Spring Break

Spring break is so close I can taste it. The beach, the babes, the bodies of water. All of that's in Columbus, Ohio, right? But, as you know, the only thing with a higher priority than midterms and vacation is mixtapes. That's what Stack That Cheese is for.

The Good:

Blake Allee - Televisionn

I was going to make Cigarillo Music by Delaware-based group Base Gang my good mixtape this week. I had it all planned out about what I was going to say about it. "The album cover was just so indie, I had to listen." "The beats are so good, it's hard to stop listening to them." "Their flows and lyrics aren't the greatest, but the production more than makes up for it."

But then I came across Televisionn. Even though I already had a good mixtape picked out, I figured I could still give it a listen. If it was good, I'd download it. But good doesn't cover it. Televisionn is great.

That's not an overstatement. This mixtape is really that good. It might be my favorite since starting Stack That Cheese.

I imagine Marty McFly is responsible

Televisionn is a very futuristic mixtape. With largely electronic production and Allee's eye on what's to come, it's clear the Indiana rapper is focused on more than just the present.

While the beats are good, Televisionn's real power lies in Allee's brilliant lyrics. From listening to him spit, it's clear he has a different perception of the world. He just sees it in a different light, and it reflects in his lyrics.

Binary code in your bloodstream
can't be too healthy, though.

"Evolution" is one of the many examples. His words are layered over a rising electronic beat. And throughout the whole song, Allee is on his A-game. Just look at this string of rhymes about 25 seconds in. "'Til my speech is impeached / I will preach over beats / I will reach out of reach / 'Til I sleep with a sheet / Take a seat in a jeep / And retreat to the streets of Indy where I compete with elites." That's a Das Rascist level rhyme scheme, but serious. And throughout the song, he sprinkles his clever wordplay, such as "Losing all my memories / 'Tile music's my identity" and "You know I don't exist in books and library souls / Slit my wrists and I bleed binary code."

But he doesn't stop at "Evolution." Every single song has this same amount of brilliance. And it's mostly done by just him. The production, writing, rapping, everything. He gets a few features on here that, surprisingly, match up with him pretty well. It makes one wonder what's in the water in Indiana if these kinds of rappers are just all over there.

It's honestly hard to explain just how good Televisionn is. It's so much better to just listen it. It's well worth it.

The Bad:

Caskey - No Complaints

Congratulations to Caskey on becoming the first person in Stack That Cheese history to make it two consecutive weeks. Kind of. He was on Rich Gang: All Stars last week, and even though it was listed as Birdman's mixtape, it was still a compilation album, so I'm giving the honor to Caskey.

What's weird is that Caskey's song on Rich Gang, "FBGM," was one of the better ones on the mixtape. I actually like "FBGM" better than most of the songs on No Complaints. There's just something that's in "FBGM" that isn't on No Complaints.

Caskey is one of the newest signees to Young Money. He actually seems to be a little out of the ordinary for Young Mula, baby. Mostly because he has talent.

When Caskey raps, you can tell he has potential. His rhymes are pretty nice, his voice goes with the beat and he carries himself well. The only thing he's missing is flow.

Flow the iPod game probably
wouldn't help much.

Flow. That's all. If he had flow to accompany everything he does well, he might be in the good category. But that one thing makes you forget about everything he has going for him.

Take the song "Words." It starts off with just spoken word. If you do spoken word, you probably should have flow. (I'm assuming there's a less rap-like term for this with spoken word, but I'd rather stick with flow.) And yet his words seem to just run into each other, making it hard to distinguish what's important and when he wants to begin and end his thoughts. In spoken word, the flow has to serve the same purpose. But on "Words," that's all his rhymes are. Not a poem. Not art. Just words. 

It's too bad, because he carries a really heavy message for hip-hop, talking about, well, "nigga." "You can say cracker, but I can't say nigga / So we get into conflict when we both sip liquor," he spits. It's hard to find someone addressing that in a song.

That's what I'm talking about. He has so much going for him. If he just had the flow, he could be a good rapper. He's worth keeping an eye on, but he still needs to improve.

The Re-dic-yu-lus:

80 Bandz - Band Camp

Do you realize how many mixtapes are on datpiff? The answer is a lot. It shouldn't be hard to find a mixtape that re-dic-yu-lus in the sea of mixtapes that is datpiff. But today, it was nearly impossible. Every mixtape I found ended up just being bad. Sure, I thought about just saying they were re-dic-yu-lus, but I know how much ending up with the "re-dic-yu-lus" label on a mixtape can ruin one's career (Have you heard from Kyoto since this? Granted, you probably didn't hear from him before then, but still.) So I kept on searching.

And that searching paid off. Band Camp might be one of the most re-dic-yu-lus mixtapes I've ever heard. It's everything I could have ever wanted. Bad production? Check. Poor lyrics? Check. Features from little kids? Oh my God, check!

Lil Poopy will always be my favorite
pre-pubescent pussy popper.

There's just something about shitty lyrics rapped by a high-pitched preteen that I love. Ever since Lil Poopy, I've just been obsessed with pre-pubescent pussy poppers.

Before I continue, let me just clarify that 80 Bandz is not who I'm referring to with all this "pre-pubescent" stuff. He's definitely not very old, but his voice has at least dropped. It's his frequent collaborator Lil Duke that I'm now obsessed with.

Don't worry, 80 Bandz is plenty bad. "Fuck Em All" is one of many examples that back that up. In it, 80 Bandz overpowers the hood-rat beat by turning his vocals all the way up and not even following the beat. I can't even follow him.

But as soon as Lil Duke shows up on the same track, I'm suddenly more okay with the crappiness. His rapping style is mostly just yelling with his high voice and saying "nigga" a lot. And it's kind of adorable. I just imagine a little kid with braces and a squirt gun trying to be hood in the booth.

There are even features from other youngins! Like Loudpack! And Lil Budda ("I kill your whole family"). This is like the Cruel Summer of elementary school. I wish my elementary alma mater had a rap group. But I guess St. Monica's just wasn't as hood as 80 Bandz and Lil Duke.

-- Xavier Veccia, dropping the mic for now.

@xprime_time

Welcome Back

It's always hard saying goodbye to one of your favorite artists. Or least favorite artists. Or your pet bird that your mom made you get rid of. (I don't know from experience, but I imagine it's about the same thing.) Luckily, this week on Stack That Cheese, I get to welcome back one of my favorite rappers and one of my least favorite rappers who I thought were gone for good. (No pet birds, though. Sorry for getting your hopes up.)

The Good:

Hoodie Allen - Crew Cuts

As a broke college kid who frequently listens to mixtapes, it's always rough when an artist you listened to from his beginning stages starts making legitimate albums. Because you enjoy him. You have all of his mixtapes. But as soon as he releases that first album, you realize you're faced with two options: you could either continue supporting him and fork up the fifteen dollars, or you can give up on him. (You can also take a sail to the bay of pirates, but I totally don't do that.)

Just so you know, "the bay of
pirates" is not in Somalia,

Hoodie Allen is that kind of artist. I have almost everything he's done, even Making Waves. He was one of my favorite rappers for a while. But as soon as he dropped All American, I was faced with that same dilemma. The fact that he took on a poppier feel just made it more difficult. 

Usually when an artist makes that jump from mixtape rapper to album rapper, they're gone for good. Or if they ever do come back, it's with a subpar mixtape because they save all their best stuff for the albums that actually make them money.

But Hoodie Allen is better than that. He gets me. He understands my dilemma and he's making it so I never have to make that hard decision that would probably lead to me abandoning him. (I'm really broke, guys.) He's making it so I can have my "Cake" and eat it, too. (It's funny because one of his songs on Crew Cuts is called "Cake Boy." The only thing funnier than puns is explaining them, right?)

And Hoodie comes through on his first mixtape since July 2011. In fact, I might even enjoy it more than All American.

For one thing, he's more experimental on Crew Cuts than he was on his album. "Cake Boy" might be his most experimental song ever. The beat is comprised mostly of deep bass and pots and pans. That's right, pots and pans. For a pop rapper, "Cake Boy" is pretty indie. 

The other things that makes Crew Cuts so good are the features on it. "Two Lips" is another one of the best songs on the album and it's in due in large part to the featuring of OCD: Moosh and Twist (who released a song earlier this week entitled "All Alright," which sounded a lot like a Hoodie track and now I know why). And "Fame Is For Assholes," a song which earned a quality music video earlier this week, features Chiddy of Chiddy Bang, another mixtape rapper who made the switch to albums, making the song even sweeter. Hoodie also manages to get features from Shwayze and G-Eazy, among others.

Hoodie's been better than he is on Crew Cuts, but it's definitely a refreshing listen for any Hoodie fan and it shows he hasn't gone completely mainstream, yet, which is always good.

The Bad:

Birdman - Rich Gang: All Stars

If you had come up to me within the past few years and told me that Birdman was dead, I would have believed you without even having to Google it. That's how irrelevant he's been. But now he's back with a G.O.O.D. Summer-like collaborative mixtape, heavily featuring the artist he frequently collaborates with.

Rich Gang: All Stars is actually more of a compilation album, but the idea is similar to that of G.O.O.D. Summer in the way that it tries to showcase the talent surrounding Birdman. It says a lot, however, that Birdman could only put together a compilation mixtape, whereas Kanye can release a critical success of an album with his crew. Remember when Birdman was not only relevant, but not far from the top of hip-hop royalty? Back when he could just put Lil Wayne and Drake on a song and hit platinum? Now he's so far down the food chain that he can get his so-called "all-stars" together and barely make a ripple. 

There are actually some pretty good songs on All Stars. For instance, Drake's single that sent every rapper into the recording studio, "Started From the Bottom," is the first song on this mixtape. It's one of the better Drake songs since he signed with Young Money. Reminds me of the old Drake, when he was a rapper before anything else. But even that song is old news and not made because of Birdman.

Don't think you can share this with Weezy.

The song immediately following it is definitely more suited to a Birdman mixtape, though. It's called "Awkward" and it's by Birdman's protege himself, Lil Wayne. I'm honestly proud of myself as a music fan because I'm so appalled by Lil Wayne now. I really liked Carter III when it came out, but it hasn't really held up. And almost everything since that has been complete and utter garbage. "Awkward" continues that streak. It's got a kind of sexy vibe that's supposed to get the ladies all hot and bothered, but with lines like "She made me cum a hundred times" and "I tell her that that pussy for me / Just in case she thought it was ours / And she said 'cool'" are so out of left field that I can't ever imagine anyone finding them sexy. Or good, but that's a given.

It doesn't stop there. Birdman has songs from here from almost everyone who's ever been associated with him. This includes, but is not limited to, Tyga, French Montana, Nicki Minaj, 2 Chainz, Mack Maine, Kevin Rudolf, Gudda, Meek Mill and Ace Hood. And very few of them are any good. Honestly, it might just be better if Birdman just becomes a recluse again. 

The Re-dic-yu-lus

Travy - Local Celebrity

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about Rich Hil, the son of Tommy Hilfiger. I actually said his ambient, drug-influenced mixtape was good. So just keep that in mind as I trash this douchebag.

I'm never going to say hip-hop is a closed community. It's actually very open and free. It features the rich and the poor, the gangsta and the posh, the hard and the soft, and the list just goes on. That's what makes it so interesting, the fact that it's so accessible. But guys like Travy do not belong in hip-hop.

Just look at the Local Celebrity cover. A white boy smoking a cigarette, sitting on the hood of his red Acura, dressed in his blue button-down Polo dress shirt and his salmon shorts (yes, I realize I can't talk shit about this) in the middle of Delaware (it's on the licence plate). Now imagine that preppy kid rapping. It's that bad. 

Something tells me Tupac didn't
have a cranberry Acura.

About 95% of Local Celebrity is Travy bragging about just how rich he is. Just read some of his song names: "Acura Music Pt.1," "Local Celebrity," "Country Club Interlude 1" and "PREP." Now let's look more in-depth at his music.

"PREP" is really the essence of Travy. It starts out with the phrase, "Due to some violent content, parental discretion is advised." He then proceeds without even being that violent. He covers topics that span everything from his "cranberry Acura" to polo. ("Polo socks, Polo hat / Turn the golf course into a polo match.") And it doesn't even sound like it's finished. Travy trips up on his words, gets out of breath and doesn't even seem like he knows what he's doing.

And then there's the title-track. It sounds like a parody done by a poor man's Lonely Island. Travy's voice is smothered with autotune as he raps lines like "Rich, white, hood, country club kid who's on his shit." And by the end of the song he's just saying stuff like "All you faggots boring, boring" and "I'm so fly, so fly" most likely to just test out his autotune.

It'd be one thing if Travy was good. Or if Local Celebrity was at least well-produced. Or if he was at least some drug addict hopped up on designer drugs making ambient, hippie music (see: Rich Hil). But Travy's none of those things. He's exactly what you'd expect from some rich boy who most likely has his own studio in his bedroom just for the fun of it. I really hope he's just trolling me, but even if he is, it's not even funny. Just bad.

-- Xavier Veccia, dropping the mic for now.

@xprime_time

Just A Normal Day

Hey, Cheeseheads. How was your day? Mine was pretty normal. Because today was a normal day. Like, incredibly normal. Yep, nothing special happens in the middle of February, that's for sure. It's just a normal day. A normal Thursday with a normal Stack That Cheese post with no surprises.

The Good:

Problem & Iamsu! - Million Dollar Afro

I've gone over before how I often look at the covers and titles of mixtapes when trying to decide what mixtapes to look at. This, of course, applies to Million Dollar Afro. I've always greatly enjoyed afros. In fact, in fifth grade, I used to put a massive amount of mousse in my hair and I tried to shape my hair in the form of an afro. Needless to say, it was extremely unsuccessful. So now I just obsess over them, instead. And that led me to Problem & Iamsu!

If you've heard of Problem & Iamsu!, it's most likely because you're either a fan of theirs or you heard them on a Wiz Khalifa track. The duo from California is a frequent collaborator of Khalifa and was even featured on Cabin Fever 2 (the song, "Bout Me," is also featured on Million Dollar Afro). And after seeing Iamsu!'s afro, it's not hard to tell why. It's a pretty great afro. (Also, both smoke a vast amount of weed. That helps, too.) Just check it out in the title track's smokey music video.

The duo focuses on stoner music. As I've gone over in the past, stoner music is very hit and miss. Curren$y manages to make good stoner music, but Wiz has been struggling to do so as of late. And Million Dollar Afro is just as hit-and-miss.

"100 Grand" is one of those hits. For one, it has one of the harder beats on the album, compiled of hard bass lines, claps and synths that get the head bobbing. It's even nicer when Problem & Iamsu! and the features of Kool John and Juvenille go in on it. Problem and Kool John have the hottest verses as Problem spits, "Wood on the dashboard / All about the cash, board / Make the money fast forward / Make your bitch give me that like her ass forward" and Kool John raps, "We're fucking with my cash, man you're fucking with your life / I ain't saying I'm a theif, but a nigga fuck your wife."

T-Pain called. He wants his
auto-tune back. And some work.

The title track, shortened as "MDA," is one of the misses. All the potential is there, with an exciting beat that gets the listener pumped up and some nice verses from Iamsu! But the song features over-saturated Auto-Tune. If it was limited to just the chorus, or if it was 2010, it wouldn't be as bad. But the Auto-Tune manages to make its way into the verses and that's just too much auto-tune in 2013.

Million Dollar Afro is far from perfect and features a few straight-up stupid songs that are hard to listen to, but the mixtape is saved by the hits like "Knock It Off" and "Hunnits."

The Bad:

Krondon - Everything's Nothing

The bad category is always the hardest to decide. It's not like the re-dic-yu-lus because it's not pointing out the blatantly bad, and it's not like the good because it's not giving praise. Sometimes, it's just adequate--not good and not horrible. This is one of those times.

Krondon's Everything's Nothing is alright. That's really the perfect way to describe it. He does some things right--he focuses on real topics and the beats are for the most part pretty good--but he also does some things very poorly.

Take the song "I'm Moving" for example. Krondon's probably at his best in some aspects of the song. For one, it has a catchy, somber/sweet chorus of, "I'm moving all my work today." And the song is about moving all of the supplies you have in order to make more money to support those around you. It's a topic heard many times before, but quality nonetheless.

Should've read more of this guy.

But all of this is rendered pointless because Krondon just doesn't deliver in other aspects. Krondon's main challenge is rhyming, surprisingly. Of course he can rhyme, but he mostly sticks to simplistic singular syllable rhyme schemes that seem forced. "Diamonds are forever / And this rhymer's kind of clever / Watch him turn crack rocks into cheddar" is actually one of his better lines, but the delivery around it isn't smooth at all.

Imagine if Kendrick Lamar wasn't so complex in Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City. What if he didn't have a song where he was rapping from the perspective of a teenager? Or if he dropped the comic relief provided by his parents' phone calls? Or if he didn't take the role of those who left his life in "Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst?" What would Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City be then? It's not just good enough to have an interesting backstory and some good beats. In fact, it might be harder. Because that means you have to truly deliver in order to tell your story as best as it can be told.

Guys like Problem & Iamsu! have it easier. They just rap about weed and have a good time. As long as you have good beats and your rhymes are good, you're set. But Krondon has to do more because he has more to say. He just doesn't do enough on Everything's Nothing.

The Re-dic-yu-lus:

G FELLA - St. Valentine's Day Massacre

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! You thought I forgot, didn't you? My confusing intro and title threw you off, didn't it? I would never forget about you, Cheeseheads. I may not have gotten you guys chocolate or flowers or a fancy candle-lit dinner, but I did get you a horrible mixtape. I know you all so well, don't I?

Sadly, St. Valentine's Day Massacre isn't a very good Valentine's Day mixtape. There's no love-making R. Kelly, Barry White-type songs. It's actually quite violent. You probably should have guessed that from the word "massacre" in the title, but if you didn't, now you know.

So, to make up for giving you a violent mixtape instead of a sexy one, I'll give you some cards. Stack That Cheese cares.

You know this mixtape is going to be bad as soon as the chorus in the first song, "Massacre," begins. "No more excuses, no more chances / No more frenemies, no more cancers," raps G FELLA quite violently. Excuse me? Frenemies? I've never heard anyone say "frenemies" more angrily than G FELLA does. And then he starts the first verse by saying, "Go down on you harder than a dinosaur bite." To be fair, dinosaur bites do go down pretty damn hard.

You know what's harder than dinosaur bites, though? Listening to G FELLA's song "City Boy." (That transition doe.) Think of the most famous song that has the phrase "city boy" in it. If you guessed "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey, you're right! Your prize is another awesome Valentine's Day card right after this paragraph! (And if you didn't guess correctly, well, you'll still see the card, but only because I'm nice.) Now imagine it poorly sampled and you'll have "City Boy."

"City Boy" is about how G FELLA apparently grew up in a small town where "everybody knows everybody." How he portrays it, though, is just crazy. "Ice makes your wrist numb / Gold digger chicks come / Neighborhood chicks come / Beat them gold diggers up," he says. He then goes on to talk about how the cops didn't mess with him and his crew and just basically lists the people who lived there, before ending the song by shouting, "That's the city! That's the city I live in!" He clearly lived in quite the city.

I honestly don't know what to say about G FELLA's St. Valentine's Day Massacre. It's honestly horrible and isn't even as laughable as some of the other re-dic-yu-lus mixtapes of Stack That Cheese past. With that being said, it still made my Valentine's Day more enjoyable, and I hope it made yours better, too, Cheeseheads.

-- Xavier Veccia, dropping the mic for now.

@xprime_time

Daddy's Boys, Wakas and Based Gods! Oh my!

Earlier this week, it was announced that Kendrick Lamar will be headlining 11Fest. I'd be lying if I said the excitement from that news didn't cause me to spontaneously break out in dance. Multiple times. That excitement has carried into today and has put me in a good mood. And I'm passing that onto you, Cheeseheads, by giving you two re-dic-yu-lus mixtapes. You're welcome.

The Good:

Rich Hil - SYLDD (Support Your Local Drug Dealer)

Look at the man in that picture. Enlarge it if you must. Look at all those tattoos. They're everywhere! Even on the middle fingers he's using to cover his eyes. And the title of his album is Support Your Local Drug Dealer. This Hil guy is clearly a bad-ass.

Oh wait. What's that you say? Hil is actually short for something? It's short for what? Hilfiger? Like Tommy Hilfiger? As in, the company that made those salmon-colored shorts I own? That Tommy Hilfiger? He's Tommy Hilfiger's son? Are you serious? Well shit.

The Rich Hil of men's fashion

That's right, that faded-as-fuck individual in that album cover is the son of multi-millionaire fashion mogul Tommy Hilfiger. Rich Hil is that classic kid who gets sick and tired of his rich daddy so he starts to rebel because if he falls, his rich daddy will be able to pick him back up. So he got loads of tattoos and started doing loads of drugs. This led him to music and music led him to Warner Brothers. SYLDD was slated to be his debut, but all that label crap that always gets in the way of artists got in his way and he decided to bypass it by being the rich rebel he is and releasing it online for free.

Hil's backstory isn't the typical backstory of a person in the hip-hop scene. This dude belongs in hip-hop as much as salmon-colored pants belong on a dude. But he's making hip-hop music and I'm wearing salmon shorts (I really like those shorts, guys).

Hil is the embodiment of the hip-hop hippie movement (I don't get it, but it's happening). He does copious amounts of drugs, his music is basically R&B but more ambient and more centered around guitars, and he's got an I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude. And his music does a good job of showing it.

The opening song, "Slickville" is the best example of the hippie image Hil has. The beat is a mixture of an acoustic guitar, drums and some ambient synths. Hil sings the first two-thirds of his song in his raspy voice that sounds as if it's been drenched in syrup. He then starts rapping, which isn't really his strong suit, but it's not bad and he mostly sticks to singing throughout the album.

He also has great features from The Weeknd, Leona Lewis and Fat Trel. "Nomads" with The Weeknd is probably one of the best songs, as The Weeknd's silky voice blends perfectly with Hil's song.

Hil's best song has to be "Xanax Bars." Imagine if one of the kids Frank Ocean sang about in "Super Rich Kids" made a song and that's what "Xanax Bars" basically is. When Hil says, "And the people in the street be staring when I walk / Go ahead Mr. Business man you can't dress like me" over the piano and electric guitar beat, it just seems as if Hil is being really self-reflective in a pretty beautiful way.

Even though having a rich daddy and coming from the lap of luxury doesn't seem like good fodder for a mixtape, Hil makes it just that. SYLDD is more than just hippie hip-hop as Hil takes a self-reflective turn. And it turns out well.

The Re-dic-yu-lus 1:

Waka Flocka - DuFlocka Rant 2

When you think "re-dic-yu-lus," if anyone else pops into your mind before Waka, you're doing it wrong. Waka is the physical manifestation of "re-dic-yu-lus." Honestly, I'm surprised it took ten posts until Waka ended up here. It's about damn time he did.

Waka's been going for a while and, according to his intro on DuFlocka Rant 2, after three years of rapping, he thinks he "made it." I guess he's not wrong. "No Hands" (the only Waka song I like) got some pretty legitimate hype and everyone knows who he is. So what if it's because he's so bad? Better than nothing, I guess.

But unless he's got Wale and Roscoe Dash coming on a song to provide some pretty decent verses, he's still just creating some horrendous hood-rat music.

Let's start with the first official song on DuFlocka Rant 2, "Stay Hood." Waka starts it off by making sure we know that he's "going to stay hood until the day that [he] die[s]." He then starts going off and rapping in his patented mumbling style. And then Lil Wayne comes on for the latter half of the song. Here's a good way to know that a rapper isn't good: Lil Wayne outperforms him. And that's with a Weezy verse that features the line "I'ma walk around wearing Jesus' crown."

"Parking in a no-parking zone?
That's a no-no."

"Shit Where You Sleep" is so bad it's laughable. It starts off with the line "He sellin' dope out his grandma's house / That's a no-no." If I ever win the lottery, the first thing I'm going to do is hire Waka Flocka to follow me and every time myself or someone around me does something dumb, he would say, "That's a no-no," because that's hilarious. He then goes on to say, "Stupid nigga, you don't shit where you sleep at," and "click-clack bwoh." Quick question: what does "bwoh" mean? To be fair, Ace Hood does a decent job on this song, but not well enough to make me forget about Waka.

The best thing about Waka Flocka is every time I listen to him, I have something new to say. From "Drunk 2 Much," off the original DuFlocka Rant, I got "uuuhhhhhh." From DuFlocka Rant 2, I get to take away "that's a no-no" and "bwoh." I'll take it.

The Re-dic-yu-lus 2:

Lil B - Pink Flame

We got our first ever two-time Stack That Cheeser! (Curren$y almost made it this week, too.) And I couldn't be happier that it's Lil B.

If you remember back at All Based Day I prayed to the almighty Based God. I think it's only right if we send up another prayer to Lil B. I hope you join me.

Dear Based God,

It's been awhile since we last talked.

We miss you down here on Earth.

I wish you would join us, but you are not mortal.

You are the most supreme being.

You are the reason I wake up in the morning

And the reason I go to bed at night.

You are the wind beneath my swag

The peanut butter to my swag jelly

If you're a bird

Then I'm a bird

Just a bird with less swag and bitches.

I don't ask much of you Based God

So please just grant me this one thing.

Fuck my bitch.

Amen.

Now that we've got that over with, let's get down to the nitty-gritty. And this nitty-gritty isn't very pretty. (Fun fact: that's a more complex rhyme than anything on Pink Flame.) Pink Flame got a fair amount of hype from the track "I'm the Bada$$," which was a diss track on Joey Bada$$. Joey Bada$$ is probably one of the best rappers going on right now. Despite being young, he seems to have a better handle on rapping than a lot of the people who have been doing it longer than he has. Needless to say, Bada$$ is way out of Lil B's league. But that didn't stop the Based God from going after him.

The song really isn't much of a diss track, as Lil B doesn't land any hard blows. The best line he has is probably, "Niggas say you doing bad but you can't get a job." "Bad" of course refers to Joey Bada$$ and by saying he can't get a job, he's comparing himself to Bada$$. This a shout out to the line from the late Capital Steez of Bada$$'s Pro Era in Bada$$'s song "Survival Tactics" in which Steez says, "tell the Based God don't quit his day job" which started the beef in the first place. Other than that, Lil B's pretty soft. Bada$$ of course responded much hotter on "Don't Quit Your Day Job" later on. And that's why Pink Flame was so hyped.

But that doesn't make Pink Flame any different from any other Lil B mixtape. It's still just as hysterically bad as any other of his mixtapes. "Eat" is the funniest/worst track on Pink Flame.

It starts off with an 8-bit snippet of "Pop Goes the Weasel" and then the bass drops. Then the hook starts, where Lil B explains through song how one needs to let him know that one's bitch is good before he fucks her. (I knew I forgot something.) And that's just the beginning. There's two verses of Lil B brilliance on this one. There's "25 bitches wanted me to fuck 'em / I can't do that 'cause I'm conceited." Or how about "You fucked the Based God, bitches love the Based God / 56 bitches and I look like Based God." There's also "You went to sleep at 5, I went to sleep at 6 / My bitch is my alarm clock 'cause she wakes me up." You know what, the last one is my favorite. He goes to bed an hour later and he explains the concept of an alarm clock! Thank you, Based God.

My alarm clock isn't a bitch

And there's many more gems like that on Pink Flame. From "1000 Bitches" to "Love N Hate," there are so many beautiful pieces that I'm even willing to look past the fact that he attempted dissing Joey Bada$$. I'm sorry for ever doubting you, Based God. Please forgive me.

-- Xavier Veccia, dropping the mic for now.

@xprime_time