I want to be one of the most versatile rappers in the game.
— 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.
I wanted to be in the NBA. I wanted to be in the NFL.
I feel like some artists need a record label, and some don't.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Stuart Scott was a hero.
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.
Just give me a mic, and I'll rock it.
I'm trying to bring gangster rap back to the forefront, like in the early '90s.
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.
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.
I like good music, whichever lane it comes out of. As long as it's dope, that is all that matters with me.
Different rappers got different talents. It's like X-Men.
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.
I don't ever really plan my sets. I just get out there and feel the energy of the crowd.
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.
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.
If you say your product is the best, back that up.
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.
I started hustling in early adolescence.
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.
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.
My father took me to a lot of sports events as a child, and our TV stayed on ESPN.
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.
My core thing is gangster rap, but a lot of my music is melodic and carries a message of survival.
It's in the American spirit to take advantage of an opportunity.
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.
I'm a common dude.
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.
I'm an educated individual.
I grew up on N.W.A., Geto Boys. My dad was listening to that.
Gary is a really impoverished town; it's in industrial decay. There's low employment and things of that nature.
I always feel like the underdog.
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.
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.
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.
I'm just glad we get to see old records being broken. That's what sports is all about.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'm not trying to obey the rules of radio.
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.
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.
I feel like I influence more than just rap.
