Monday's Main Pick

Street King: Freddie Gibbs

Holding It Down For: The Midwest

Mixtape: Str8 Killa (EP); Str8 Killa No Filla (mixtape)

Real Spit: Gangsta Gibbs doubled up a few weeks ago with the selections you'll read about here. He gave most of his music away for free, but tried his hand at bringing home sales as well.

"I did that," [article id="1643087"]Freddie Gibbs said[/article]. "I dropped a mixtape on Thursday and the following Tuesday, I dropped an EP in stores. "Really, what I wanted to do was go get some points on the board. Put something in the stores for my fans to support and still give them music like I've been giving them on the Internet. You get like 28 songs for eight bucks. I'm creating my own way to sell music. I feel like the ground-roots people that's supporting is loving the music, so it's cool.

"Str8 Killa No Filla is the mixtape. It's got 22 joints. The EP is Str8 Killa. On the EP, you're gonna get the songs off of the mixtape with no samples. It's a lovely package. We packaged it together real nice."

Gibbs, whose official LP Babyface Killa is being cooked up now, said the name Str8 Killa is just his declaration that he doesn't deal with the B.S.

"I'm trying to do this gangsta music," he said. "I just wanted to hit people right in the mouth with this. Let the world know what I'm on. Let them know I'm at the forefront of this. That's what I grew up on. That's the music everybody gravitated towards in the early '90s. I'm not trying to duplicate that, but I'm carrying the torch."

Joints To Check For:

» "Best Friend," Str8 Killa No Filla. "It's a joint, little true story," Fred explained. "It's about me dealing with a female and dealing with her friend as well at the same time. All the stories are told to a T. It's weird, sometimes [dealing with two friends] could be stressful. But if you're moving how you moving, and they with it and you with it, then it could be cool too.

» "The Coldest" (featuring B.J. the Chicago Kid), Str8 Killa. "That's one of them records I wanted to put out, that I felt I'm the coldest n---a doing this, the illest one, especially from my region. It was the perfect record to do that and BJ came on and blessed the hook and it was love."

» "Live By the Game," Str8 Killa No Filla. "Shout to the Block Beaters. Alabama on smash. That's definitely a hard record," Gibbs said. "That's pretty much documenting a struggle. I say a line on there, 'I pray my baby brother don't follow my footsteps.' It's real. I felt like I was setting a bad example for him. Luckily, he went on to school and did his thing. I think that's why people are gravitating towards what I'm doing. Everything is coming from the pit of my stomach."

For other artists featured in Mixtape Daily, check out Mixtape Daily Headlines.