Lil B :: B-Unit

If you put a list of albums in a year on a dartboard and threw a dart blindfolded, you’d hit a Lil B album. This is neither a good nor a bad thing. This is just a fact of nature. The sun rises, the sun sets, and Brandon makes more music. Even though I’ve had many B albums I’ve enjoyed and many that I’ve found incomprehensibly bad, the one thing that I absolutely understand above all else is his inner drive to create. The same thing that gets him out of bed every day to make albums is the same thing that gets me up to write about albums. It’s practically compulsive when you have that creative voice inside compelling you. It can’t be denied. Even if the audience doesn’t understand you just keep going.

Today Brandon manifested “B-Unit” and I chose to listen to it and talk to you about it. We’re both fulfilling that creative desire. My biggest issue here would be that songs like “The Devil Told Me” are over a full minute and a half before they actually end. B’s production and lyrics are both tighter than usual, but we didn’t need to artificially double the length of songs like this. Given Lil B’s propensity for lengthy albums he could have tacked on instrumental versions of this shit and cut the regular tracks down quite a bit.

“God damn, my life is amazing.” You’re right B. Even when I critique you it’s with nothing but love for the life you built through creativity. He says it best on “Not Jealous of You” with these words: “To everyone that loves me, I love you back/Even if you don’t love me I still got yo’ back/Music is the way to express myself/My feelings on myself? I’m far from perfect/So when I make music don’t take it person-al/I’m not attacking you, or your spiritual.” Even though he says he’s far from perfect this is as close to perfect as Brandon gets. He’s humble, he’s kind, he’s introspective, and he appreciates the blessings in his life. This is a genuine #ThankYouBasedGod moment and “B-Unit” has quite a few.

“Smokin Weed” is super chill and breezy, but also has just a tinge of the paranoia that can come from cannabis consumption. “Invited, in my house and now you’re comfortable/So many beautiful things, you wanna take them away.” You’d have to be pretty stupid to rob the Based God. Not saying somebody wouldn’t try though. You’d have to be pretty stupid to fuck with Drake and people still do. B lets his frustration boil over on songs like “F Golden Gate Fields” at “these crackers from the 1700’s … they blame me for growing up in poverty/like we had a choice.” You tell ’em B.

I can’t just be out here writing a love letter to “B-Unit” though. Even Brandon, who by his own admission isn’t perfect, would have to admit there are some issues here. At 90 minutes long he’s just inching up on the point where it’s too much Lil B to sit through, even though he’s reigned it in compared to some of his bloated prior works. He could have cut all of the “BASED FREESTYLE” tracks and had a stronger project overall. Skits and interludes like “Brotherhood of the Cross and Star” are equally unnecessary. And I’m just keeping it real when I say this — some tracks just hit. “This Is My Lifestyle” has no energy. No compelling instruments, no great hook, and even B himself sounds like he’s going through the motions vocally.

Taken as a whole though “B-Unit” belongs in the upper half to upper third of Brandon’s catalogue, and when you consider just how big that catalogue is (it can fill a whole bookshelf all by itself) that’s still pretty damn good. It wouldn’t be the first album of his I would recommend, but if you were already a Based God fan going in, you’d be satisfied with the effort he made on this release.