Album Review: Freddie Gibbs, Soul Sold Separately

Freddie Gibbs

Soul Sold Separately (released Sept. 30, 2022)

After Freddie Gibbs topped Soul In Stereo’s Best Albums of 2019 list with Bandana – a near 5-star affair, mind you – and followed it up a year later with another top contender in Alfredo, I had to shake the table:

I said that maybe, just maybe, it’s time to consider Freddie Gibbs as one of the best rappers of his generation.

For those who weigh success by follower count or college Tik Toks, that might be an outlandish statement. But for those of us who have been riding with Gangsta Gibbs for more than two decades , it’s an inevitability.

From a constant stream of mixtapes in the 2000s, to his breakout in the early 2010s and his celebrated collabos with the likes of Madlib and Alchemist later in the decade, Freddie Kane has constantly turned heads with his biting wit, deft wordplay and blunt sincerity.

Soul Sold Separately (or $oul $old $eparately, to be precise, but spell check won’t let me be great) may be Gibbs’ fifth LP but it stands as his official Warner Bros debut. Whenever an artist moves to a major label, fans rightfully worry if the change of scenery will also change the homie they knew and loved.

Soul Sold Separately definitely feels different than any Gibbs project before it … but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

I’ll mention one disappointment off the bat: All those great loosies that Freddie dropped prior to this album’s release – including the stellar “Big Boss Rabbit” – are nowhere to be found. But here’s the tradeoff – while most of Gibbs’ most celebrated releases feel like well-constructed mixtapes, Soul Sold Separately feels like a true album, built off of a running narrative of Gibbs contemplating life while under the bright lights of a Vegas casino.

Freddie has finally hit the jackpot, but more money = more problems.

Despite a solid opening track, Soul Sold Separately, actually takes awhile to get going. Freddie’s love of R&B music is no secret, so the soulful “Couldn’t Be Done” is a fine way to kick things off, with Gibbs celebrating his newfound success. Thankfully, before Gibbs starts feeling himself too much with his off-kilter crooning, the good sis Kelly Price jumps in to steal the show. We need way, WAY more Kelly vocals on rap tracks – there’s a reason why those late 90s Bad Boy records still hit so hard today.

“Zipper Bagz” is also a standout on the first half of the set, putting Gibbs in his comfort zone of drank n’ dope diction. But despite Gibbs’ sharp bars and sound delivery, most of the album’s early features fall short. “Pain & Strife” with Offset is an obvious play for radio but never picks up steam; ditto for “Too Much” with Moneybagg Yo. “Lobster Omelette” with Rick Ross – because OF COURSE Rawse is on a song about lobster omelettes – is surprisingly dull too, with both MCs feeling like they’re in cruise control. Guess all those omelettes gave them the Itis.

Things pick WAY up afterward, starting with the brutal honesty of “Space Rabbit,” which outlines his early label struggles before finding his own way:

I remember back when I used to wanna be G-Unit
Record labels said I sound like Buck
They had the Rabbit Man f***ed up
They dropped me off, they cut my nuts
And I was down bad on my luck

Of course better days were ahead.

Gibbs’ wicked flow and understated insight continue on “Rabbit Vision” and “CIA,” with the latter labeling crack, Instagram and AIDS as some of the biggest blows to the Black community. Hard to argue that.

Though some of those early features were hit or miss, Gibbs knocks the album’s latter collabos out of the park. Anderson Paak provides a fresh, almost Wu-Tang-like sound on “Feel No Pain,” so I guess it’s no surprise that the chef Raekwon comes through to cook up another great feature. Freddie floats over a Three 6 Mafia sample on “PYS,” getting a big cosign from DJ Paul along the way. One day, y’all are gonna realize just how influential Three 6’s sound is on modern hip-hop. They don’t get enough credit for being architects. Musiq Soulchild is a great addition to the rustic feel of “Grandma’s Stove” but the real standout is Pusha T’s contribution on “Gold Rings,” where he claims that he’s the dope game’s ultimate create-a-player.

But this is still Freddie Gibbs’ show, from the menacing tales of “Dark Hearted” to the growth exhibited on “Rabbit Vision,” Gibbs has grown as a man and an artist:

Me and Jeezy still ain’t spoke in years, but I got love for him
Could’ve talked it out, but I spoke out, I let it get to me
Showed me I could be a f***in’ boss, best thing he did for me
I needed the growth, too immature as s***, I needed to know

I doubt we would have gotten that level of honesty 10 years ago.

Soul Sold Separately – and Gibbs’ career arc in general – reminds me a lot of another underrated rap titan, Big KRIT. Like KRIT, Gibbs made his name making his own rules with an incredible set of mixtapes, but was forced to switch things up once he landed on a major label. That change isn’t always easy for Day One fans to digest.

Soul Sold Separately does have it share of stumbles, especially early on. And no, it’s not nearly as bleak and antagonistic as some of his more well-known projects. But it does showcase the growth needed for Gibbs to hit the next stage of stardom. I stand by what I’ve said – he’s still one of the greatest of this era.

Those lights are shining a bit brighter now, and Freddie Kane ain’t fading out.

Best tracks: “Rabbit Vision,” “Gold Rings,” Zipper Bagz”

4 stars out of 5