In my journey of branching out my music taste in terms of rap, I landed on the artist Freddie Gibbs.
I’ve heard of him through various features, as well as the most notable, his Grammy nominee-earning record, “Alfredo.” The record was nominated for rap album of the year back in 2021 but lost to Nas’s and Hitboy’s collaboration album, “King’s Disease.”
Besides “Alfredo,” I remember waiting patiently for his next record, “$oul $old $eparately” and ended up enjoying it quite a bit.
As a whole so far, I’ve enjoyed Freddie’s music a lot, “Alfredo” personally being one of my favorite projects of his.
First, my favorite part of Freddie’s albums are him and his vocals. The way that he typically flows over the instrumentals that he’s given is just amazing.
Even in the very beginning of the record with “1985,” he starts the song off with his usual flow on just the most wonderful sounding production. In the same song, he showcases why he earned that Grammy nomination. He puts great lyrics, an amazing flow, and even addicting vocals all into one track.
Another favorite track of mine is “Baby $hit.” Yet again, his flow is something that I would love for every artist to have. Time and time again, he shows the listeners why he’s one of the better rappers nowadays. In the sea of rappers we have now, seriously good “rappers” are hard to come by.
Now, we really just have a bunch of artists who cannot rap well. If you read my review last week on Playboi Carti, you would know that I think he falls in this category. He isn’t bad as an “artist” by any means, but as a “rapper,” he’s quite bad. In the same review, I went on to explain how there are current-day rappers who are on the other side of the spectrum, like Eminem. He tries so hard to be a great rapper that the other components of his music are obviously lacking in comparison. With Freddie, we get a happy medium between the two.
As for the features, it’s a small list, but each and every one is powerful in their own way. First, we get Rick Ross on “Scottie Beam.” His style of rapping is very on-point with Freddie’s, so this collaboration makes perfect sense. Per usual, Rick Ross delivers on yet another feature. He’s in the same boat as Freddie when discussing his flow in my opinion. Same goes for his vocals. Both of which I adore.
On the record, we get two Griselda members with Benny the Butcher and Conway the Machine. Both of which are great. We get Benny on the track titled “Frank Lucas.” The soundscape as a whole speaks “Benny the Butcher,” so it’s no surprise that the track is great. The song is made even better by Benny’s verse. Throughout his verse, we get his iconic flow and his unique approach to rap known as “coke rap” (this is essentially when a rapper raps about drug-dealing).
Conway the Machine then gives us a verse on “Babies & Fools.” Conway is practically the same as Benny in regards to their verses. During his verse, we get more of that gritty “coke rap” that we received from Benny’s verse. Considering I thoroughly enjoyed Benny’s feature, I liked Conway’s verse just as much.
Then, we get Tyler, The Creator on “Something to Rap About.” Both Freddie and Tyler make this song my favorite off the record without a doubt. I feel as if this track is the main reason as to why the record was nominated for its Grammy. Here, Tyler starts his new era of his music with a style that gave us a sneak peak to his 2021 record, “CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST.” He attains his bodacious rapping style during his verse, and I love it.
Next, we have one of the best cases of production on this record. The Alchemist produced the entire album, front to back. My favorite cases of amazing production come from tracks like “1985” and “All Glass.” I don’t know exactly how to put it in words, but I love the production on these kinds of songs so much. The Alchemist is known for his more atmospheric style of producing, and I’m here for it. To add on, the style used here is very “jazzy.” Yet again, I’m in love with this style of music. I recall this kind of production off of Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp A Butterfly.” That record, of course, I adored because of the jazz-inspired beats. The entire record is filled with instrumentals like this, making for an enjoyable listening experience in terms of production.
Finally, the record is VERY replayabe. Per usual, the album is short. At only ten tracks and 35 minutes, this project is shorter than most nowadays. Because of that, most are inclined to listen to the album as a whole more and more. With that alone, “Alfredo” is replayable. Even more so, I generally love this kind of music, so I happen to be eager to replay the album from front to back more than most. On the production side of things, each song has its own unique sounds, making it easy to relisten to each track. With that, the album is more replayable than most.
From Freddie’s addicting rap performance, to the amazing production and replayable nature of the album, I think this is one of the better records to come out in recent times.
Because of that, Freddie Gibbs’s “Alfredo” gets a 9 out of 10.