-by Frank Rodriguez

Future is a true rock star, or at least rap’s version of one. Where Waka is trap-heavy metal, Future’s spiked-up attire and stadium-sized aspirations (musically and in terms of persona) suggest hair metal. On Astronaut Status the rock star stuff is developed on “Jordan Diddy” and “Swap It Out”, where he says (raps or sings who knows), “I swapped out my hood fame, now I got global status.” Though he does still rap about running Atantla, it’s obviously a stepping stone. When Gucci raps about hoes in the condo on “Jordan Diddy” he sounds like a fat cat content to sit on a pile of money. We have to assume Future needs hoes just to service him in every city where he’s stunting like MJ. My favorite song on the tape, however, has to be “Deeper Than the Ocean”; because of how it twists that lifestyle into a sacrifice that the rapper makes for “you”, the rap fan.

Rappers disproportionately (compared the other genres) write songs about crime to entertain. On “Deeper Than the Ocean” the hustle/mean posture of criminal raps is turned into a sort of martyrdom: “I committed a million crimes/that ain’t enough for you/I’ma sell a million rhymes.” On this song crime isn’t something brought up to establish bona fides but something that causing pain to relive. He’s taking on crimes again and again for you; all Christ-like. Rock star life—rock star spikes become “spiked out like a bad drink.”

This is a great way to think through this music for someone who doesn’t live a criminal or a rockstar life but enjoys this music. This self-sacrifice is a strain that I like in rap, and as with all things Lil B does it the biggest. Where, say, Future talks about being a rock star and a criminal in blown up, yet believable terms, Lil B of course does it as a cartoon (which brought my mind to the topic to begin with, that’s Lil B’s greatness). He actually calls himself a human sacrifice a God (looking like Jesus might count for something too). And this is the connection between Lil B’s “Based”, positive persona and the one who talks about paying for blow jobs and running around with an AK. He preaches non-violence and has songs where he goes through an arsenal of choppers. He preaches safe sex and raps about paying bitches to suck his dick.

I don’t endorse “Im Like Killah” as a good song or video, but it’s good to take as an example. “Extra clips like a flick,” he raps, but only because “rap song” doesn’t rhyme with “clips”. Then he raps about paying “the bitch fifty thousand so she can suck my dick” (up from other songs where he pays twenty thousand, “Lil B”  must be trading up in the whore department) in a remarkable moment where the video shows a text message from Lil B imploring his fans to practice “SAFE SEX!!! PLZ”*. Lil B gives his life for his fans, and is the only rapper who will go out of his way to tell us the sleaze and the big guns are silly rap shit (“I GOT AIDS” was very out of his way). The neatest expression of this is my favorite B line ever, on “Free Lil Wayne“: “I’m not a gangsta, I’m a young hypocrite/I don’t know myself, so I’m yellin suck my dick.”

All this doesn’t doesn’t alienate the listener at all but deepens the listening experience. The boast raps become deeper if we know Future doesn’t enjoy fame all the time. We can have more fun with B’s songs if we know exactly how not serious he is being. The songs build a bond we can hold onto (sad songs and swag songs are both entertaining).

Heems of Das Racist is another interesting case. On “Rapping To U” he raps to you: “Could get a real job/only rap weekly/don’t need rap/told you rap need me.” “I’m rapping to you, my friend,” goes the hook, “so don’t ever say I didn’t do nothing for you.” Rapping and entertaining is a bitter sacrifice for Heems, a man who seems not to enjoy rapping a lot. Despite that bitterness it was n entertaining flip on the rapper-martyr/fan dynamic, a rapper who does not enjoy rapping. The non-entertaining part was Das Racist’s sarcastic departure from rap with 2011′s Relax. Heems got a real job as an indie rocker. We might be seeing a reversal with his new mixtape, Nehru Jackets; admittedly-more rappy and with outsourced production from Mike Finito. On that tape’s second track, he raps: “never liked rappin but decided I’d try harder/then i shot the cover of Spin and tried Prada/so went from why bother to fuck it i’ll holla/for the almighty dollar impalas pop bottles.” And goes on to deliver a few good rap songs and some verses which blew away the rapping on Relax. It sometimes sounds a little forced; not inauthentic, but tired. But it makes for some interesting music, this rapper as the petulant-martyr.

Rapping can be so bombastic sometimes, so drenched with persona that personhood becomes obfuscated. I like this music because someone talking about their music tells me more about them than perhaps they could if they were “themselves” over the beat. Self-reference and self-interview, too, seem necessary in order for a rapper to get new material in the hungry mixtape culture where you, the fan, demand more and more and more and more of them; a million rhymes.

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*I don’t know if B did this on purpose, but it amused me that the caption came in after the line “I never make no calls, I just appear like magic“. Talk about I got AIDS goddamn.