The collab-tape, a once very amazing surprise occurrence in music, now an oversaturated market full of terrible cash-grabs and half-assed attempts at greatness. Great ones include Watch The Throne, Madvillainy, and Pinata. Then, you have just awful ones: Unfinished Business, Huncho Jack, Jack Huncho, and WRLD On Drugs…yikes. But, with all things, there’s going to be one tape that shines above all and in a year full of collab-tapes, Curren$y and Freddie Gibbs shined above them all with their collab-album, Fetti.

Curren$y aka Spitta Andretti and Freddie Gibbs are quite used to working with each other and their chemistry has been apparent on songs like Scottie Pippens, Stash House, & the song Fetti from the GTA V soundtrack. So we all knew that this would work and when Spitta sent out the beacon to Freddie on Instagram we all knew we were getting a classic. Thankfully, this album is only 9 tracks long clocking in at a little over 23 minutes. Great artists know that you don’t need 13+ fuckin’ songs to get your point across. So we all know these two can rap, but who had the best verse on the songs where they both appear? Let’s figure it out.

Right off the bat, Location Remote delivers this sinister energy that The Alchemist is known for. It features a menacing synth bass line throughout and this chanting that makes it sound like their rapping from an RV in the desert. Spitta starts the song off matching the energy of the beat perfectly. “Niggas dyin’ to be like us, losin’ they minds tryin’, I’m in the basement scrapin’ blades with all my sharpenin’ irons, ‘Cause in times of peace that’s when these snake niggas creep, You think you safe cuz you deep, your goonies half sleep, Stooges if you ask me” Then, he throws the ball off the backboard to Freddie Gibbs who jumps right in with, “Call the chiropractor, this necklace is extra heavy on me, 1963 Gold Ds, I went Andretti on it, Dipped the shoes in 24 karats and dropped a Chevy on it.” I gotta give this one to Freddie because when he says, “We taping mamas up, we filling them llamas up, Niggas making statements they Manafort Papadopoulos, Trump sweating bullets on Diet Coke sniffing powder up, And if he build the wall we gon’ bring that dope underground with us” Like, what the fuck. I cannot believe a human could think of saying those words in that exact way.

The Blow sees the two rapping over a more major-chord beat with a loop consisting of a warm bassline, a cymbal-heavy drum section and a vibraphone (?), then the interlude before the verses introduces a vocal chop and some horns before the verse loop come back. Whenever you hear an Alchemist beat you just want to rap, his beats bring out the best in rappers. You can literally hear how excited Spitta is about his verse before he starts rapping and you immediately hear why, he sounds hungry on this beat. It so awesome to hear someone like Spitta who has proven himself time and time again to be one of the best rappers on the planet still going so hard. Spitta wins this one simply because of the flow he uses towards the end of his verse. The way he extends the A’s and O’s of every word just makes the hairs on your neck stand up. “You gotta know to have fun with your money, Young hustler, watch me, Keep hittas around me, ‘Cause niggas be clownin’, can’t trust nobody, It might be your partner that drop your body, That shit not shockin’” How do you hear that and not explode from excitement?

New Thangs features my second favorite beat on the entire project, Al chops up a sample (no snitching) of some vocals, a silky smooth guitar, some beautiful drums and a piano to tie it all together. The beat sounds like a long-body burgundy Cadillac with a cream-interior and gold-rimmed white walls. This obviously influenced the two because both of their verses contain them just flexing on the rest of poor people. This one is hard to call, between Al’s unique use of 70’s blaxploitation and documentary clips both Spitta and Freddie deliver stellar verses about how they move throughout the world with their statuses and reputations. So, Imma give it an honest tie between the two. Eliminate either of their verses and the song is not the same, they match each others energies so well its almost like they just finshed each others sentence.

Saturday Night Special sounds ethereal with its eerier, but sci-fi sounding synth pad loop. Spinkled over top are some beautifully low-key horns provided by Young Mexico, some chimes, very smooth percussion and a bassline like an audio cherry on top. This song features both Spitta and Freddie, but Freddie truly shines on this track. Getting two verses and that second verse sees Freddie get visceral. Just this whole section was enough to sway my vote, “Freaky bitches, I’m they confidant, Trappin’ out of muh fuckas rappers, slappin’ these Poppadocs, RZA with the zippers, official men chop it off the block, Once I made an M, I ain’t give a fuck if I popped or not, And I can’t swim, a nigga ain’t never had dreams of coppin’ yachts, But I kowabunga, servin’ that pussy at a thousand knots, Rest in peace to Ruck; tell Jesus I need a billion bucks, Goon with the balloon, ain’t no helium, but I sealed him up, Feel the rush” Not saying Spitta didn’t come as hard, but Freddie puts a level of determination into his second verse that immediately eclipses Spitta’s more laidback delivery

The beginning of Tapatio sounds like the opening of a Bob Ross video, which fits because Spitta and Freddie paints masterpieces with their visually-enticing verses. Over a wonderful canvas that Al has provided, already splattered with a sample chop containing some dusty (in a good way) layered guitars, a hypnotizing bassline, simplistic drums and some piano chords and a short string section during the breakdowns. Spitta details how he’s grown accustomed to the life that music has brought him, but he’s still Spitta, he’s still growing and smoking the finest weed he can grow. Gibbs come through and sweeps Spitta leg though and comes with that double-time flow that steals the show once again. Freddie earns the best verse with his delivery of, “I went to my nigga Mac house and seen a hundred thousand on the trap floor, Got the strippers in here bustin’ packs down, blow her back down, she a trap ho, Got the shooters at the front and back door” Then the beat goes into the breakdown again and when that happens you’re teleported to another world.

Finally, we get to my personal favorite song on this entire album, Bundy & Sincere. I’m gonna tell you now, Spitta has the best verse on this one. It’s like he was sitting back on almost the entire album, but he heard this beat and he sat up. Spitta is gunning for gold on this track and you can hear his chains swinging in the booth during his verse, too?! Fuck! He was in such a pocket during these bars in particular, “Got my mind on my money and my money on my mind, Money and yo’ bitch, both on my line, Told shawty that I can’t make it, Told money I’ll be on the way, quick, Sands in the hour glass, so goes the days of our lives, Make sure you touch something luxurious before you die,” that I didn’t even have to ponder who has the best verse on this one, it’s Spitta. No disrespect to Freddie at all, though. His first couple lines, “Uh, wet dope on the Bounty paper, I lay it down, Let it dry, you can leave the money and stick around, Feel like I’m stuck in the system, runaway slave child, My lifestyle straight out the gang files,” were almost enough to get me to question, but ultimately? This one goes to Spitta. Plus, this beat?! Sheesh. In the first couple bars the drums hit on the snare four times as the guitars play lower and lower notes then they come back up with the help of a vibraphone?? Then when Spitta start losing his mind a string section starts grooving with everyone. Spitta sounds right at home over all this. Then these choir vocals come in to introduce Freddie and it’s like “Hey, god is here, by the way.” The album ends in the most perfect way, “What else can I say?” Nothing. Rap is over. You can’t top this.

To me, Freddie shines on this album with just one more point (4-3) than Spitta in the best verse ranking, but that still doesn’t mean that Spitta didn’t show up. Nah, he is rapping on this album. It’s a hard contest, but it probably would’ve been better if the two were actually in the same studio. I believe the reason why there’s 3 solo tracks is because they were working through emails. Could you imagine the back-and-forths we would’ve gotten if they were in the same room? I might need a sequel so we can get a more accurate representation of what happens when Spitta and Gibbs put that pistol to ‘ya ribs.

Follow Deshaun @deshaunstar

Follow Us @thebummermag