Ask him about the name. That’s the advice I get from a friend of mine when I mention that I’m interviewing Freddie Gibbs. Supposedly there’s a lurid, hard-boiled story there that could really set the tone for an interview, as well as signal that I know the score, or at least really want to.

Maybe that’s why the 36-year-old rapper’s answer catches me off guard as we sit in the makeshift studio area of the West Hills ranch house where he spends most of his time. I’ve got a lot, maybe too much, riding on this one, and Gibbs—matter-of-factly, with a touch of suspicion—brings it all to a screeching halt.

“That’s my real name. You wanna see my ID?”

And like that, it’s settled. Gibbs hits his blunt and leans back in his chair, exhaling as he waits to see what else I’ve got. He has no interest in what I’ve heard, or in explaining that Fredrick Jamel Tipton became Freddie Gibbs after Tommy Gibbs—Fred Williamson’s character in the 1973 blaxploitation flick Black Caesar. He’s not going to tell me that he legally changed his name or what prompted it. Freddie Gibbs is Freddie Gibbs, that’s all I need to know, and that’s how this is going to go.

Gibbs is currently putting the finishing touches on Bandana, his long-awaited reunion with mad genius producer Madlib and the sequel to 2014’s beloved Piñata. The news here, aside from the world’s getting an album’s worth of new music from the two, is that Bandana is coming out as, essentially, a joint venture with RCA. This will be Gibbs’s first-ever release on a major label—he recorded an album’s worth of material for Interscope in 2006 that only later saw the light of day via his mixtapes—and after a decade plus as an indie artist, he’s ambivalent about working with a major. Gibbs also knows, though, that this is what has to happen. If Piñata was his breakout record, Bandana has the potential to be the one that cements Gibbs as an A-lister who requires no introduction.

While Gibbs is looking to expand his audience with Bandana, it’s certainly not a crossover record. It’s virtually impossible to imagine Gibbs tailoring his music to mainstream tastes, because he’s never had to. Gibbs is the rare artist whom listeners of all stripes can agree on. There’s something for everyone: He’s a dyed-in-the-wool street dude who can, in his words, “rap circles around anybody”; a traditionalist who is always open to new sounds; and a first-rate lyricist who mostly talks about selling drugs and bumping off his rivals.

Being all things to all people may be the secret to Gibbs’s success. But it’s also what makes him tick creatively.

“I'm not no boom-bap rapper or whatever the fuck that shit is. I'm not a trap rapper. You can't really put me in a box, man. I don't really get into the categorical shit. If the beat's hard, I'm gonna fuck with it no matter who made it.”

Gibbs isn’t so much versatile as he is multivalent. He attributes this to growing up in Gary, a city at the crossroads of the country that had music flowing in from all directions. “Gary’s a melting pot for everything. One summer, the biggest thing in Gary was E-40. Another summer, the biggest thing was Bone. We gravitate to a lot of everything. We was listening to Biggie, Kool G Rap, Jay-Z… New York was the mecca for rap at that time. We also got L.A. shit and [music from] the South, like Scarface, UGK, 8Ball & MJG. A lot of people in the Midwest are from the South. They’re pretty much the same shit to me, the way people talk, the way people act.”