Freddie Gibbs & Madlib: "Thuggin'" / "Deep"

At this point I’m not quite sure if Madlib has a better knack for picking samples or picking associates, as the guy has an equally long history of adeptly doing both. It’s a bit like the argument to be made for legendary basketball coach Phil Jackson: while he only coached and succeeded with teams that had transcendent talent (Michael Jordan, Shaq, Kobe Bryant, Scottie Pippen, etc.), he was also the only one to successfully bring out the best in those players (minus Shaq’s championship run in 2006 with the Heat) because his system was simply better than everyone else’s. Same with Madlib; while working with a guys like MF Doom and Blu may seem like a no-brainer, they’ve also never sounded as good as they have with Madlib’s production. And while Freddie Gibbs has released plenty of worthwhile material already, the Thuggin’ mini-EP (two new tracks, the beats for those two minus Freddie, and two of Madlib’s audio doodles) may be the best thing he’s put his name on.

“Thuggin’” is meant to be the alpha track, and it fulfills that role chillingly well. As Gibbs bears the details of his life pre-rap career (and perhaps during it as well) in sardonically colorful tones, Madlib backs him with a twangy, Westernish beat a la one of Clint Eastwood’s movies, the pair bathing themselves in all the welcoming glow of Eastwood’s nameless rider in High Plains Drifter. “Choke on this meat, throw my song on repeat / Might move away one day but I’m always gonna belong to the street,” asserts Gibbs, the backing strings hovering humidly over his words like a mirage in the desert, the ominousness of his cajoling “And it feels so good / And it feels so right“—especially in conjunction with the song’s gruesome music video— having all the comfort and reassurance of finding a murder of crows on your front lawn.

“Deep” is probably more in line with what you’re expecting from Madlib: a funky, watery-bass number that wouldn’t be far out of place in a ’70s cop drama. Gibbs squeezes out yet another fabulous near-straight run of rhymes, opening with “Baby times is hard so I’mma change my hustle to hard right now” and unleashing immediately. While Gibbs’ wordplay is excellent—“Got a hard pack, of that Star Trek / To make a bitch beam up to the enterprise / And you a Captain Kirk, trading ass for work”—and Madlib’s beats are fundamentally brilliant, “Deep” shows just how much they can do with the other’s talents. Midway through the song Madlib decides to switch up the beat with a groovy organ part and Gibbs instantly tears through with even more force than before. “Living on the edge of addiction, STD’s, and enslavement / Black blood tend to flood the street pavement,” he spits, offering his own accusatory criticism with this plight: “All a nigga want is whips and chains / Probably cause a nigga wasn’t whipped and chained / To the bottom of a boat in the middle of the ocean / Stripped of my own motherfucking name.” When Madlib slyly slides back into the original beat, Gibbs is right there waiting on the drop, unraveling a couple more great lines before the song runs out of tape.

What’s amazing is how in tune with each other they sound on a tumultuous shift like that: it feels like they know exactly what the other is going to do and sets them up precisely in that manner, like watching a point guard and power forward punking guys for decades with the same simple pick-and-roll. And these are the first two songs these two have ever worked on before. I don’t know how likely the supposed “late 2012” release date is, but to be safe I’d suggest leaving a spot open in your top ten this year, just in case.