The brilliant partnership of Madlib and Freddie Gibbs recently dropped off Bandana, a strong contender for album of the year thus far. Today, Gibbs stopped by Hot 97 to check in with Peter Rosenberg, who consistently showed his support throughout a trying time. The impact of Bandana is certainly not lost on Gibbs, who wrote the majority of the project while facing ten years in prison over a false accusation. "Just to be here with you dawg," says Gibbs. "I know three years where I was at." He proceeds to thank Rosenberg for supporting him during a tough time, getting visibly emotional as he speaks.
"I know what I did to make this project," he says. "There was a lot of bad nights. A lot of rough nights. A lot of things that I didn't want to see." Tears begin to flow. "Things I still deal with mentally. This album was a form of therapy. It was therapeutic. I said a lot of things on this record that maybe I wouldn't have said if I wasn't facing ten years in prison. This album is my baby. It got me back to my babies. It got me back to being who I'm supposed to be."
"I wrote eighty percent of this when I was in the cell," says Gibbs. "Jail, it is what it is. I'm a man. If I would have went to jail for some drug shit or whatever, it is what it is. I can take that on the chin and do it. But I couldn't sit in there for no shit like that. That's what was really breaking me. To come out of that, just sitting with you bro, I don't take a second, a day, a minute, none of that for granted."
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Afterward, Rosenberg pulls out an additional surprise, bringing the elusive Madlib into the fold for a rare radio interview. Upon his arrival, the bromance becomes evident, as MadGibbs share an epic embrace. "I just do the music," says Madlib, revealing hasn't done a radio interview in ten-plus years. "My favorite rapper, dead or alive," says Madlib, on his rhyming partner. "I knew his stuff, when he was on the XXL cover, I knew all his stuff." These days, however, Madlib is far less concerned with what's happening in the culture. "When I'm out in the club I hear what's going on," he shrugs.
Rosenberg remarks that Bandana carried on the legacy once sparked by JayLib, Madlib's partnership with J. Dilla. "Yes sir," agrees the producer. "I'm very proud of this album. I cleared all the samples for once!" Luckily, Bandana is but one of many chapters. "There's gon' be volumes of this," confirms Gibbs. "This ain't gon' ever stop."