Steve 'Flash' JuonI’d like to thank a reader with the humorous handle I Like Beans for suggesting that I take a look at Lil B’s “Black Ken” album. As a brief recap for those who don’t know Brandon McCartney, he’s a rapper from Berkeley, California who started out in a group called The Pack but quickly eclipsed their fame as a solo act. He’s known for his large social media following, his prolific (to the point of being excessive) musical output, and for being so renowned for his hustle he gets invited to lecture to college students. I admire what he’s achieved but always feel a sense of trepidation going into any Lil B project because of how wildly they vary in quality.
“All you niggaz soft, I don’t fuckin AutoTune
I make yo’ bitch suck my dick while her friends in the room”
“Black Ken” is interesting for a few reasons. The first is that this one is a little harder to find than some of B’s projects, first being teased in 2010 seven years before the album actually dropped. It’s entirely self-released so you’ll have better luck streaming it than getting a physical copy. The album also feels a lot like Brandon decided to do a tribute to the legends of rap. Three songs into the project I was already getting Spice 1 vibes from “Still Run It” and Dre Dog feels from “Bad Mf.” He even says “they love me from Oakland to Fillmoe” on the song before shouting out all his favorite hoods.
It’s worth noting these aren’t songs he sat on for seven years though. He sat on the IDEA of “Black Ken” for all that time, but he repeatedly tells us that it’s 2017 just so we don’t get it twisted. You certainly wouldn’t be blamed for thinking these are old tracks just from the styles he’s doing, but they’d be more than seven years old. His ode to his hometown of “Berkeley” is amusingly similar to a mid 1980’s LL Cool J track of the “I Need Love” variety. “It’s not about sex, that’s the lamest part” vows McCartney, offering to be “a stand up guy” for the lady he desires most.
“Go Stupid Go Dumb” brings things a little closer to the modern era, to the point you could easily mistake it for an E-40 track with a guest verse by Keak Da Sneak. Speaking of guests though Lil B keeps things incredibly tight hear by only featuring iLoveMakonnen on the following track “Global.” The rest of the presentation is entirely own, showing how Brandon can shape himself like a ball of clay until he forms the perfect vessel for any style he wants to pour on a track.
There are some flaws here. Despite being one of Lil B’s more interesting ideas, he can’t help his tendency to not edit those ideas down, resulting in an album that bloats to 99 minutes long over the span of 27 tracks. It would be easy to discard stuff like the “Mexico Skit” and the “Show Promoter Skit” but you could also delete discordant diarrhea like “Rawest Rapper Alive” and “Raw.” Lines like “I’m the Green Ranger, I had to fuck the bitch” weren’t worth committing to tape and he knows it.
In conclusion “Black Ken” is not the place I would start a BasedGod journey if you’ve never heard Lil B before. It’s too erratic and too long to immediately win over converts who will say #TYBG on socials after hearing it. If you’re already familiar with Brandon though “Black Ken” has some pleasant surprises. With just a little more focus this could have been a worthy tribute to all the rappers that inspired his career from the 1980’s to the 21st century. That feeling is there throughout the album but even though he had the idea he couldn’t hold onto it for the entirety of the release. For a catalogue that ranges from bad to brilliant this one gets slotted into the B tier (no pun intended) as above average.