Not only is Lil B an incredible producer of rap music, he's also an incredible consumer of rap music. Over the past three years, he's arguably invented his own microgenre with "based music," but a good number of the hundreds of songs he's released in that time are open love letters to other rap artists or regional sounds, from OJ Da Juiceman to Cormega. Any borderline insomniac can sometimes find B on Twitter when night bleeds into morning, tweeting furiously and enthusiastically about rappers such as the 504 Boyz, who have long been out of the spotlight, if they ever were in the first place.
White Flame is B's latest entry into his Flame series, an ongoing string of mixtapes that can be all over the place musically but often delve into the sounds and slang of classic New Orleans rap, right down to the covers, which are spot-on tributes to 1990s Pen & Pixel collages. They've also featured B close to his most unchained, which has led to songs that are fascinating, bizarre, and fantastic as well as ideas that are so unbelievably bad that they can come from only one person.
On all fronts, White Flame doesn't disappoint. There are tracks-- some hyper-lucid and some decidedly absurdist-- that will likely be some of the best songs that Lil B puts out this year. There is also a ridiculous near-diss track aimed at the Game, a song that liberally samples "I Would Die 4 U" and another called "BasedGod Fucked My Bitches" that throws a preposterously mismatched drum loop under a generous sample of Daft Punk's "One More Time" for six and a half minutes. Predictably it's a pick-and-pull record, but those willing to sift can find plenty of reminders of why B is, if not vital, then at least still enduring.
Like most tapes in the Flame series, White Flame peaks when B is at his most wild. Here he often reverts back to the wild-eyed gangster, pseudo-gender-bending persona he developed on last year's Bitch Mob tape, resulting in hilarious and extremely singular tracks such as "Bitch of the City", "I'm Fabio", and "Poppin V" that blur the line between rapping and rambling and in many ways challenge what the art form is designed to do. The songs are purposefully funny and, like plenty of rap music, trade as much on charisma and the ability to coin catchphrases as anything, but they also beg the question of why exactly we need Lil B doing his most sincere B.G. impersonation while bragging for an entire track about taking "grandpa pills" in the first place.
Well, maybe we don't, but it's hard to listen to tracks like those-- balanced with more traditional songs like "Surrender to Me" and "Neva Switch"-- and not feel an affinity for what Lil B is pulling off. His subversion of the conventions of the genre remains strong even as he becomes further assimilated into the mainstream, but more importantly he's coming from a place of love and reverence with regard to the music that he's twisting. There is no artifice or endgame, just a weird dude having fun with the music he-- and plenty of others-- grew up listening to. The best of White Flame won't convince those already turned off by Lil B, and some of it is outright useless, but the tape illustrates that he's still operating at a high level. The next few Lil B tapes are already just a keystroke away, but White Flame has songs to come back to, both for pure entertainment and if you ever find yourself wondering just how exactly the guy who raps, "I can't believe it's not butter/ I'm Fabio," can keep pumping out so much unique, good music.
