Freddie (and maybe still.grimey?) Back!

LaGreezy would like you to remember Spicoli grew up to become a cop.

I have been in my damn feelings. A self-identified “rap guy”, and I’ve been stuck in a mindstate where I’ve convinced myself that I looked up one day and the whole game just passed me by. I’ve vocalized as much. I either don’t get, or don’t feel compelled enough to give Lil Du Jour very much, if any, burn at all (I promise that was not a shot at Lil Pump - this video forever) . Save for the new E-40 and B-Legit record (!!), which my god you need to go shlump right the fuck now, many of seasoned artists I adore weren’t really producing enough to keep my attention.

Enter Freddie Gibbs. Perhaps I’ve been existing in California for way longer than is palatable for a loyal-to-the-soil Northwesterner, but my god his new record “Colors” is the best song I’ve heard since *extremely 'Love Sosa' intro voice* I DONT KNOW WHEN. Armed with a saxophone sample perfect enough to make Gerry Rafferty blush, the Leauge of Starz production will endear itself to everybody from the 14 year old in line of Fairfax to your most obnoxious rappity rap friend with a Jansport. This isn't to say the record sounds dated, quite the contrary, this motherfucker timeless. I can not even begin to venture a guess as to how many shirtless dominoes contests this will soundtrack this summer .




Likely still basking in the excellence of 2017's You Only Live 2wice, and perhaps showing some of Madlibs more enigmatic tendencies, the best thing to come out of Gary since Michael has been off the radar as of late.  But Gibbs is decidedly back in his bag, this time giving you the out-of-towner's guide to the Los Angeles underbelly. His baritone flow kicks off the track and menaces from 65th and Figueroa to Inglewood, and back to Crenshaw for some Jamaican food. Mixing in percussive cadences, and hopping in and out of the beat, Gibbs remains the most technically talented MC not to win a Pulitzer. He pimps every syllable of every bar of the first verse to make damn sure you wont forget it.

Next up is the Broadway Eazy E, the baddest mother fucker with a Jheri Curl and a microphone, G Perico. His methodical, nasally snarl is the perfect foil to Frederick in the pocket, issuing warnings from the onset about his world of sex, money, and violence - Perico's words, not mine, because you must don't know no better. Never issuing threats, just telling you how it is on Broadway, his sneer matching the sonic pitch of the sampled saxophone's wail. The message is clear: it's active out here, it ain't just the summer. 

Fresh off Black Panther's closing credits, Mozzy is quick with the credentials: killers in his affidavits, tattoos on all they faces, resume consists of yanking. Offering a bleak, yet brief, glimpse into his Oak Park neighborhood where you gotta catch a body to climb up rankings. His voice and delivery is in line with regional greats like The Jacka (RIP), and J. Stallin, interpolated through Sacramento's own specific set of circumstances. He is familiar, and like nobody you've ever heard before, as he stated he's cut from a different blanket, and his final bar of the track's closing verse serves as a thesis to the presumably uninitiated listener: "we got different point of views 'cause of all the gangster shit I saw".

The song is the audio equivalent to an early Hughes Brothers or John Singleton film about the plight of growing up in the Golden State, and the realities and casualties of the California street life. Borrowing dialogue from the eponymous 1990 film to both set the stage and turn off the lights, the song neither glorifies nor demonizes the life. It just let's you know it's not something most of us have the wherewithal to survive. Don't come to California.