Str8 Killa EP

On Twitter, Freddie Gibbs has complained a couple of times about other rappers biting his style. But it's tough to imagine who he's talking about, or what a Freddie Gibbs style bite would even sound like. Gibbs isn't a stylistic trailblazer; he's a synthesist. He sounds like a lab-created hybrid of every person who was making gangsta rap in about 1995. In his nimble baritone, I hear trace elements of Krayzie Bone's astoundingly fluid singsong double-time, MC Eiht's bloody-minded exuberance, Scarface's conflicted gravitas, Buckshot's hardnosed weed-talk, and about a hundred other traits from a hundred other guys. If you love these rappers, Gibbs' music works as a sort of expertly delivered, deeply felt comfort-food-- sort of like how Band of Horses works for Neil Young fans. We're probably not going to hear any new ideas from Gibbs, but we are going to hear old ideas rendered very, very well.