Freddie Gibbs recently released his track “Thuggin'”
produced by Madlib, a taste of what to expect on their forthcoming LP. Speaking with Jay-Z’s Life + Times, Gangsta Gibbs broke down a few lines from the project, explaining how he mined from personal experiences for the cut.
“The song is ‘Thuggin.’ First line, I say, ‘We’re not against rap, but we’re against those thugs.’ Speaking about how society wasn’t against rap music but against the thug element of it. I felt like that’s what I represent,” he said. “What I’m rapping is what I’m living. I’m using rap as a vehicle to get me away from that type of living.
“You may get to that level, selling drugs and engaging in certain activities in the street,” he continued. You might end up selling drugs to one of your family members, hell, you might end up shooting one of your family members. The drug and the crime shit really deteriorated our community – my community, at least. And then I say something about my uncle was addicted to drugs in the verse. That’s real shit. That’s a true example of a king to a fiend, someone who was a prominent and hard-working guy in the community that went from not having work and being addicted to crack cocaine.”
He also spoke on working with Madlib for their joint project, noting that there aren’t too many rappers who could hold their own against an album’s worth of instrumentals from the Beat Konducta.
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“Everything that I’ve been doing with Madlib has definitely been a challenge. I don’t know too many other emcees who could go about doing this project that I’m doing with him. The sample, whatever he used in it, it just rung a bell to me and just gave me a feel of something that I came up listening to. I just wanted to just tear that motherfucker apart as soon as I heard it.”
