Freddie Gibbs got dropped by Interscope before most people had heard of him — he'd already recorded a debut album for the label when an executive shakeup killed its release entirely, and he spent the years after rebuilding on mixtapes instead of major-label backing. Piñata, his 2014 album with producer Madlib, is the record that actually broke through, cracking the Billboard 200 on the strength of Madlib's beats and Gibbs's Gary, Indiana-honed bars about a city he's never pretended was easy to grow up in.
He's kept the one-rapper-one-producer format going since — Bandana with Madlib in 2019, Fetti and then Alfredo with The Alchemist, the latter earning him his first Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album. Soul Sold Separately, his 2022 album for Warner, was his first as a rapper without a single dedicated production partner carrying the whole record.