#basedworld

[blunt-wizard-shawty]

genuinely the happiest day of my life #TYBG

[greedygonazlez65]

Ballin like a laker but im really from the D so ig that make me Luka

[importals99]

[s0raskeyblad3]

cartier god for flagpole mag, 2012

[f-i-l-a]

[ravedeath1990]

[hatredofmusic]

Lil B The BasedGod by Marilyn Hue, 2017.

[dustedmagazine]

Lil B – Loyalty Casket (BasedWorld)

Lil B’s new mixtape Loyalty Casket is a gargantuan epic at three hours and 38 minutes long. He calls it a mixtape, but it’s really closer to a vintage radio drama rehashing the New Testament. If it sounds ridiculous, that’s because it is.

Instead of the Christ on the cross plot here we actually have no plot, but the difficult knot has all the Biblical mysteries. Some of the songs are narrated by Lil B (the Son), some by Based God (the Father) and some by their Unity (the Holy Spirit). Lil B is an apostle upon himself, a true weirdo revelation. With Biblical underlying motif, Loyalty Casket doesn’t come down to some po-mo rap mumbo-jumbo. Lil B resists the easy lure to write a gangsta Bible. For many a hip hop tourist it may seem like a straight game: the usual attributes of rap are all present here, from street gangs to freaky sex. Yet the frequent hip hop listener will understand that this is all pastiche. But pastiches now are all around us. It only works when it’s pushed to its extremes, the supreme form of pastiche. It doesn’t shout a weary cry “Look how hollow mass culture is!” It is way more critical: “Look, mass culture is hollow! So am I!”

If all of it was said on podcast, Lil B would be deemed insane and sent off to an institution. Certainly, he’s risking being laughed at. It’s not even punchlines (“Your therapist is a snitch”), it’s turning the tables around. No “serious” rapper would allow himself to admit that he’s in “the Bitch Mob” since it would hurt his reputation. Lil B perfectly gets that you can’t surprise anyone now with half-measures. You need to push it, make everyone uncomfortable. He masks culture criticism behind an ignorant persona. But putting all the dumbest aspects of rap into one record is so stupid it’s smart. And since Loyalty Casket breaks all the rules of hip hop, you can’t even complain about the length.

Loyalty Casket’s 59 (!) tracks encompass songs both unbelievably ignorant and blissfully smart. (It’s also probably for the first time in rap history that Iran, Iraq and Pakistan get a shout-out.) Maybe not everybody will make it until the end, but this is a good alternative to the dull hegemony of street rap.

Ray Garraty