Lil B
God's Father
self-released; 2012
By Jayson Greene; March 21, 2012
8.0
ARTISTS:
Lil B
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Even if you don't believe Lil B's produced a second of worthwhile rap music, you have to admire his warped career, which continues, in its Drunken-Master stagger, to take him to improbable new places. His impact on rap is already such that if he disappeared tomorrow, he would linger in the cultural bloodstream. But somehow, he endures: He's like Swee'Pea from a Popeye cartoon, crawling over gnashing gears while we clutch our heads and watch. God's Father, which came out last week, is the latest proof that he hasn't finished telling us his peculiar story, and that somehow, even after untold terabytes of #based music, he's still finding out new ways to tell it.
The first thing you'll notice after porting God's Father into your iTunes is that it's long. Ludicrously so, in a way that defies any sense of what an "album" is, or how one plays. It is a face-whitening amount of Lil B to contend with in a single sitting; at 34 tracks, it demands several sessions to even take in. (It took me three days, in 10- to 12-song chunks.) It doesn't feel "sequenced" in any noticeable way. Like Lil B, it just keeps going. Also as with Lil B, I have only the fuzziest idea how it sprang into existence. After years of listening to his music, I still have zero sense of how his creative decisions are made, or not made: Does he take time recording his punched-in overdubs? Does he know the order of any of his tracklists? Has he ever done a second take in his life?
With the atrocious stuff, of course, the added mystery is: "Did he even listen to this? And good lord, why am I?" The good news, with God's Father, is that even at its ridiculous length, I never found myself asking this question. It's probably his most immersive single release-- or album, or mixtape, or emanation, or whatever-- in a year and a half, better than both BasedGod Velli and I'm Gay. Lil B's consistency relies as much on monkeys-and-typewriters statistics as it does on luck, timing, and inspiration. With God's Father, the breezes are blowing favorably.
He has always found ear-catching beats from unlikely corners, and over the course of God's Father, he raps over whole crates of dollar-store vinyl: We get pan flutes, strings, and choirs; electro funk, 1980s R&B, and Yanni pianos; gospel soul, new age synthesizers, doctor's-office jazz fusion. Individual moments stick out: "Flowers Rise" is one of his prettiest beats in ages, a wisp of synth twirling miles in empty space above an ominous pool of warped noises. "SF Mission Music" rolls out the sepia-tinted Pete Rock piano chords. "Flash" is a skewed take on rap's Lex Luger obsession, trademark synth sweep, ticking hi-hats and all. Over the course of the album, it runs together into one gently mind-expanding blob. This isn't a rap mixtape; it's an amniotic tank.
As for his rapping, those who insist he's a "bad rapper" certainly don't lack evidence. I could pluck 11 or 12 mortifying lines from this tape alone to argue their case for them. But that would miss a larger point about Lil B's music: its use, its proper context. His lyrics rarely accomplish what traditional rap lyrics do, but you can learn a lot about how good rapping works, it turns out, from listening to Lil B, in a way that you cannot from listening to more traditional rappers.
Listening to him work out what kind of beat he's rapping on, for example, what kind of mood it suggests and how he can add to it, is fascinating. "Normal" rappers do this all the time, commenting on the vibe of the track as it rolls out ("this *$%@ feel like a movie!" "this that 1970s heroin flow") getting themselves, and you, in the proper mind frame. But Lil B is especially good at it; in fact, sometimes listening to Lil B do this is the whole song. Menacing minor key pianos on "Breath Slow"? "Ahhhh let me out this +@%%#**%*!$#@ caaaaage!," he screams. A refracted prism of synth streaming in on "I Ain't Neva Won"? "You see that light up there? Oh yeah, that's just so beautiful." It's a bit like watching a group of little kids dance to music they're hearing for the first time: Is this dark music? Should I make my scary face?
Hearing him drop a line of thought and pivot abruptly into new territory a beat or two later is also absorbingly odd: "Even Eminem known Lil B crazy/ I wanna see how you... [pause] situations/ Duct tape ya click, ain't no way for escapin," he says on "God's Father". He leaves gaps, presumably to be punched in later, in the otherwise fairly dense rhyme pattern of "Buss Em 4 Points"'s second verse. This is how raps generally come together before the microphone is turned on, or while the song is being hashed out before entering the studio, but it is not the way rap listeners are accustomed to engaging with it. If you like thinking about language as unfinished stuff, Lil B's music will play upon rarely visited parts of your listening brain.
It doesn't hurt that he has a genuine way with words, a knack for memorable phrasing. "Man you gotta %$#+ a mother, and it's real still...," he says on "Be a Star". Talk about an unfinished thought! "I don't eat that %*##!, man, on the dancefloor, man," he says on "Go Dumb Tonight". Sounds reasonable. On "Flowers Rise" he offers what might be the most hilariously #based lyric of his career: "I'm so lonely on this pony riding over the sunlight." Pick any stretch of God's Father, and you will be mowed over with quotable phrases. It's like being showered with fortune cookies.
"Man, I just got some deep-++@ thoughts," he says, on the aptly titled "Deep ++@ Thoughts". The irony is that he doesn't, or if he does, he declines to share them. But he recreates the feeling of having deep-++@ thoughts-- dazed wonder, disorientation-- and then encourages you to have your own. It's the same sort of service he provides on a song called "Real Hip Hop 2012", which is a reference to East Coast hip-hop more than an East Coast hip-hop song. It's an odd, abstracted sort of music, and it will never be for everybody. But Lil B knows who his music is for: "This for everybody that/ They think so hard, man they thoughts be so deep/ And don't nobody believe 'em/ But I believe you."
