Freddie Gibbs

I look at some of my fans at my show, and a lot of them look like they're straight out of a punk rock show. They like what I'm coming across with. I had seen them same thing when I went to this Scarface show, so it lets me know that I'm on the right track.

Coming up in America in the '80s and '90s, we were not too far removed from slavery. People forget that.

Gary is a old factory town right outside Chicago. From my standpoint, my family migrated there in the '50s and '60s from Mississippi - Sardis, Mississippi - shout out to Sardis, Mississippi. My family migrated there just like a lot of black families in that area: they migrated there to get jobs, to get those factory jobs, that steel mill job.

I study my competition for at least an hour a day. I get on the Internet, I look at what they doing, and then I look at ways to defeat them. I know their mixtapes track-by-track. I know some of their lyrics.

I'd be quiet as a mouse if I didn't have the correct feeling about my music. I feel like I'm able to talk about it and say I'm one of the best because I think I got the music to back that up. I got the live show to back that up. That's all that matters.

If you say your product is the best, back that up.

After I got dropped by Interscope, I knew in my heart that I had to fight back some way or not rap at all. I just took it upon myself to get myself where I needed to be.

I'm trying to bring gangster rap back to the forefront, like in the early '90s.

I always knew that I would be some type of public figure, but I never knew that it would be rapping, 'cause my dad sang: I saw him deal with the ills of the music industry, just on the outside looking in.

Ninety percent of the general public aren't gangstas, so all of the rappers aren't going to be gangstas.

I remember I used to go school with guys who couldn't afford notebooks, pens, paper: the necessary tools needed in order to survive in school. It's a lot of kids in Gary who are at a disadvantage without that.

Different rappers got different talents. It's like X-Men.