Every so often something comes along that throws into question everything you've been listening to for a while. Funny how I had convinced myself that Drake and Co. represented some kind of resurgence of quality rap. This track by Lil B is a quantum leap for rap music. Its new and unusual but undoubtedly organic. Its futuristic only insofar as its pretty much unprecedented. None of the stark futurism or intellectual posturing that characterized the underground hip-hop of the turn of the century can be found here. Its as though that phase in rap music was the necessary evil that broke down conventions so that a track like this could come in a rebuild them anew. I haven't heard rap music this unselfconsciously vulnerable since an 18 year old Dizzee Rascal released Boy in Da Corner. This isn't vulnerability in the vein of Kanye West. Kanye's troubles are simplistic and uncomfortably juinor-high. Today's squeamish, contrived, R&B-drama inflected "confessional" (think Kid Cudi) finds no audience in this track.
Lil B's stream of conscious flow is lyrically dense and stylistically fresh, hopping from topic to topic with ease. The first 30 seconds are spent waiting for the beat to kick in, and by the time the fifth minutes passed your happy it hasn't.
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