#'10s rap

[mywifeleftme]

233: Freddie Gibbs & Madlib // Piñata

Piñata Freddie Gibbs & Madlib 2014, Madlib Invazion

As of 2023, Freddie Gibbs & Madlib’s Piñata sits at #18 on RateYourMusic.com’s user-generated all-time hip-hop chart, and #113 for all albums. RYM, for the unfamiliar, is sort of an IMDb for music, and if its rankings aren’t as aggressively gauche as IMDb’s (I just looked at their top 250 films for the first time in years and guffawed), they’re still pretty slanted towards the tastes of the mostly white collegiate dudes and divorce dads who feel compelled to, well, rate their music. Though I wouldn’t accuse either Gibbs or ‘lib of trying to curry the white vote or anything, Piñata is perfectly calibrated to pleasure the sort of guy whose hip-hop canon is rooted in AllMusic Picks—and speaking as one of them, allow me to say it’s pretty good for that! But at the same time, there is a consistency to both beat and rhyme that makes it kind of like elite-tier background music, stuff that sounds great when it’s on that I nonetheless have difficulty paying deep attention to.

Madlib, like his friend Dilla, has always been sort of the avant-garde within the traditional. No matter how out there he gets, the beats he makes are still very clearly rooted in ‘90s boom-bap, and the tracks that Gibbs selected for Piñata are among the most conventional ‘lib’s ever done. When you throw the record on, you’re hit with pure soul-sampling nostalgia from the moment the needle drops, and there isn’t really a beat where the energy slacks or loses the groove. The mostly hook-free tracks do that classically Madlib thing (a la his Beat Konducta tapes and Madvillainy) of blending one into the next like you’re listening to a DJ set. As a result, you might have trouble remembering which songs stood out unless they’ve got a particularly memorable guest appearance or sample (a la “Higher” and “Harold’s”).

I have it on good authority that Freddie Gibbs says a lot of very cool shit on this record, but if you searched me for quotes, you’d just find three lighters, a dry pen, two metro cards and some illegible receipts. At no point does he sound like anything less than a stud on the mic, and his flow is faultless. But he has a way of munching his way through his bars with such metronomic efficiency my attention is lulled. Even on the more off-kilter beats like “Bomb,” he just calmly assesses the challenge ahead, nods to himself, and then attacks it with his usual casual, high PER athleticism. I was surprised to find myself perking up when a jabroni like Domo Genesis showed up, but honestly the occasional cameos from rappers both great (Raekwon and Danny Brown) and corny (Mac Miller and Ab-Soul, who uncharacteristically kills it on “Lakers”) inject life where Freddie’s shark-eyed flow just stacks bodies.

This review sounds a lot more negative than I really feel about this record (I bought it! I don’t plan on selling it!), but in the face of the intensity of praise this one has garnered in some quarters, I can’t help but compare it to the records that really seeded my love for rap. Despite its masterly technique, this lacks the flair and personality I’d need to put it on that classic level. (Freddie and Madlib are absolutely crushed, I’m sure.)

233/365

[yooo-lets-go]

what sort of music does simon listen to- and what are the others’ opinions on it when they inevitably discover it?

They probably wouldn’t share a playlist

Plus Roach:

[feroluce]

Love how Hoyo is just as much on Boothill's dick as the rest of us. The Wardance crowd really is just the fandom fjkdlsajlksl

[fuckyeslilkim]

Lil' Kim in Puerto Rico, 2010. [credit]

[goddisposez]

[floertoer]

kendrick really did it all, he made a straight rap song with Euphoria, gave us religious imagery with 6:16 in LA, did a full exposé with Meet the Grahams, then gave us a club banger with Not Like Us

drake really should've kept his mouth shut because I don't even think he realized that kendrick is fucking crazy and was waiting for him to slip up

[tha-wrecka-stow]

[deutschrapfinest]

Du bist eine Elf-von-zehn, egal auf welcher Skala. Jetzt scheiß ma' drauf, was irgendein Dulli zu dir gesagt hat.

Mond - Xam651 & DenniJasmin

[todayinhiphophistory]

Today in Hip Hop History:

Westside Connection released their debut album Bow Down October 22, 1996

[spaceshipsandpurpledrank]

Westside Connection - Bow Down (EXPLICIT) [UP.S 2K] (1996)

[dylanrosales25]

[correctproseka]

According to the Brazilian Miku thing ive been seeing a lot i now give you brazilian tenmas

[afuzzykitten]

"you can't hear pictures!"

rhythm heaven:

[djevilninja]

Ninety-nine, baby. I’m on the grind baby. All the time baby. Show me something.

Ice Cube feat Mack 10 & Ms. Toi - You Can Do It (UK-G Remix)

[nashvillethotchicken]

Kendrick Lamar got the same amount of grammys in one night (5) that drake has gotten in his whole career (5) for a song dissing drake

[welowyrm]

HI I DON'T WRITE MY OWN POSTS BUT I AM HERE 2 SHILL U VNs

Play seekL, learn SQL and vc with cute hacker boi

Play Blooming Panic, get shilled into FFXIV??? and find the blossoming fan server love of your fantasies

Found them 2 days ago, got the seekLove end in seekL, blazed immediately thru the other two endings at the speed of light, had the BEST TIME, finished in. Too fast. Now I know there's a programming language based on Arnold Schwarzenegger. The characters are written realistically and I maintain that Incri lurks on 2 many subreddits.

Then meandered to Blooming Panic and hung out in Fake Discord. I love all the routes. The shenanigans are super funny. There's memes. There's onion. (Just one.) There's grandpa! Hung out with Office Dad on my lunch break!

And not only are both games VAed they're FREE.

Anyways I'm shilling go play them (and while you're at it go play hit video game Final Fantasy XIV now up to level 70 FOR FREE and hit expansion Stormblood!!)