Freddie Gibbs/Microphone Check Interview: speaks on fatherhood, inspirations,+

[OmegaRed]

FRANNIE KELLEY: We're really excited to talk to you after another album.

FREDDIE GIBBS: Yeah. I'm excited that I — I wasn't even going to put it out this year, but I just felt like the game kind of needed it. I was just looking at what was out there, and I just felt like I could always make a mark, some kind of way. So it was good exercise for me. That's what I look at it as.

KELLEY: Like a exercise for how you were working or as sort of for the game as a whole?

GIBBS: I think that, like I said, the game as a whole needed another Freddie Gibbs project. For my core fanbase and just, you know, for guys that want to break away from the norm of kind of what's going on in music right now. I think — from a street standpoint — I don't think a lot of — it ain't too many guys that talk about the things that I talk about in the way that I talk about them, so I just felt like I — I needed to put something else out.

And, you know, it's kind of like what we was talking about earlier, like when boxers can't stay out the ring. You know what I mean? I couldn't stay out the ring this year. I had to get in there throw a couple punches. So it's good. It's real — it's healthy for me as a writer, a MC, to just keep putting out projects.

I like where music's at right now. Where you don't really need the big huge roll-out campaign to put a record out nowadays. Like Pusha T just put his record out today, I heard. So it's just like, people just popping records out. With this independence and this Internet, it's like, it gives the artist more control. I'm really loving that right now. A lot of people don't like it, but I love it. I like the way — where music's at right now.

KELLEY: Maybe the labels don't like it.

GIBBS: Yeah. Labels don't like it. Of course.

KELLEY: And they don't like it because — I mean, I'm very interested in how you think about labels and differentiate yourself, but mostly on how you've said in interviews that they're coming to you now.

GIBBS: Right.

KELLEY: For advice.

GIBBS: I feel like some artists need a record label, and some don't. I think that — this music thing, it's like anything else that you want to get into, any other business. You gotta have money to start it up. You gotta have people to back you, people to believe in you. It's all about who you know. So it's just all about how you maneuver. I just think that the whole scope of the game has changed now to the point where, like I said, the artist have more control. And it's just on them to seize that control and how much control they actually want, you know what I mean?

Cause some people don't want those responsibilities. It's tough when you gotta run a independent situation on your own. I know it's tough on me sometimes. When you gotta go pick up the director, get the video equipment, get the video shot right, the video treatment, go in the studio, pay the bills, and perform. And be the talent. So it's just — it's difficult. Everybody can't stomach that or fathom the thought of having to do that on a daily basis. But I was definitely up for the challenge.

KELLEY: Yeah. And you know something about that, right?

GIBBS: Yeah, definitely

http://www.npr.org/sections/microphonecheck/2016/01/11/462274615/freddie-gibbs-im-not-just-living-for-myself