Bfb Da Packman is not a comedian who raps; he’s a rapper who happens to crack a shitload of dick jokes. His breakout song and video, “Free Joe Exotic,” is one of the best and funniest singles to come out of the red-hot Michigan rap scene in the past couple of years. Every line is absolutely nuts: His thoughts on protection (“I’ll jump off a bridge ’fore I put my dick in plastic”), mid-sex musings (“She said she can feel it in her stomach, stop capping/Ol’ lyin’ ass bitch, my dick ain’t that big”), and self-deprecating digs (“I nut super quick and I be weighin’ down the mattress”). In the video, he rolls around on the ground and humps cars while wearing swim trunks, glasses that make him look like Bubble Bass from Spongebob, and a bright orange sweatshirt that reads “STILL HIV POSITIVE.” Guest Sada Baby, one of the most animated rappers in the Midwest, looks like the straight man.
Yet Packman’s debut album, Fat Niggas Need Love Too, isn’t consumed by the gimmick. The Flint-raised rapper, who now lives in Houston, can really spit: He tries to make a good Michigan rap song first and the jokes follow naturally. On “Wendy Williams,” Packman isn’t laugh-out-loud funny—except for maybe when he exclaims, “I got goals of eating Domino’s off Tika Sumpter’s ass”—but the engine of his raps is the personality-filled flow and the piano-driven Michigan beat.
The best Packman songs combine the spirit of a true Michigan street rap single with one-liners so dark and weird that the only reasonable reaction is to laugh and think, Why would anyone say that? “If Lizzo sold her coochie juice, ah, I wanna buy a swiggle,” raps Packman on “Bob and Weave,” followed by the sound of a drink being poured. On “Federal,” he lies, “Family full of hoes, even my granny got an OnlyFans,” a claim ridiculous enough to pierce the underwhelming guitar-based beat. On “Weekend at Solomon’s,” he attempts to boast, “Bougie nigga, just to beat my meat, bitch I get Jergens,” and later, “Man, I had a fat mama, how dare you niggas blame me.” He’s never afraid to clown himself—or his mom or his grandmother or his kids—and it makes his music so much fun.
If there are puns that don’t work for Packman, it’s the STD ones. Even if based in some truth, lines like, “When it comes to STDs, woo, I’m the mascot,” feel needlessly edgy in a way that his humor usually avoids. But the less enjoyable parts of Fat Niggas Need Love Too more often come from his guests: Wiz Khalifa is an awkward fit on the thudding instrumental of “Fun Time,” Coi Leray is fine but forgettable on “Ocean Prime,” and the Sada Baby reunion on “Big Bertha” is dissapointing, mostly because Sada continues to operate on autopilot like he has for much of the year.
The weirdest feature of all is Benny the Butcher on “Frenchmen,” where Packman raps about plugs on a brooding piano beat that sounds like it should be track 17 on a random Griselda mixtape. It’s a miracle that it isn’t a disaster and even moreso that Benny seems to embrace the ridiculousness of it all: “I hit Packman and said, ‘You nice, yeah, I’ll give you that’/Plus you gettin’ rich, can’t believe you ain’t fuck Lizzo yet.” But that’s Packman for you. He’s such a contagious personality that he can make even the most self-serious rapper of the most self-serious rap crew have some fun.
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