Following from 2014's Piñata, the pair team up again for their second collaborative project, Bandana. Listen here.
Hasn’t it felt like a long time since Madlib and Freddie Gibbs joined forces on their lauded album Piñata? We don’t have to wait much longer though because their new track “Flat Tummy Tea” signals the advent of a new full-scale project. It will be the latest instalment in a collaboration that is shaping up to be quite prolific: the duo have also released three EP’s together: Thuggin’, Shame and Deeper.
The announcement comes at the same time as the rumor about a Madlib + Mac Miller album has begun doing the rounds. The three worked together on Piñata’s eponymous title track back in 2014.
“Flat Tummy Tea” begins in a jagged, quick-paced fashion, with droning electric guitar and a chaotic array of synths and samples providing the background texture. Freddie Gibbs attacks the beat, covering topics from Obama to street crime and switching up the syllables with breakneck chops and changes. At the halfway point the motifs fall away and are replaced by something clearer and more languorous. Madlib’s trademark broad-referenced samples re-enter at a sufficiently steady pace for the listener to pin point each one, confirming the complexity that was only implied beforehand. Listen here:
Read our piece on the Mac Miller album rumor here.
Read about a jazz band reworking of Madvillain here: Abstract Orchestra: The Shared Space Between Jazz and Hip Hop
