What exactly do you want from Lil B? In most cases, that sort of statement would come off as defensive, but with Based God, it's actually something of an invitation. As a cult of personality artist with a seemingly endless capacity for productivity, Lil B's career is singular but very difficult to categorize or navigate. For newcomers, there is no single document that serves as a proper introduction-- not even the supposedly comprehensive Free Music: The Complete MySpace Collection will do, because it consists of 676 tracks and none of them is "Wonton Soup".
His self-awareness aside, I can't say whether Illusions of Grandeur-- Lil B's most cohesive and coherent collection of songs in a long time-- is an acknowledgement of the weirdly ephemeral nature of his musical output. In places it appears to be an olive branch to the Okayplayer faction of rap fans who view him as a scourge upon the supposed purity of the genre. That's what I got out of the pre-leak version of "Based 4 Ya Face", which boasted a Public Enemy-sampling 9th Wonder beat and verses from "real hip-hop" torchbearers Jean Grae and Phonte (a solo version is included here). 9th Wonder fits surprisingly well; there is a nice synthesis between B's slack cadence and 9th's unobtrusive soul simmer. In addition, Illusions is B at his most grounded topically and lyrically. For the most part, he's back in his Berkeley homebase, remembering zoned-out hours spent in coffee shops, surveying the endless and depressing cycle of violence, speaking directly to his fans and detractors, and carrying an attitude that appears at odds with his flippant, uncensored approach to music-making: he really cares.
Of course, Lil B's buffet-style consumption experience and stream-of-consciousness flow are still in place. Listening to him at times is like panning for gold-- you get some real nuggets, but you have to work for each one. For those who want to put in the effort, though-- and there a lot of people who do-- B seems to shapeshift into whatever form the listener chooses. The title track and "Cocaine Killer" can be viewed as some incredibly ill-formed storytelling if taken as linear narrative, or as the stray thoughts indigenous to the harried nickel-and-dime hustler. There are pop-culture non sequiturs that make the Kool Keith comparisons apt, and there are startlingly cogent revelations.
Illusions of Grandeur, therefore, is as erratic as we've come to expect; despite the record being relatively "cohesive" and "coherent" for Lil B, it's also a conservative addition to his catalog. While Illusions will certainly earn B some brownie points from those who like their hip-hop lyrical, this approach doesn't get to the core of why Lil B has resonated with so many people. Then again, Based God's probably got something already cooked up that'll please his core fanbase.
