“Sports is one of the keys to my life. It definitely kept me out of a lot of trouble and gave me a lot of discipline.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“There’s some dudes that did Gangsta Grillz tapes who probably weren’t worthy of it – their label just put up the bread, or they did a favor.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I just have to go against the grain. I mean, I can be objective and do what I need to do, handle my everyday living, follow directions, etc. But there’s something that’s always been attracted to that taboo. It’s been like that since I was a child.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Probably dancing to Cassie’s ‘Me & U’ – That’s my guilty pleasure.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I wanted to be a gangsta from birth, not because of the music but moreso what I was seeing, what my uncles were doing. I was just fascinated with the street lifestyle from a young age.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“My father took me to a lot of sports events as a child, and our TV stayed on ESPN.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Just give me a mic, and I’ll rock it.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I don’t mind travelling. I’m independent, so I gotta get on the grind.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“My core thing is gangster rap, but a lot of my music is melodic and carries a message of survival.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“My mom had me at a young age, like 20, and she was the oldest child. All her brothers were seven and 10, so I was like a younger brother more so than the oldest child. I was the younger brother to all my uncles, so they were going through their childhood and their teenage years, and I was right there.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I wasn’t fully aware of the things that Madlib did musically, but my manager put me up on game. I’m not gonna act like I was a Madlib head when I wasn’t. I didn’t understand a lot of it at first. But it opened my mind to some things, and it’s me bringing that gangster element to things that he does. It’s like a perfect marriage.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I’m not trying to act like I’m Superman or better than anybody else in the game. I’m just telling my story, showing my strengths and weaknesses – as a human, as a person, as a man.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“When everybody goes left, I’m gonna go right most of the time.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I still bump ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’ I used to listen to it before all my football games.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Coming up in America in the ’80s and ’90s, we were not too far removed from slavery. People forget that.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I ain’t on no major. Everything independent. Either way it goes, I am doing me, and I am doing Freddie Gibbs.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“It’s in the American spirit to take advantage of an opportunity.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I just want to put my stamp on all kinds of music. Everything I do is going to be gangsta rap, street-based, street-oriented.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I started hustling in early adolescence.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I like good music, whichever lane it comes out of. As long as it’s dope, that is all that matters with me.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Ninety percent of the general public aren’t gangstas, so all of the rappers aren’t going to be gangstas.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Every project might only sell like 30 to 50,000, but I mean, I’m getting seven, eight dollars every CD. I make more money per record than an artist on a major label – I can definitely say that.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“’Kind of Blue’ is one of the best records of all time. Miles’ use of space is something rap fans can definitely appreciate. Sometimes you have to let the track breathe and throw a melody in here and there. He never did too much on ‘Kind of Blue.’ It’s the perfect vibe.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“’Pinata’ is a great rap record for jazz fans.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Madlib isn’t a beatmaker, he’s a producer.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“A lot of improvisation and freedom went into ‘Pinata.’”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I study my competition for at least an hour a day. I get on the Internet, I look at what they doing, and then I look at ways to defeat them. I know their mixtapes track-by-track. I know some of their lyrics.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Scarface is my favorite rapper.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I tried to watch ‘Inception,’ but I fell asleep.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I’m not a big video game dude though, but I like ‘Madden.’”
― Freddie Gibbs
“My TV stays locked at ‘SportsCenter.’ That and ‘Pardon the Interruption.’”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I’ve been known not to bite my tongue.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“He’s been my number one influence. If you say Tupac didn’t influence you, then you don’t really need to be rapping because nobody evokes that kind of emotion on a track like Tupac does.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“You’ve got a lot of Tupac clones, but I don’t think I’m one of them. I just think I give people a little piece of the feeling he gave them.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I like A$AP Rocky and his stuff – Kendrick too.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I played wide receiver in high school; then I went to college at Ball State and played safety.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I always knew that I would be some type of public figure, but I never knew that it would be rapping, ’cause my dad sang: I saw him deal with the ills of the music industry, just on the outside looking in.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I’m a loyal dude.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Eminem heard my music, and he didn’t wanna take a meeting with me.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I went to a Bulls game when it was still in Chicago Stadium before they built the United Center.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“The neck is not something you should have surgery on that much.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“The Bears need to let me be GM.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Lil Wayne makes good music. He’s one of the best rappers.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I love Lil Wayne. I grew up on the Hot Boyz.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Drake makes some dope songs.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I don’t like rap that doesn’t have a story behind it.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“When you go to places like Gary and Detroit, you see the economic problem in this country and who it’s really affecting.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I ain’t never detached myself from Gary.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I’ve always played that role in my family: the breadwinner.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“We have good, neighborly people in Gary.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Ain’t nothin’ changed with me. I’m Eastside Gary til I die.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“When I first came in the game, I had a bunch of homies that rapped that was hanging around me just because I was getting the rap attention, and they felt they could feed off of that.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Tupac is definitely an icon. There’ll never be another Tupac, so I’m not gonna ever, ever try to fill those shoes. I’m just gonna stay in my lane and be the best me that I can be.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Nobody else was saying what he said on air, and sometimes he pushed the envelope when he said the newest Jay Z line with a Michael Jordan highlight. But Stuart Scott was an artist.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I remember I used to go school with guys who couldn’t afford notebooks, pens, paper: the necessary tools needed in order to survive in school. It’s a lot of kids in Gary who are at a disadvantage without that.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Me separating from CTE – I’m extremely happy about that because a lot of guys wrote me off, Jeezy included. He really wrote me off.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I don’t really know what a debut album is no more. As long as you got music on the streets, you’ve debuted.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I am the evil seed.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I had a nightmare that I was mopping floors and that this Freddie Gibbs thing was all a dream.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I never took a dollar from Young Jeezy. No advance, nothing.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I have a respect for Young Jeezy. But the reason things didn’t work out for me and Young Jeezy was because our approach to the industry… My approach to the industry was a tad bit different than his. I wanted to approach my career a different way; he wanted to go a different way.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I’m not really comfortable with being on songs with cats I don’t really know.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I think that with me and Madlib, I was never afraid to really experiment with his tracks and things.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I feel like with a lot of Madlib’s beats, they are made for storytelling. I feel like when I’m working on stuff with him, I can really get into the storytelling aspect mode of my flow.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I feel like I influence more than just rap.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I’m a common dude.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I don’t like pre-written raps; I think it makes the song better if you listen to the beat first. In a sense, you have to make a marriage with the beat. I ride the beat, hear the flow of the drums, get the melody of my flow, and then from that point, it’s a process of what I want to say.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I look at some of my fans at my show, and a lot of them look like they’re straight out of a punk rock show. They like what I’m coming across with. I had seen them same thing when I went to this Scarface show, so it lets me know that I’m on the right track.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“This is the land of getting over. The land of second or even third chances; the land of doing whatever you have to do by any means necessary in order to fulfill the American Dream.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I’m trying to bring gangster rap back to the forefront, like in the early ’90s.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I’m not trying to obey the rules of radio.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Jeezy just recognized my grind, and I jumped on board with him to enhance it. Artistically, we’re in the same mind frame. We come from very similar backgrounds – poverty. That’s something that we can both relate to, something that we can convey in our music.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“After I got dropped by Interscope, I knew in my heart that I had to fight back some way or not rap at all. I just took it upon myself to get myself where I needed to be.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I’ve been engulfed in sports since I was a 2-year-old; I picked up any kind of ball – a basketball, baseball, football – I just loved to play something. I loved the energy of being in arenas and watching the game on TV.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Stuart Scott was a hero.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I’m from Gary, Indiana, and everybody’s damn near at the poverty level. It’s a rough city to grow up in, and it’s a modern-day ghost town.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I’m cool with doing shows with 2,000 people. I don’t have to rap in a stadium. As long as I can provide for my family and my art and live comfortably and live well, then I’m good.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I’d be a liar if I didn’t say I learned things from Jeezy. Hell yeah, I took some things, some pluses and some minuses, do’s and don’ts.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I’m like LeBron, man. I’m like a smaller LeBron. That’s why I’m not in the NBA. If I had about five, six more inches, I’d be in the league.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I’ve been interested in basketball since I was a little kid – like, 3. The Bulls were my team. If you grew up in Gary, the Bulls were everybody’s team.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I’m just glad we get to see old records being broken. That’s what sports is all about.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I never write a song before I get the track because I just feel that I have to make a marriage with that track with my raps. And if it’s something that’s already there, it ain’t gone really fit, I don’t think.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Gary is a old factory town right outside Chicago. From my standpoint, my family migrated there in the ’50s and ’60s from Mississippi – Sardis, Mississippi – shout out to Sardis, Mississippi. My family migrated there just like a lot of black families in that area: they migrated there to get jobs, to get those factory jobs, that steel mill job.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“The things I rap about are 100 percent real. But at the same time, I don’t rap about those things to tear my city down. I give you the reality of what it is and what I been through and how it is living in those conditions in Gary, Ind.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I’m so hands-on and involved in my own music that I feel like if I put the same effort into another artist, then I can definitely cultivate something great.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“If you say your product is the best, back that up.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I’d be quiet as a mouse if I didn’t have the correct feeling about my music. I feel like I’m able to talk about it and say I’m one of the best because I think I got the music to back that up. I got the live show to back that up. That’s all that matters.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Everything don’t work out for the best. You have to use a lot of those things as lessons in order to build yourself up.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I always want everything I do to be somewhat cinematic. I don’t want to be the rapper that’ll just post up and shoot a video anywhere with no real meaning to it.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I think that ‘Pinata’ album is going to stand the test of time. It’s going to be a moment in hip-hop, whether people know it or not. It’s nothing else like that in rap. It’s going to forever hold its place.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I always feel like the underdog.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I can do a whole project with Madlib and turn around and do a record with Gucci Mane. Gucci Mane, E-40, and Black Thought on the same record. I like all those rappers, so why can’t I work with them in some type of capacity? It just speaks to my versatility. I don’t just listen to one type of rap. I listen to all of it so I can make all of it.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I feel like some artists need a record label, and some don’t.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Gary is a really impoverished town; it’s in industrial decay. There’s low employment and things of that nature.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I don’t ever really plan my sets. I just get out there and feel the energy of the crowd.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I wanted to be in the NBA. I wanted to be in the NFL.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I grew up on N.W.A., Geto Boys. My dad was listening to that.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I’m an educated individual.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“Different rappers got different talents. It’s like X-Men.”
― Freddie Gibbs
“I want to be one of the most versatile rappers in the game.”
― Freddie Gibbs
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