey that with my brand. That’s the hand I’ve been dealt.”
Whether good or bad, Gibbs certainly never slows down. In fact, he just finished a collaboration album with Los Angeles-based DJ, multi-instrumentalist, rapper and music producer, Madlib. “It’s called Cocaine Piñata,” Gibbs says. “It comes out in the fall, and it’s definitely a different experience for me. It was a challenging experience working with Madlib. And that’s what I’m up for, a challenge. It made me better as an MC. It made me take my lyrics to a level I hadn’t taken them to before because I’d never rapped on those obscure types of samples.”
Multiple Personalities
Gibbs truly enjoyed working with Madlib—a well-known L.A. based sampling genius. Madlib took a turn away from hip-hop music in the early 2000s, beginning a series of releases from Yesterdays New Quintet, a jazz-based, hip-hop and electronic-influenced quintet made up of alter egos or fictional musicians played by Madlib. Over the next several years, through several record releases on Stones Throw and other labels, the growing number of pseudonyms and fictional players came to be known as Yesterday’s Universe. Playing instruments live in his studio and then sampling and rearranging the results, the first Yesterdays New Quintet long-player, Angles Without Edges, dropped in 2001. Madlib, who is no stranger to pseudonyms, went so far as to name each of the fictitious players in his group (Monk Hughes, Ahmad Miller, Joe McDurfey, and Malik Flowers, if you’re curious).
