Freddie Gibbs is giving credit to the artists who lit the spark for his rap career—50 Cent and Scarface.
On The Ryen Russillo Podcast, which dropped Thursday (Aug. 21), Gibbs opened up about the early influences that made him want to pick up the mic.
“The first rapper that made me be like, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna rap,’ is 50 Cent,” Gibbs said around the 40-minute mark, recalling his younger self’s reaction. “I love what he’s doing. I’m gonna do that too.”
“The first person to make me fall in love with rap, period, as a child, was Scarface,” Freddie Gibbs said. “When I heard ‘Mr. Scarface’ and [the Geto Boys’ 1991 album] We Can’t Be Stopped, it clicked because I could relate to everything he was saying.”
He then broke down what drew him to 50 Cent in particular.
“I admired his whole hustle about the game, like the G-Unit mixtape. Everything he was doing. The business side of it was impressive to me,” Gibbs explained. “It was an underdog story to me. That’s what made it interesting. Everyone was going against him. They shot him and all of that. He even made a song about it.”
Elsewhere, Gibbs revealed what’s next for him musically: a joint album with Kaytranada.
In a July interview with Apple Music, he explained the project was born out of a recent studio session. “I was with Kaytranada a couple of months ago and we made a new song, so I was like ‘Alright, let’s make a whole album.’ I think that’s going to be the next album.”
Gibbs added that the collab has been in motion since he was finishing up the first Alfredo with The Alchemist back in 2020. He also credited Ty Dolla Sign as a major creative spark for the new LP.
“Ty Dolla Sign is one of the best musicians that I’ve been in the studio with all around, from the singing, producing, playing live instruments, to rapping,” Gibbs said. “He’s like a Swiss Army knife in the studio, so the month and a half or so that I got to spend with him in Italy, when we were working on Vultures, was a really inspirational time for me. The very first song I’ve got with Kaytranada is with Ty.”
