Lil B
God's Father

Release Date: 2012 | Tracklist

I enjoy taking pride in the complexity of music and I often divulge into a symphonic orgie upon hearing the creative styles of groups like Outkast's 1995 release "ATLiens" or even Kanye West's 2010 project "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy". Lil B is an interesting artist to be quite honest. If you look into his interviews he seems to have the poise of an artist that desires to challenge the status quo, spitting out what he calls "based" freestyles. The problem with these freestyles is that they don't have the quality repetition in them that we often see of more lyrical emcees such as Nas and Raekwon. Is this to say that this immediately declares Lil B an untalented artist? No, several rappers have challenged the established trends of their time and progressed into unique and talented styles and while I must say that I applaud any man or women that would challenge the restrictions of their genre, we simply aren't hearing good music as a byproduct of what Lil B has done here with "God's Father". What ends up happening is some type of morphed combination of "50 Cent sounding raps" coming together with some instrumentals that actually have some pretty nice samples. The problem with Lil B is that he's developed a powerful fan-base, one that doesn't seem to care so much for the quality of the music, but rather the controversy and power behind what his ideals stand for. Lil B makes music that doesn't conform to Hip Hop's standards, which is exactly what becomes the problem. Hardcore Hip Hop heads will find it difficult to endure the messy concoction of the song that is "Breathe Slow". In Hip Hop/Rap in general, the performer needs to have a quality flow that his or her audience can vibe with. See it like this, imagine the soothing guitar rifts of Joe Bonamassa or Buckethead and now compare that to a young eight year old raping the strings of his brand new guitar that his father gave him for his birthday. Some might like to listen to the young aspiring guitarist if he's really controversial, but I think authentic musical performances might better lay in tune with the likes of Bonamassa and Buckethead. Additionally, with Lil B comes the "based" philosophy, advocating a loose idea that you should feel free to express yourself no matter what the haters say. You see the issue is this, you can take a quality track on this ostensibly long mixtape (far too long for my particular liking) and see that it might contain only one good song out of a mess of 20+ songs. Take for example the track "Flowers Rise". Now this track is actually feasible to listen to compared to some of the more lackadaisical sounds on the album, but it still greatly fails in comparison to other competitors in the same genre. Again, the "based" philosophy would say that I'm being a hater right now on what many consider to be a quality release, but me deciding not to criticize this album wouldn't be expressing myself as I should according to Lil B's logic.

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3.9 excellent

Rank: #0 for 2012