Freddie Gibbs & Madlib's Piñata: A Reflection

“You wake up every day and pray before you sleep, right?

You motherfuckers just like me

You shed tears when you're hurting; if I cut you then you bleed, right?

You motherfuckers just like me”

The fear of the unknown is concerningly ubiquitous. And such is certainly exacerbated by the great comfort and stability that our privilege cradles us with. We become intoxicated within this security, too often losing vision for the struggles of others, too often divesting their intrinsic humanity to a reductive label. Though there are unmistakable differences between everyone – be it socio-economically or culturally – the same blood runs inside of us as the same blood “bleed[s]” outside of us. So, perhaps, in world that is so unfeeling to those that need compassion the most, music may well be one of the only mediums that can transcend the void between us.

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7 months ago, after appreciating my rare modicum of Mary Jane with a mate, I sauntered home and envisioned the evening as one for loop digging and sample chopping. I strolled into my bedroom – almost knocking over a stack of vinyls – its fragrance of grandma’s couches and fresh linen greeting my nostrils. I flicked open my MacBook with excitement, not even noticing that my trouser seams were still slightly seasoned with weed-dandruff. I booted up Spotify, optimistically convinced that today’s harvest would yield me the samples of my magnum opus to Nas’ Illmatic: alas, there was shit all. All was not in vain, though; a little red icon glinted under the “DISCOVER NEW MUSIC” tab feature. Rather defeated already, I reluctantly gave the icon its due attention and clicked on it. And there it was: “Piñata – Freddie Gibbs & Madlib,” in all its black-and-cocaine-white-zebra-patterned grandeur. The names were familiar – I had even heard some of Freddie’s tracks before – but never had I associated his name to the ‘the hell you lookin’ at’ face that owned it. Naturally, a sheltered child of privilege like me was quite intimidated. Perhaps it was the well-loved spliff in his mouth, or maybe it was the pigment of his skin, but there was something that made his aura feel taboo, foreign to me at the time. Unsettling.

It didn’t matter. A strange, dusty voice interrupted my contemplations, filling the void between my Audio-Technica’s while lecturing me about how “only the strong survives”. Accompanying was a ritualistic drum pattern, steadily knocking underneath, only augmenting the voice’s conviction. Most of me felt defensive, rejecting such an animalistic outlook. But part of me vaguely resonated with the voice – perhaps a product of my traditional Chinese MaMa. Yet I remained as the audience. Just as the voice continued its sermon, preaching that “the thing was to get it, it really didn't matter what the means was”, so too were my feelings of moral disturbance and confusion deepened.

With a jarring nonchalance, Freddie Gibbs made his first appearance on the record, remarking “another day in Gary, 'nother couple niggas in the morgue,” his stoicism confounding me. It was hard for me to comprehend just how casually he delivered that line, and how much death there must have been for Freddie to be that desensitised. I wondered, too, was Freddie the killer? Or were they his “niggas” being killed? Needless to say, the stark difference in implication of these two scenarios overwhelmed me. So I tittered. I coped by finding humour in his insouciance. Back then, I didn’t realise that Freddie did not have this choice. When things become too tough for us, it’s possible for us to take a step back, and lean on our crutches – be it money, family, or the benefits our privileged social status entails; but for many of those who are less fortunate, they have no choice but to “keep the heat”, even in their “cold[est] of phases”. Somewhere amidst my hazy ambivalence were small hues of admiration for Freddie’s determination to succeed, given that the life he leads has “bullets” with his “name on ‘em”. As a student in a wealthy white private school, small hues were all I could afford. Even still, looking back, I tried to dismiss these thoughts; a “chopper…rip[ping]…dope” dealer was anathema to what I was taught to appreciate. I wanted to relegate my sudden admiration to his slick flow and delivery, so as to not give Freddie and his ethos any compassion. But I knew that in doing so, I was lying to myself.

Madlib’s shrill violin passage cried out on Deeper, its D flat-minor characteristics casting a cold spell throughout the soundscape. A grumbly but sharp bass rift doggedly marched through her winter storm, each kick of the drum and emblem of a footstep, its progress. “Maybe you's a stank ho” Freddie suddenly quips out of frustration – but, ultimately, he knows “that's a bit mean” to his lover.

And just for that one transient moment, I was only listening to Fredrick Jamel Tipton. Not the “real killer” who’s “gangbangin’”. Not the dealer who keeps “half of thang of heroin in the bathroom”. Not the rapper who was once “locked” away. I was only listening to the anguishes of a heartbroken man. How “wrong[ed]” he must have felt when she “took off the glove” for “a[nother] nigga”. How betrayed he must have felt when she had the same man’s “baby in the oven”, even after she promised it was “you and me forever” since they were “kids”. How inadequate and ashamed he must have felt when she chose a “square ass motherfucker” over a “hood nigga” like him. He was revealing the darkest, most poignant corners of his psyche, the so very vulnerable human emotions under the veil of “gangbangin’” and “’caine slangin’”. And it “cut a nigga deep”. I felt Freddie’s candid empathy, though still a “thug ass nigga”, but one that understands the complexity of the human condition, a sentiment which acknowledges his lover as she “[out]grows” his rash lifestyle of “living like [he’s] sixteen”. Perhaps, then, the violin was weeping for him.

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Freddie knows “knows [he’s] out here fucking up”. He doesn’t condone this lifestyle. But when you’re “surviving off cold cuts and cold spam”, what choice do you really have? Under White America’s apathetic capitalist system, people of colour in the “hood”, like Freddie, have no chance of pulling themselves out of this quagmire. They are ostracised, pushed away, and dismissed as ‘thugs’, ‘criminals’, and ‘gangsters’. But Freddie enlightens that they too are ‘fathers’, ‘sons’, and ‘brothers’. So of course Freddie is going to scream “fuck the government”. And when you’re fighting for not just your own life, but your mother’s, son’s and daughter’s lives, your love would go to no end to keep them alive and well. Most likely – and hopefully – none of us have experienced anything remotely close to this. But it would be disingenuous of us to not admit that a similarly reductive attitude is echoed throughout the halls of schools. We love to pigeon-hole those that we are too afraid to understand into hurtful categories: “the loners”, “the Asians”, “the nerds” are among the most common. Maybe, there is great irony in that I’m speaking from a pedestal of privilege right now, synonymising the brutal experience of Freddie Gibbs with the issues of a wealthy private school. I can only apologise for never being able to understand what it feels like. But like solemnly textured synths on Broken, we are asked to see the human motivations in “put[ting] the smoke on a nigga, coke in the blender…rob all the robbеrs, kill all the killas for [his loved ones]”, just as I am asking us to empathise with those that do not conform the cookie-cutter molds. And, perhaps, those who denigrate Freddie’s lifestyle are technically right in criticising murder, theft, and drugs. But, at times, it is when we choose to take the path of empathy over the deceptive path of technicalities that we begin to bridge the scary gap of ‘them’ and ‘the unknown’.

This is a choice we all can make. And when we do, a profound sense of humanity is reached, one where our differences may become stories to tell, rather than horrors in a cell.