For many rappers, getting dropped from their label before their debut album came out would be the end of their career. But for Freddie Gibbs, it was the start. First emerging in the late 2000s, Freddie has become an example for other rappers to follow, even if he's stayed a few steps ahead of them.

To celebrate his new track Gang Signs with ScHoolboy Q, we've taken a look at Freddie Gibbs' career to date, and how he's got himself to where he is today. If you're an up-and-coming rapper, or even just a music fan, then Freddie's story is one you'll want to learn more about.

Drop it like it's hot

What do you do if you've been discharged from the army at 19 for smoking weed? If you're Freddie Gibbs, you turn to rapping. Rapping wasn't always on his mind though, and speaking to XXL, he says he was more focussed on sports. "I definitely wasn’t beating on a goddamned desk, doing no freestyles in the lunchroom,” he reveals. “My high school thing was either trying to play sports, get some girls or smoke some weed. Mainly sports. When I was at that age — between like, 16 and 18 — I definitely thought sports was the ticket out."

He was kicked out of Ball State University for not attending class, because he was only really attending "football practice". A judge recommended that he try the army (he'd been getting into a bit of trouble), but it wasn't the way he wanted to go. That's when rap found him, through the people he was spending time with in Gary, Indiana.

In 2004, at the age of 22, Freddie Gibbs released the first two volumes of Full Metal Jackit: The Mixtape. The mixtape came as a result of spending time at Indiana's Village Shopping Center, where he met the producer Finger Roll. At the time, Finger Roll was Gary's most successful producer, and Freddie told Complex, “He was the only guy that had a studio."

After releasing a mixtape through Finger Roll's No Tamin Entertainment crew, Ben Lambert heard the tape. Ben was interning at Interscope, and after being told that if he discovered a rapper to sign, he'd have a full-time job at Interscope, Ben discovered Freddie.

While Freddie was dropped from Interscope before releasing an album, Ben would become his manager, and he'd gotten a lot out of the signing. He'd found a home on the West Coast of the US, and had worked with household names like the producer Just Blaze. Funny how things work out.

What's next?

After the Interscope deal ended, Freddie wasn't interested in rapping. However, both Ben and the late Josh "The Goon" Fadem (who was Freddie's engineer and sometimes-producer) convinced him to get back in the booth and start rapping again.

It's Josh that inspired Freddie to run his now-deleted Instagram account, which became famous (and occasionally infamous) for the memes he was posting. Speaking to Complex about Josh's passing, he says, 

“One of the ways for me to deal with Josh passing was posting memes. I really miss that guy, man. And every time I post one of those, it just reminds me of me and him laughing. I miss that. Every day I miss that. Laugh to stop the crying.

“I wouldn’t be where I'm at without those guys. I wouldn’t have my kids without those guys. It hurts me every day. I’m at such a great place in my life, and I can’t share it with all the people who helped me get there.”

Freddie would self-release mixtapes until 2011, where he signed to Young Jeezy's record label CTE World. It was on this label that he released the mixtape Cold Day In Hell, featuring the likes of Young Jeezy, Juicy J and 2 Chainz. This was a pivotal moment in Freddie's career, as it saw him feature on the 2010 XXL Freshman list. The other rappers on that list included names like the late Nipsey Hu$$le, J. Cole, Big Sean and Wiz Khalifa, so Freddie was amongst some elite company.

Where things took off

Sometimes, you meet someone that's going to change your life. For Freddie, that was the producer Madlib. The pair would release three EPs before their acclaimed collaborative album Piñata, and it's fair to say that it changed the course of Freddie's career - he's said as much himself.

The pair recorded their parts separately - talking about their process to Rolling Stone, they explained how they worked. Madlib says, "I handed him all the CDs, and he picked out all the beats he wanted, he recorded them at his studio, then he handed those off to me, then we finished it. I would add little things, like these choruses.

"That’s what usually happens: I let ’em record what they want, then I add stuff as needed after that, like extra horns or whatever… I’m usually working on other thangs, you know what I mean? I don’t have time to sit there and coach somebody that just already knows what to do, and that’s the kind of people I usually work with… I don’t want to sit there like a babysitter."

Freddie elaborated, saying, "We two different guys, man. I was still in the streets when I first started that Madlib album. I was, then I wasn’t. You can tell the progression on the record, though. You can tell the different places that I’m in, ’cause I did it over the course of three years, coming up with the ideas and concepts."

However, their chemistry is undeniable - and when they linked up for their 2019 album Bandana, it was more of  gold from the pair. In fact, they're planning on releasing a third album from the trilogy called Montana at some point in the future.

Where are we at today?

2020 was undeniably Freddie's biggest year yet. He released Alfredo alongside The Alchemist, and the album was nominated for a Grammy at the 2021 Grammy Awards. Some artists peak at the start of their career, and fade away from there. That's never been the case for Freddie.

He's a rapper that's been through more than nearly anyone else in the game. He's had run-ins with the law, been dropped from multiple labels (he parted ways with CTE World in the early 2010s), and has made a lot of people angry for his gritty rapping style, and his refusal to take a backwards step. Yet, it's working for him better than ever.

Speaking to Vulture, Freddie sums it up better than anyone else could. He says, "I’d rather have it later in life than get it quick and then lose it all. I know a lot of rappers that were popping 10 years ago when I was trying to get it popping, and now they gone. A lot of those guys probably can’t go do a show nowhere; a lot of them probably don’t own their masters; a lot of them probably ain’t getting no money off streams or whatever; a lot of them probably signed with somebody who can’t put out a project. It’s all about longevity for me."

If you're wanting inspiration to do things your own way, then Freddie's a good place to start.