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I’ve had my eye on Giftz since he ensnared me last year with a tune he cut with Tree called “Nino“; the east side MC somersaults over Tree’s wobbly, hook-heavy beat like an Olympic racer, doling out lines about selling soap to junkies and chopping bricks with an assured grace and speed. Giftz has an intuitive grasp of language—according to Bradley Troast’s lengthy Fake Shore Drive feature on Giftz from late last year, the rapper began speaking in short sentences at eight months old—and can rhyme at a furious pace, so I knew I’d have to take my time listening to his Position of Power mixtape, which came out yesterday. With Giftz’s skills and a strong roster of contributors (Freddie Gibbs, King Louie, Rockie Fresh, Lil Herb, YP, C-Sick, Thelonious Martin, Lokey) I figured I’d spend a lot of time with the mixtape anyway.
