I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up on your Chicago rap gossip, but Freddie Gibbs, the Gary-born rapper who famously rescued himself from a failed major-label bid and almost certain obscurity to become an idol to hip-hop freaks around the world, recently signed with Young Jeezy’s Corporate Thugz Entertainment, which ought to help his popularity with an audience that doesn’t spend all day downloading mix tapes. Gibbs and Jeezy have celebrated the deal in traditional hip-hop fashion: by releasing a collabo track on the Internet.
“Stripes (Run D MC)” is pretty much what you’d hope for and expect from the pairing: a booming, twitchy Dirty South beat over which Jeezy and Gibbs trade lyrics about selling lots and lots of cocaine. Obviously I haven’t been listening to enough mix-tape rap recently, because a lot of the drug-dealer lingo totally flew over my head. “Ochocinco” means cocaine now? OK, sure.
Also newly released to the Internet is the Hood Internet’s “VCR,” a reinterpretation of the XX song of the same name, featuring a verse by Gibbs and one by Telli from Brooklyn rap outfit Ninjasonik. Elizabeth Harper of Class Actress sings the hook.
Check out both the tracks after the jump.