"Piñata" a Masterful Collaboration

By Courtesy Madlib Invazion

Sometimes infinitesimal changes to proven formulas still create innovative and remarkably unique works. The fourth song off of Indiana rapper Freddie Gibbs’s and producer Madlib’s first full-length collaboration, “Piñata,” is one of the best single-track exemplifications of this theory: “High” sounds a lot like Styles P’s 2002 smash hit, “Good Times (I Get High).” The two tracks sample the same 1970s Capitol Records classic “I Get High (On Your Memory),” Gibbs sounds eerily like Styles and covers much of the same cannabis-centric subject matter, and Madlib employs the same brief snippet of Freda Payne’s ethereal vocals for the hook. Instead of remaining laid-back and returning to the chorus, however, Madlib ups the bass and chops up the sample further as a particularly manic and energized Danny Brown enters the fray. The shift, though still not a radical departure from Styles’ track, is exhilarating and jarring. “Piñata,” which is chock full of little-known smooth samples, odd syncopations, and street-smart lyrics from Gibbs, is a lush 1970s dream world buoyed by Madlib’s homage-laden but unmistakable production.

Freddie Gibbs presents himself as a hard-edged drug dealer without a heart of gold. A surrogate Los Angeles resident, he raps about his infatuation with moving coke, having sex with a plethora of women, and improbably escaping incarceration or death at the hands of rival dealers. Gibbs is the perfect partner to Madlib’s bipolar beats. His flow is as constant as a metronome and his voice low and foreboding. A more lyrical or rhythmically experimental rapper could easily get lost in Madlib’s tangled samples. Gibbs lets his producer do the experimentation, while he focuses on crafting his tough tales and keeping up with his backing music’s changes. He performs this task astonishingly well. His voice is both intimate and intimidating—at moments he briefly softens up his tone with lines about his prison stint and parents’ deaths, only to return twice as hard with irreverent and drug-fueled rhymes like “My Filipino bitch, she fly me to L.A. to fuck / I weigh my options, I’d rather be cookin’, cuttin’, and weighin’ up.” Gibbs may have a bit of a one-track mind, but his delivery and compatibility with Madlib’s style makes up for any lack of range.

This style makes 2004 Kanye West look like a slacker when it comes to sampling deep cut 1970s soul tunes. He culls from an astonishing array of soul, funk, and R&B labels, including the under-appreciated Nemporer and Chelsea Records. He mixes audaciously, mashing up spidery guitar lines with organ solos and putting cymbals above driving bass. With the exception of Payne’s familiar hook, he only flirts with well-known samples, often introducing a song only to subvert it beyond recognition or drop it altogether. In “Lakers,” Gibbs’s ode to Los Angeles, Madlib introduces the legendary Cannonball Adderley Quintet’s version of “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy,” only to stir it into a frenetic horn loop to trigger Gibbs’s fast-rapping recollection of his pilgrimage to the West Coast. Madlib maintains the perfect balance between beauty, which he finds in troves through string bridges and soaring female vocals, and aggression, which comes in the form of the aggressive loops. He often switches between the two moods so smoothly and suddenly that it’s almost impossible to find the exact moment of transition.

Gibbs and Brown aren’t the only rappers who manage to ride alongside Madlib’s unpredictability. There isn’t one lazy or derivative feature on the album. Odd Future features prominently, with members on the gorgeous “Robes” and epic nine-minute final track. Domo Genesis, whose fierce wordplay and appealing tenor register is particularly impressive, corrals some of Madlib’s most challenging change-ups with his complex rhyme schemes. Earl Sweatshirt is also brilliant in a brief verse on “Robes,” where he offers one of the most introspective sentiments on the album in a meditation on his neglectful father. And even less-expected artists seem at home: Mac Miller raps deliberately over twangy guitar and does his best “Exorcist” scream on the climactic title track. None of the featured rappers break the timelessness of the work; this is not an album for references to fads, and the consistently philosophical and timeless rhymes offer just the right amount of relief from Gibbs’s hood obsessions.

The album’s only weakness is its concept: the 1970s throughline, which Madlib punctuates with a number of outros and interludes from blaxploitation films, never really takes off. Gibbs often seems out of touch with his contemporaries, only infrequently referencing modern athletes and technologies, but he certainly doesn’t evoke Superfly either. Instead, “Pinata” is more thematically akin to mid-’90s G-funk. Madlib’s beats still work fantastically, but the copious soundbytes come off as a contrived and unnecessary attempt to ground the record in the decade from which it gets most of its aural inspiration. It’s hard to give the team too much flak for their failed pastiche, however, as the songs work so well; Madlib, Gibbs, and their featured team have created a kinetic, listenable, and subtle rap album that is both a fascinating musical pastiche of the past and and an unexpectedly fresh amalgamation of styles.

—Staff writer David J. Kurlander can be reached at david.kurlander@thecrimson.com.