25 Greatest Hip-Hop Albums Of The Last Decade

Leading up to the release of their first collaborative record together, Freddie Gibbs described the album he and boom-bap super producer, Madlib, created as "a gangster Blaxploitation film on wax". Although that sounded super cool, his description really didn't do justice to the music the two were able to make with each other.

It's safe to say that Gibbs was right, as Pinata wouldn't feel out of place in a Melvin Van Peebles movie from the 1970s. Madlib's production is gritty, full of funk and samples that harken back to that time period. As for Gibbs, he matches the tone set by the producer, crafting some of the best bars of his prolific career.

While there a bunch of brilliant guest features - especially Danny Brown, Earl Sweatshirt and the criminally underrated Domo Genesis - Gibbs is even better on songs by himself. It's one thing to rap on a song with talented MC's, but the level of wordplay and concepts Gibbs uses just feels better when he's given the breathing room of a full song to get his point or story across.

We already know that Gibbs and Madlib were good at what they do, but Pinata proved that together they can be great.