I was able to get my hands on a copy of the long awaited collaboration from the grimy Midwest emcee Freddie Gibbs & West Coast’s Madlib. In some cases, to me, this would be a bad idea. But this works. Like how Mexicans put mayonnaise and powdered cheese on corn, makes no fucking sense, but something fucking delicious came of it.
This odd mix works. Like Ying and Yang, Pinata gives us that perfect balance. With Madlib’s ill jazzy loops and well orchestrated samples, this forced Gibbs to really push him self to somewhere I don’t think we have ever heard this emcee.
To be perfectly honest, I never really listened to Gibbs. Although I have always admired his way to deliver grimy rough hood lyrics so fluidly. Most times we just get rough grunts out of most emcees that go this route. And Madlib? Well, don’t have to go into what I could’ve expected from Madlib. Even if this was just solely instrumentals, it would be dope. Gibbs opened up another audience to Madlib and vise versa.
Some of the tracks falter lyrically for me but stay afloat with the melodic production from Madlib. Although I wasn’t crazy about the all the feature artists, but I can say they didn’t outshine Gibbs, which is something we see all too often with joints these days.
So again, overall, I can say this is a solid album. People who are very defensive of the conscious lyrical content of the underground can let their guard down for a minute and let their hood flag fly. And as for the hood grimy folks, they can chill and smoke an L to the dope production.
Id put a link for y’all but I’ve seen some site get it blocked so look it up if you want to peep it before you purchase it. But support your indie artists and be sure to get it when it releases March 18th.
Peace.
Live Elements 
So great that Madlib can work with such intrinsically opposite artists in terms of style and content as DOOM and Gibbs and still produce something this good. Really speaks to his talents.
Well written makes me want to listen lmao on the corn thing.