Freddie Gibbs Talks New Album ‘Bandana,’ Madlib & Overcoming Personal Tragedy

Freddie Gibbs’ “great place” is not metaphorical; for the first time since being dropped from Interscope, he is in business with a major record company. Tunji Balogun, whose relationship with Gibbs and Lambert goes back a decade, is the executive vice president of A&R at RCA Records and a co-founder of the label Keep Cool (a joint venture with RCA). Bandana will be released on Keep Cool/RCA.

It’s a fitting home for Gibbs. He’s back in the major-label system, with the resources to get his music to the masses, but this time with a friend at the helm. He feels that the mainstream music industry has consistently stolen his moves since he went independent. There’s been the voluntary stuff (he lists one or two maybe-he’s-joking-maybe-he’s-not examples of ghostwriting during our afternoon together), but he also points out that time in 2010 when he released his Str8 Killa No Filla mixtape for free, followed by a shortened EP version up for sale: a model that became common in the years afterwards. Gibbs then released a shorter-than-normal album in 2017 with the eight-track You Only Live 2wice, only to see music’s biggest stars run with that idea.

Now he’s anxious to get on the bigger stage that his new deal provides, and he’s confident that Bandana can stand up to the increased scrutiny. Madlib agrees: “I knew the album was going to be good, and straight to the point. I trust my collaborators, and they trust me. When we’re creating, we’re not thinking of anything except making the best music possible.”

Bandana meets the producer’s lofty description. Appropriately enough, given that it was written largely behind bars, it’s often reflective, looking back at Gibbs’ difficult past and the scars it left behind. “Every time I sleep, dead faces, they occupy my brain,” he says on “Fake Names.” On other songs, Gangsta Gibbs turns political, comparing the Trump era to the crack-besotted 1980s (“We got a reality star in the goddamn office, quite like the Reagan days,” he spits disgustedly on “Palmolive.”)

Musically, the album hews a little closer to soul music than Piñata’s jazz-based sound. And a number of the songs feature beat switches. “That was on me,” Gibbs admits. “I was like, ‘Fuck it, let’s make two beats on a lot of the songs.’ When you can rap on one beat and keep rapping seamlessly when the beat change, I feel like that’s a great technical skill. Not many people can do that. I want [Madlib] to challenge me as an MC and take me to different levels of making music that I never knew I could unlock.”

“There’s definitely not an album like this,” he continues, summing up his thoughts on Bandana. “I think a lot of guys are influenced by Piñata. I fathered a lot of styles off that album. And I’m about to have some kids when this album comes out.”

The album, born in a crucible of time spent in jail and a friend dying, nearly didn’t come out at all. Making it, Gibbs explains, was a process of “trying to find myself again.”

“During the jail shit, it was a lot of praying and reading and soul searching going on during that time when I was making these records,” he recalls. “I didn’t even know if I wanted to rap again after I dealt with that situation. I thought that I was going to just fade and just chill, and probably do something else.” But, Gibbs concludes, “I love this, and it loves me. So I can’t never give it up.”