Music

Madlib, Alchemist Among Superstar Producers for Freddie Gibbs’ ‘$oul $old $eparately’

Patrick Ong

Sep 29, 2022 — 3 min read

Madlib (left), Freddie Gibbs (center), Alchemist combine powers for Gibbs' latest album, '$oul $old $eparately'

Building a report with a musician can go several ways. As a producer, working alongside an artist or musician can feel like a creative partnership, a duel between respected adversaries, or–at its worst–an obligation between coworkers. As long as making music doesn’t feel like the final option, you’re in luck, and there will probably be additional work in your future. Working with the same musician again can lead to another series of possibilities.

Getting to the point where you repeatedly work with a musician, à la producers Madlib or Alchemist and Indiana rapper Freddie Gibbs (the second most famous person out of Gary, IN), can feel safe and stale or harmonious and inspired. In his eight-album discography, Gibbs has had four collaborative albums between the producers. Madlib and Gibbs (or MadGibbs) released Piñata in 2014 and Bandana in 2019, while Gibbs and Alchemist put out Fetti with Curren$y in 2018 and the Grammy-nominated Alfredo in 2020. His next release, $oul $old $eparately (SSS), releases today and features production from Alchemist, Madlib, and a host of other producers–including Kaytranada, Boi-1da, Sevn Thomas, and Three 6 Mafia’s DJ Paul. Lucid Monday got an early preview of the album during a private listening event at Noise Nest Studios in Hollywood.

When @DJPAULKOM crashes the listening 💲💲💲 pic.twitter.com/N5mzpFaEot
— Big 🐰 (@FreddieGibbs) September 28, 2022

As we huddled in the studio, the air was thick with anticipation. Freddie briefly introduced the album, asked if somebody could get him some tequila, and let the album speak for itself. The first track, “Couldn’t Be Done” (prod. Super Miles, Swoope), rolled into the room and everyone’s nerves calmed. Once everyone heard the voice of Kelly Price, there was a collective understanding that this would be a worthwhile listening experience. Lighters flicked, heads started nodding, and everyone felt comfortable in a studio overflowing with people.

The album unfolds, track by track. Alchemist and Madlib’s influence feels substantial despite only producing one song each on SSS. Fans familiar with Freddie’s collaborative albums know that both producers allow Freddie to operate in a comfortable space so he can get his raps out and really shine. Their ability to succeed in quieter sound templates gives Freddie an air of retro classiness, with a full capacity to pop you in your mouth if you say something out of line.

The production is a consistent mix of trap and boom bap-adjacent beats without feeling monotonous or out of place. Soul samples and piano-forward instrumentals provide a grounding–sometimes haunting–feeling in most of the tracks, but the drums keep the tempo energized and frenetic in other cases. “PYS (feat. DJ Paul)” takes listeners for a southern cruise through Memphis, while the James Blake-produced “Dark Hearted” feels like a paranoid nighttime ride home where you can’t help but look behind your shoulder every few miles.

The album constantly slips through emotional highs and lows, a motif that complements SSS’s aesthetic and branding of a late 80s/early 90s Las Vegas hotel-casino. The project exudes the full spectrum of emotions that occur in that environment: the revelry of hitting the jackpot, the anxiety of an illegal deal made in the poorly ventilated back room, the calculated confidence of a high roller, and the regret of walking away with less money than when you walked in.

Only a superteam of producers (one being Justice League) can convey this tracklist of wins and losses. Wins that you can get behind and losses you can feel in your bones. Though Alchemist and Madlib have produced nearly half of Gibbs’ catalog, there’s a silver lining to them taking somewhat of a backseat on this one. They laid the sufficient groundwork, let others work with Gibbs, and still made their mark on this album. With $oul $old $eparately, everyone doubled down and hit it big.

The full list of producers who contributed to $oul $old $eparately includes The Alchemist, Anderson .Paak, Boi-1da, DJ Dahi, DJ Paul, Edgar “Johnny Velvet” Etienne, Fraka, Harmony Samuels, IV Beatss, Jahaan Sweet, Jake One, James Blake, J.LBS, J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, KAYTRANADA, Madlib, Neenyo, Norva “VA” Denton, Rogét Chahayed, Sean Momberger, Sevn Thomas, Super Miles, Swoope and Thomas Brenneck.