Steve 'Flash' JuonI decided to dip back into Lil B’s prolific past and look at his 2010 release “Paint.” To make a long story short if you’re new to this site I respect the hell out of B but also think his catalogue is wildly uneven. The one thing you can’t say about Brandon McCartney is that he’s boring. He either hits you with something you can feel or he drops an album so long it makes you question your life choices. “Paint” is firmly in the middle at only 7 tracks and 38 minutes long, but it’s far from the typical Brandon release in many respects.
Some sources describe this as a “secret” Lil B album. That’s clearly not true as I easily found it on his own YouTube page, but I don’t get the feeling he wanted a huge spotlight on it either. “Only Music” is not something I’d even call a rap song. It’s a song, yes, but it’s an instrumental lacks a beat or even any bass hits. There’s no scratching, no samples, and no sense of rhythm or coherence. The only glue that binds the whole thing together is Brandon talking. That’s all he does here. He talks. He talks about his life, about the things that are bothering him, and the challenges of being the Based God. It’s a strange listen because it feels incredibly personal and simultaneously incredibly unfocused. This continues on “secrete” songs like “See You Cry” as well. “He gave me feedback/I just want to relax/try not to react.” There’s a semblance of a rap there… but only just.
With respect to B when he started singing on the track I had to check out, even though he says “this is my heart talking” in the background. It’s not that I don’t appreciate sentiments like “I’d rather keep it real than lie,” it’s just that I didn’t need him to croon them to me and I doubt you do either. The problem for Brandon here is that his music is generally FUN. This isn’t. Songs like “The Canvas” feel like someone talking to their therapist and trying to work out their issues, only somehow a recording studio was present at the session to capture it all. Brandon is performing self-therapy here.
“I make this music because it’s like my heart feels, you know what I mean? I just feel like I need to explain this and I can’t, y’know, I can’t get it out any other way.” BRUH. You don’t need to explain. You don’t need to explain yourself to me or anybody else. I get it though. Lil B is a wildly creative person and even he recognizes that not all of his creative impulses make sense to people. The funny thing is that if you roll with the Based God you already know that. The only people he’s explaining himself to here are newcomers who are hearing him for the first time, and that wasn’t his audience then nor is that his audience now. That’s why I have to be critical of “Paint.” He talks about being truthful and expressing your inner feelings even when you don’t have the right words to do it but I definitely do. I don’t think the audience wants to be Brandon’s therapy couch. It doesn’t bother me one way or another that he made this album, but a self-produced Lil B album with no banging beats and no banger topics just isn’t fun. Even a bad Based God album is fun just because he pushes the envelope. All he does here is lick it and seal it and hand it to you like it’s his last will and testament.