Album Review: Alfredo 2 by Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist

Gibbs’ sharpened storytelling and The Alchemist’s expanding palette make Alfredo 2 more than a rerun. Having spent years exploring emotional registers, Gibbs now straddles bravado and introspection.

Courtesy of ESGN LLC and ALC Records.

Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist’s first joint record arrived in May 2020 with a clarity that belied its origin story. Ten songs over thirty‑five minutes gave the rapper room to spray nimble vignettes over the producer’s dusty loops; “1985” opened with a siren‑like guitar and taut drums, setting a pace that rarely loosened its grip, while “God Is Perfect” found Gibbs tumbling through internal rhyme schemes as the beat switched from soft soul to something more ominous. Rick Ross floated over the shimmering brass of “Scottie Beam,” Benny the Butcher (who he and Freddie are currently beefing with) lent menace to “Frank Lucas,” Tyler, the Creator crooned through the smoke on “Something to Rap About,” and Conway the Machine snarled against a bluesy bass. The album’s brevity intensified its impact, and the pair’s interplay earned them a 2021 Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album. Its cover—a hand puppeteering a bowl of pasta—matched the duo’s sense of mischief, but inside the record lived a tight, atmospheric crime drama disguised as a rap album.

Afterwards, Gibbs went on a two‑year run of solo releases that sharpened his storytelling. In September 2022, he surfaced with a 15-song record ($oul $old $eperately) built around a high-stakes gambling narrative; he rapped about taking risks and making sacrifices while surrounded by an ensemble that included Anderson .Paak, Kelly Price, Offset, Rick Ross, Raekwon, DJ Paul, Pusha T, and Scarface. The album was dotted with interludes set in a casino, but the music never indulged in spectacle; instead, Gibbs shifted from confident bravado to confessional barbs, his voice sounding simultaneously amused and fatigued. Two years later, he surprised his fans with You Only Die 1nce, a lean 37-minute project released with almost no warning. That record carried a horror‑movie aesthetic—billboards with Freddy Krueger’s eyes announced his return—and the songs echoed the tension with sinuous basslines, haunted synths, and Gibbs’ stoic verses about revenge, mortality, and endurance. With only one pre-release single and minimal guest verses, the album felt like a man talking to himself in the mirror—a sequel to his 2017 album, You Only Live Twice, in title, but spiritually closer to a midnight confession.

While Gibbs explored new themes, The Alchemist seemingly never left the studio. In February 2022, he teamed with Currensy for Continuance, a 13‑track set where his sample‑driven beats wrapped around voices such as Babyface Ray, Boldy James, Havoc, Larry June, Styles P, and Wiz Khalifa. That same year, he and Roc Marciano released The Elephant Man’s Bones (and The Skeleton Key two years later), a sparse 38-minute record featuring a guest list that included Action Bronson, Boldy James, Ice-T, and Knowledge the Pirate. Rather than resting, he returned in March 2023 with The Great Escape alongside Larry June (and followed-up with Life Is Beautiful with 2 Chainz this year); the producer’s sun‑drenched loops underpinned features from Action Bronson, Big Sean, Boldy James, Currensy, Evidence, Jay Worthy, Joey Badass, Slum Village, Ty Dolla Sign and Wiz Khalifa.

Three months later, he issued Flying High, a breezy EP where Earl Sweatshirt, billy woods, Boldy James (who worked with Bo Jackson and Super Techmo Bo in 2021), TF, Mike, Sideshow, Larry June, and Jay Worthy drifted through his jazz‑infused passages. In August 2023, he resurfaced with Earl Sweatshirt for Voir Dire, an 11-track puzzle initially hidden behind an online scavenger hunt, which was later released publicly. By September 2024, he had released a concise solo tape called The Genuine Articulate, in which he rapped over his own beats. Its eight songs ran just twenty-two minutes and included appearances from ScHoolboy Q, Action Bronson, Big Body Bes, Havoc, Conway the Machine, and Larry June. In the same year, he continued producing for heavyweights like Big Sean, A$AP Rocky, J. Cole, and others, proving his ear remained restless. But outside of the Larry and 2 Chainz project this year, he’s slated to release music with Erykah Badu and the rumored Armand Hammer project (praying that it’s just as good as Haram).

Freddie Gibbs opens “1995” with prophetic swagger. The first barrage of name‑drops works like a highlight reel of public infamy. “Shaqtin’ like Thanasis” compares a rival’s discography to NBA bloopers, sliding Thanasis Antetokounmpo’s frequent appearances on TNT’s “Shaqtin’ a Fool” straight into a branding of catalog failure. Drug‑world supremacy gets mapped through The Wire hierarchy—invoking Avon Barksdale before upgrading to Marlo Stanfield—to signal veteran roots and ruthless ambition in one breath. The nasty beat switch from Uncle Al pivots to autobiography without breaking stride. He logs his leap from “Nick Rocks to Wet Whip, Gen Pop to Netflix,” compressing decades of hustles and media moves into one brisk ledger. Wordplay creeps in through Gibbs’ dry, almost conversational delivery. While Anderson .Paak provides hook duties on the soulful “Ensalada,” while Freddie spits, “Customary obituary, put your ass inside a homicide edition.” This flips the newspaper cliché into a threat that feels bureaucratic and brutal at once.

“Feeling” has Larry June switch the focus from flash to logistics over this classy Alchemist backdrop, folding trap talk into travel diaries, and Gibbs quips, “A nigga married to the game, I could never tell a ho, ‘I do,’” the marriage vow becomes a pun; fidelity belongs to hustling, not romance. On “Gold Feet,” JID goes bananas with a dense run of homophones and embedded metaphors to fuse ease and menace, then riffing on inheritance: “Gangsters in my DNA, jeans through the seams, tailor‑made, it’s hard to fabricate.” Gibbs announces his presence with a pun on “gold feet,” slang for gleaming rims that double as a form of anatomical brag, setting up a running motif of status objects treated as living extensions of the body. With the bouncy “Lemon Pepper Steppers,” it references a TikTok meme about tightly laced shoes and playful footwork, layering Atlanta rap’s affection for lemon-pepper wings, and triples into a footwear flex, culinary homage, and shooter tag. Gibbs relies on concrete slang, luxury drop‑ins, and culinary references to craft punch lines that land instantly. Metaphors stay close to lived textures, and the wordplay favors immediacy over cryptic puzzles, giving that track its raw swagger and replay power.

Freddie kicks “Mar-a-Lago” off with a salute to UGK lore, recycling Pimp C’s “B‑O‑N” mantra—“big‑old‑nigga,” a title for a heavyweight hustler—and tweaks the original shout‑out from Bun to “Bunk,” turning a Texas staple into private nickname currency. Spelling out B‑O‑N, then D‑O‑N, he layers mob‑boss imagery over Southern slang while nodding to Trumpian politics through the track title. Gibbs pivots from carnage to decadent excess, flowing his ass off, without losing propulsion. The Alchemist provides him with tremendous amounts of variety he can rap on with no slouch. Alan threads “Jean Glade” and “Gas Station Sushi” that Gibbs can rap over, creating a continuous narrative of self-determination through imagery that fuses street commerce, childhood prophecy, and survivor’s guilt. Gibbs builds an extended pun on the latter (“Gas Station Sushi”) from narcotics scales and personal “scaling” by dropping the measuring tool while insisting he “never scaled down.” The same word game resurfaces when fentanyl hits the balance beam, showing how one syllable can track both criminal inventory and undiluted ambition. “Anita Baker” names a gold‑standard R&B voice while echoing “bake” as dope‑cooking slang, turning a beloved singer into a quiet flex about product purity. “Little Caesars” slots cheap pizza into a line about street‑level prostitution, anchoring a bleak scenario in everyday Americana.

Per usual, Gibbs pulls no punches as he name-drops Gunna for being a “rat bastard” after the rapper’s plea deal and wanting to still squeeze the DJ-that-don’t-spin (word to J Nolan) titties on “Lavish Habits.” The middle stretch runs on pop‑culture cross‑references that double as barbed metaphors. “Pee on City Girls like P. Diddy” puts rumor‑mill lore about Diddy’s behavior in direct conversation with the Miami duo’s name, turning bodily fluid into a status‑leveling threat. “Smoking opps like Patrick Mahomes’ pops” pulls from the viral clip of Pat Mahomes Sr. bragging about “smokin’ on Joe Burrow,” reshaping a football sound bite into a promise of lethal follow‑through. When he lists the “effects of being broke, Black, agitated and drugged out,” the verse zooms out from bravado to fatalism. Name‑checking Nipsey Hussle, Takeoff, and Young Dolph signals that success invites the same violence that poverty does, a cycle that feels rigged no matter the net worth.

Metaphors surface through food and family in Alfredo 2. “Empanadas” has Gibbs sprinkling quick‑hit cultural nods that double as jokes and swords, but he does mention the Buffalo incident with BSF (“Smacked him in Miami, his boys jumped me, he played it safe/Bitches in Buffalo get the same thing, they was throwin’ plates”), and reality‑TV rap drama to “Love & Hip‑Hop” theatrics, then big‑leagues it with “I’m at the Oscars.” He gets in his R&B bag with “Shangri La,” naming the track after a mythical paradise, then spends every bar proving the place doesn’t exist for hustlers like him and sealing it as a paradise defined by profit margins, body counts, and the thin line separating the two. Speaking of the ‘two,’ he gives the underappreciated “Skinny Suge” the sequel treatment. Shakespeare’s proverb morphs into swagger when Gibbs boasts, “Cowards die a thousand deaths, I got a thousand lives,” stretching fear into endless reinvention. “Burn these…thousand degrees, I crematory ’em” heightens the heat metaphor, and “Squeeze the poison out of the scorpion, Mandalorian” nests pop‑culture bounty‑hunter lore inside lethal street imagery, announcing mercenary precision stripped of venom.

The eighth track launches “I Still Love H.E.R.” with street menace, comedian’s timing, and rough‑edged devotion. The title nods to Common’s 1994 allegory, which cast hip-hop as a woman; Gibbs elevates that device into a raw love letter, where every flex and threat becomes proof of loyalty. Sexual boasts, gun talk, and globe‑trotting hustle all circle back to one idea—his relationship with the culture endures every storm the industry brings. “He posting baby shower pics, yo’ kid might be my next kin” twists an online milestone into a lineage joke that questions paternity. “She waxed the Jimmy, I’m on Jimmy Fallon with the FN” flips “Jimmy” from condom slang to late‑night host, then sneaks in an automatic‑pistol reference, turning a television appearance into concealed‑carry bravado. One of the album’s true standouts, “A Thousand Mountains,” layers brash pop references, icy explorer metaphors, and pun‑heavy threats into a single, unbroken brag that keeps its heat. The imagery keeps stacking, moving from luxury debauchery—“two naked actresses… take off the Skims”—to Marvel heat: “go War Machine once Alchemist loop it.” Degree wordplay tops the verse: “five thousand degrees” upgrades Juvenile’s famous 400 and Lil Wayne’s 500 into scorched‑earth heat, ending with “you pussies can’t hold a candle.”

Freddie Gibbs’ sharpened storytelling and The Alchemist’s expanding palette make Alfredo 2 more than a rerun. Having spent the last five years exploring different emotional registers, Gibbs now straddles a balance between reckless bravado and weary introspection. The Alchemist, having spent the same period crafting projects that range from the gritty The Elephant Man’s Bones to the sunny The Great Escape and the cryptic Voir Dire, arrives with an arsenal of textures—jazz‑inflected loops, psychedelic flourishes, and taut drum programming. Whether leaning into cinematic storytelling, playful food metaphors, or introspective detours, the project builds on a partnership that has already proven its chemistry.

Great (★★★★☆)

Favorite Track(s): “Lemon Pepper Steppers,” “Shangri La,” “A Thousand Mountains”