Alfredo - Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist: Review
is a Gary, Indiana rapper who spent the last decade dropping some of the most explosive and hard-hitting rap records around, highlighted by a pair of collaborative releases with Madlib in 2014 and again in 2019. He first collaborated with California produced The Alchemist in 2018 alongside rapper Curren$y on their Fetti project and has now surprised dropped his long awaited official first true collaboration with Alchemist on record.
Review By Lavender:
Freddie Gibbs has been one of my favorite rappers in the modern day. With his hard-hitting blend of lyrically sharp and thematic bars and a knack for choosing great production. Even though he has managed to impress me with solo material plenty of times the best Gibbs projects have come when he works in tandem with a legendary producer for an entire record. Given that Freddie has worked with Alchemist effectively before and he released one of my favorite albums of 2019 I was very excited for this album the moment I first heard it was coming, and for the most part it lives up to the hype.
The record gets off to a pretty great start on 1985 which features some slick glittery guitar samples that lace the background as well as some confident and punchy bars from Freddie. He references Gibbs classics from basketball to drug dealing on a great track to get the ball rolling on the project. The next great song the project has to offer is Scottie Beam which leads off with a pretty fluttering beat that sounds like something that could have been on one of the Madlib projects. Freddie is perfect for a song like this as he engages in lyrical topics of conflict with police which is particularly relevant right now. I love the refrain he borrows from Gil Scott-Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" where he makes reference to his own execution being televised instead. Even Rick Ross manages to show up and drop a great feature with his instantly recognizable voice highlighting some less serious bars then Freddie's.
Speaking of features the record has a handful and they all go over pretty well. Two members of Griselda appear on two different tracks with equally good results. Frank Lucas features Benny The Butcher as well as one of the darkest beats on the record. It has some ominous synths handing under the mix that I really enjoy and they serve as a great palette for not only Freddie delivering some of his more thematically darker topics which allows Benny to fit in perfectly with a solid feature. Babies & Fools on the other hand features an incredibly smooth instrumental with some brief but beautiful vocal samples that punctuate the harder street themed rapping from Freddie and guest Conway The Machine. Despite the lowkey nature of both the artists bars they manage to hit incredibly song and the track serves as a big highlight. Something To Rap About has the most surprising feature of the bunch but it doesn't show up until the tracks second half. The beat on this song is absolute musical butter as it washes beautifully into the track. Freddie delivers some brutally honest storytelling about both his come-up in the world of hip-hop as well as where he hopes to go next.. Funny enough the Tyler, The Creator feature kicks off with him delivering some well deserved compliments to the songs beat. While it isn't the greatest feature I've ever heard or anything it is nice to hear Tyler spitting bars in this kind of relaxed but punchy flow for the first time in a while and he manages to hold his own against somebody of Freddie's caliber pretty well.
Baby $hit is a classic Freddie type song with a nonstop assault of fiery bars delivered in his confrontational yet smooth tone with one lyrical highlight after another and a sharp hook to top it all off for some absolute excellence. Skinny Suge is once again dusted with some beautiful if not occasionally overwhelming guitars. Freddie is addressing some real demons on the track but never really gets dejected in his tone and ends his long verse off on a point of emotional recovery. For a song named after one of Freddie's frequent nicknames it does feel like a pretty cohesive amalgamation of who he is. All Glass is the closing track and probably the most aggressive track on the entire record. It makes room for some hard-hitting flows and flashy production tricks that don't appear as much across the rest of the album and is a great moment that adds some real depth to the record.
God Is Perfect has a pretty feint beat and keys that don't do as much for me as some of the other instrumentals here. While I think the hook is well written Freddie is singing it with this really fragile tone in his voice that makes it all sound kind of awkward. In contrast he murders his verses on the song with hard-hitting bars just as effective as he always is so it certainly isn't all lost. Look At Me is the only other track I didn't love and it also contains one of the albums sleepier instrumentals. I think the hook is good but some of the moments that border on singing in Freddie's performance are a little bit weak and while he has a few bars here and there that I love the song could have definitely been better.
Alfredo is one of conscious raps highlights in 2020 so far and seeing it came from voices as consistently acclaimed as Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist is no surprise. Despite the consistently lowkey tone of the record both the slick beats, captivating performances and lyricism from Freddie make for one rewarding song after another. While the combination may not be as instantly ear grabbing and consistently fleshed out as Freddie's pair of albums with Madlib this is still a great hip hop record with all the poise of two veterans going toe to toe and creating some excellent songs as a result. 8/10
Album Cover Review by Tyler Judson:I can definitely say that this is a very original cover. It's so basic but the overall concept is so unnatural. It's humorous and the illustration style isn't adding anything to the humor of the concept and it almost seems mismatched. Like the illustration itself is more serious than the satire represented. The color palette could've used another eye catching color and the brown of the background and the brown of the hand make the hand disappear into the comp, but that could've been their intention. 7/10
For more conscious hip hop check out my review of Shabazz Palaces' The Don Of Diamond Dream here
