Why Freddie Gibbs’ “Axxtion” Is the Rap Song of the Summer
Rapping straight over Mad Cobra’s 1992 “Flex” record without touching a word of it, Gibbs spends a minute in pure pleasure mode and gives the summer its loudest cookout rap song.
No offense to Yung Miami and all the scammin’ ass niggas, but we got a true rap song of the summer.
This record’s most obnoxious moment was conceived and recorded before half the people who listen to rap were alive. The chorus belongs to Mad Cobra (entirely lifted from the 1992 single) and Freddie Gibbs raps to the original “Flex” single without saying one word on it. While it is his own single, it finds him doing the guest spot on a thirty-three year old dancehall cut that gives Cobra’s vocal space, and all he has to do on it is catch up to a chorus he wrote neither the lyrics to nor the melody of.
The opening on the track by Gibbs occurs at the tail end of the party. “When they let this club out, girl, I’m leavin’,” he raps, having already read a woman across from him for the bullshit, “Bitch, I peeped it, I seen you schemin’.” In a single line he turns her desire for flattery into a confession, “Call me your angel, all on a demon, give me a reason,” where his words are packed end to end with little room for charm. That’s followed by his confession, delivered calmly, “I’m conceited/But I still wanna treat it and eat it.” He refers to a girl he was seeing last week whom he will not visit again, points to a two seater car, and clearly explains he is “tryna fuck every bitch in the section.” In the space between Gibbs’ lines Cobra’s “Action, wit di injection” appears as a punctuation mark, one that he gets to implement without writing the phrase.
The writing here at its most potent appears in a gag about rent. Gibbs puts his consumption in the context of a rental contract: “Rabbit, I gotta have least a few/I pay the note when the lease is due.” By spending extravagantly on a sex record, he adopts the persona of a tenant that pays his bills on time. Outside of that, the appetite remains on track and money and sex are fused in a single motion on slammin’ “these bitches, stackin’ these bitches.” The only glimpse of the world he usually rap-produces-money on will ever allow appears in a single line, “Had a prescription, she scammin’ in Memphis,” which he neither completes nor revisits.
Cobra’s hook was a backyard standard for over 30 years before this standout, and if nothing else, most listeners are ready for “Girl, flex, time to have sex/Look how long yuh have di rude bwoy a sweat” within hearing a few bars. That leaves Gibbs with the work. In a laid-back reggae rhythm made for a freer flow, he tucks verses crammed with internal rhymes, filling all of the holes instead of just filling the space between them. “Drop that ass, girl, I know you worth it” fits itself neatly within the silences of the hook.
Three minutes, and Gibbs hasn’t done anything but speak of his want, his money, and the bedroom beyond the back of the club. His rhyming never gets sloppy enough to feel as if he can coast on such a basic topic, but how long this will sell for depends, more than anything, on Cobra’s hook, which was working cookouts before Gibbs ever started rapping on it.