Alfredo // Freddie Gibbs, The Alchemist – James Reynolds
Released: 29 May 2020
2020 was the year of parody. After the initial quiet in the spring there was a wave of releases that sounded like what artists thought a lockdown album should sound like. Scratchy production and unrehearsed lyrics were enough to feign authenticity for a while but created a setting where conventional albums stood out. Alfredo was bold in its choice to tell a different story, to build a compelling narrative out of simple, tried techniques: relevant sampling, careful metaphor and a steady flow.
Alfredo stretches and contradicts the analogy of the American-Italian mob, expounding the influence of mafia criminality on hip-hop. The album relishes in this sense of self-parody, of hypocrisy, evermore widening the conflict between nostalgia and resentment. As Pitchfork puts it: “it celebrates the mafioso aesthetic while simultaneously acknowledging its ugliness.” Not since Good Kid, M.A.A.D City has an album so ambitiously exposed the duality of the streets.