Freddie Gibbs Talks About Taking Musical Risks on New Mixtape

Freddie Gibbs has spent more than half a decade at the top of gangsta rap. A series of mixtapes that followed the dissolution of his Interscope deal made him a genuine digital star, and a move from his native Gary, Ind. to Los Angeles put him within shouting distance of some of hip-hop's best and biggest producers. All that came to a head last March, when Gibbs dropped Pinata, his full-length collaboration with the legendary Oxnard, Calif. native Madlib. That LP put him on the radar of fans with even a passing interest in hip-hop. This Friday (Nov. 20), he hopes to capitalized on that newfound attention with Shadow of a Doubt, his latest mixtape.

Speaking to Exclaim, a Canadian publication, Gibbs talked about his need to constantly search for new ideas and new approaches. "If you don't evolve, you're going to stay stagnant," he said. "I feel like we get caught up a lot in that with rap, especially gangsta rap because n----s think they got to be hard all the time and they caught up in telling us about the same shit. Of course I'm going to talk about the streets, the drugs, the gangs and the prostitution. But you can't limit yourself to doing the same thing over and over." Shadow of a Doubt features Black Thought, E-40, Gucci Mane and more.