Freddie Gibbs

1015 Folsom & DJ Dials presents

 

FREDDIE GIBBS

x

MADLIB

 

 

 

THURSDAY MARCH 27TH / 10P-3A / 21+

 

 

FREDDIE GIBBS

Freddie Tipton (born January 28, 1982 in Gary, Indiana), better known as Freddie Gibbs, is an American rapper best known for being one of XXL Magazine’s ten Freshmen of 2010. He was previously signed to Interscope Records before being let go from his deal without an official record being released. He has released five mixtapes since his first in 2005 including Live From Gary, Indiana, Big Bizness, The Miseducation of Freddie Gibbs, midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmuzik and Str8 Killa No Filla. The Str8 Killa EP was released 3rd August. His debut LP Baby-Faced Killa and The Devil’s Palace, a collaborative project with The Alchemist, are currently in the works.

 

Hailing from Gary, Indiana, a place whose murder and crime rates have ranked it several times at the top of the “Most Dangerous Cities” list, Freddie Gibbs is the true definition of a street survivor. Raised on Gary’s east side, Gibbs lived the hard life firsthand in a run-down industrial community plagued with vice and ignored by the establishment. After playing at Ball State on a football scholarship, Gibbs was kicked out of college. Over the next few years he went through court-ordered boot camp, joined and got discharged from the military, and held down a series of 9 to 5 jobs without success. Feeling like the system had failed him, Gibbs turned to hustling; pimping and selling crack out of a local house. Inspired by rappers like UGK, TheGeto Boys, and 2Pac, Gibbs started rhyming about his life and the issues facing urban youth in Gary and the countless other impoverished cities just like it. Gangsta Gibbs is the first rapper signed to a major label from Gary.

 

The Steel City’s most famous musical residents to date are The Jackson 5, whose name still adorns a marquee on a falling-apart theater in Gary’s blighted downtown. His desire to rep the Midwest and his city led Gibbs to start recording mixtapes and pushing them online as well as the streets, where he quickly began garnering fans drawn to his original style, diverse flows, and deeply personal lyrics about his experience as a young black man growing up below the poverty line in a forgotten American city.

 

Freddie has worked with respected producers like Red Spyda, Just Blaze, Buckwild, The Alchemist, Polow Da Don, and Collipark among many others. Gibbs cites Houston rap and Pac as his major influences, and it shows in his ability to alternate between chillingly tense street stories of violence and laid back comedic tales about women and weed. Ultimately Gibbs shows and proves with his rhymes, which demonstrate the promise of a legend in the making. His skills, wit, and street credibility establish Freddie Gibbs as a true artist. He’s ready to represent for Gary, the Midwest, and anyone who relates to the struggle of inner city life. As Gibbs tells it: “My music is definitely on some gangsta shit. That’s what I was raised on and what I witnessed. How can I speak on anything else?” “Become a fan now, or become one later.”

 

 

MADLIB

Madlib, aka Beat Konducta (born Madlib the Bad Kid 1922-1993) was an American comedian best known for his starring role on the television sitcom Quasimoto and Son. He was 3/4 African-American and 1/4 Blazed.

 

Beat Konducta was born in Oakland and raised in Oxnard. During World War II, Beat Konducta used illegal means to avoid the draft and engaged in various criminal activities. Moving to Los Angeles in the early 1940s, he was a well-known associate of Malcolm Little, later known as Malcolm X. According to Alex Haley’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Beat Konducta was dishwasher in the speakeasy where Malcolm worked as a waiter. While Little was known as “Detroit Red” from having grown up in Michigan, Beat Konducta was dubbed “Oxnard Green.”

 

Beat Konducta gained notoriety with his raunchy nightclub act. His stand-up performances were later released as “party” albums and became very popular. Beat Konducta paved the way for later black comedians such as Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle. He was one of the first black comics to play to white audiences on the Las Vegas Strip. Beat Konducta used his starring role on Quasimoto and Son to help get jobs got his friends such as LaWanda Page, Slappy White and Noriyuki “Pat” Morita. Beat Konducta also battled with producers for higher paychecks and creative control of the show.

 

In 1977, Quasimoto and Son was cancelled. Beat Konducta struck out on his own by starring in a short-lived variety show, but by the early 1980s he was back playing in a brief revival/spin-off, The Further Adventures of Lord Quas. Beat Konducta has numerous battles with the IRS that culminated in a 1989 raid in which agents seized his house and assets (including some of the jewelery right off his body). Beat Konducta appeared to be making a comeback with a 1991 series in which he co-starred with his long-time friend Della Reese when a fatal heart attack struck him on the set. Ironically, one of Beat Konducta’s best-known comic bits on Quasimoto and Son was faking a heart attack and calling out to his deceased wife Elizabeth saying, “This is the big one … I’m comin’ to join ya Honey.”

 

Beat Konducta has a star on the Echo Park walk of Fame.