Review Summary: Freddie emerges once again to remind us of what we already know
Freddie Gibbs albums have felt like victory laps for longer than they reasonably should. By the time Shadow of a Doubt dropped in 2015, he had already reached a point where his main imperative was just "be Freddie Gibbs and make a Freddie Gibbs album." It's hard to be established on that level just 6 or so years into your career. Nobody was asking him to push any sort of boundaries or reinvent himself in any significant way. People usually don't do that in rap anyway, but you get what I mean. All anyone could ask for was another bundle of rhythmic slickness, with his rapid fire verses clocking in at roughly 7000 words per second without ever encroaching on the boundaries of what one might describe as "lyrical rap" (ew right?). Lyrical rap is for nerds and Freddie is a gangster. I have it on good authority from the authors of at least 3 separate YouTube comments that Freddie is in fact real as hell and that perceived authenticity has gone a long way toward selling his rap persona. When Freddie Gibbs tells Joe Rogan he shot a crackhead 9 times I don't believe him, but I do believe he shot a crackhead. And that's frankly all I need.
So the expectations placed on Freddie from his fanbase have been crystal clear for a long time now. And for better or worse, he's managed to consistently and precisely operate within those confines. You always know what you're gonna get with Freddie. And for the same reasons that it prevents the prospect of a new release from him from being a truly momentous or exciting occasion, it does make him a perfect go-to source of comfort gangster rap. His rapping is technically impressive without ever sacrificing the cool, laid back bravado that allows him to sell this style so convincingly. You're gonna hear slick flows and an effortlessly smooth cadence over beats that are good and occasionally maybe even quite good. This one is actually fairly stripped back instrumentally, even when going into it with the expectation that the beats on a solo Freddie album probably aren't gonna take center stage. If the album was released by Freddie and someone else, you can expect more of that, but this one is just the man himself. And if you're expecting him to do something special in order to shoulder that heavier burden, you'll be disappointed. But the slightly more introspective and authentic lyrical style helps to compliment that more direct approach, and this is an album that certainly holds up on its own terms.
That's not to say there aren't instrumental flourishes that enhance what Freddie offers here. Cosmo Freestyle's opening bass melody is groovy as hell, the subtle g-funk synth on the beat for It's Your Anniversary is punctuated by a perfect guitar embellishment, and overall, there's plenty of small flourishes on the instrumentals to make your ears perk up every now and then. And even when nothing stands out, there's a base level of smoothness here that has defined most of Freddie's instrumentals. They probably won't make you do a stank face in the Wal-Mart parking lot but that's fine. Lyrically it's largely the same story. You're probably not gonna be blown away by the depth of his take on the Diddy situation or how he ties it into a larger theme of self-initiated downward spirals in the rap industry, but that's fine too. You don't have to have the most unique topic to convey, you just have to convey it convincingly. And Freddie, if nothing else, is convincing. I've been convinced for like a decade, but I'm still convinced now and that counts for something. Often there's diminishing returns with that sort of thing. If you listen to this album because you want to listen to this album, I cannot guarantee the result. But if you listen to this album because you want to listen to a Freddie Gibbs album you'll get exactly what you're after. This is a Freddie Gibbs album.
