Lil Pump - Lil Pump

I’ve saved the juiciest for last in this short series of non-metal album discussions because I feel like this one might actually take a while, partly because I feel like it’ll be hard to get past a justification for it, like I’ll be playing hypothetical rhetorical defense most of the time. This album is the cheapest, most shamefully savory junk food music of the year. The frequency at which I keep coming back to this stupid Funyuns bag of a mixtape is making me question whether I’m even a thoughtful music listener at all.

The biggest musical meme of the year came up on Soundcloud with short, vapid, repetitive trap bangers lyrically akin to those about weed, Xanax, cars, Gucci, money, lean, etc. from Lil B, with no irony or irony so hidden it’s not even irony anymore. Immediately apparent about Lil Pump is that Lil Pump’s lyricism is not the selling point, or at least not the album’s foundation talent. Nothing about the album is personally revealing, convincing, thoughtful or even relatable (at least not to me). I don’t do Xan or lean or buy anything Gucci, but I don’t even care. What makes Lil Pump’s high-cholesterol lyrics go down so smoothly is partially his cool, self-confident, lazy (though sometimes energetic) delivery that screams “anybody can do this shit”, but what really hold this album up is the well-committed, fire-y production behind Lil Pump. I hope Lil Pump’s picked out some nice Christmas presents for his producers this year because he would be nowhere without their work.

Getting past the preface of Lil Pump’s lack of skill to contribute to the mixtape, why it’s at all enjoyable (pretty guiltily enjoyable, actually) is that it’s just straight, stupid fun. This is not the contemplative hip hop you listen to by yourself to get something meaningful out of the poetry, nor is it the instrumentally forward-thinking kind of music that pushes music’s and even one’s own boundaries further. This is the dumb album you put on in the car to annoy one of your friends and go mad stupid with the others on the way to In ‘N’ Out Burger at 1:00 in the morning while you revel in how idiotic but addictive and energetic it is.

The fifteen songs on it blow by in just about thirty-seven minutes, most songs around two minutes in length with no major structure besides a couple verses and choruses, no bridges, no detours, no experimentation. It’s probably a good thing for the album as I can’t imagine any of these tracks holding together much longer than they already do. The lack of probable stamina the tracks display speaks to the projected longevity of this mixtape and Lil Pump’s career, at least in this condition. He’s hot right now, but he’s relying on his novelty and hooking in listeners with catchy beats and flows who have low expectations, not looking too deep into his music’s weaknesses who can handle him for short intervals of time.

Getting into the low-grade hot dog meat of the album, the songs hit hard and cheap in rapid-fire succession, all with basically the same objective; making the ridiculous bragging by Lil Pump invigorating with singularly driven banger trap beats (again, the strongest part of the album), and also allowing a listener’s overlaying of their own persona over Lil Pump’s swagger even if they’re not buying Gucci pants or gaudy jewelry or doing any of what Lil Pump is up to, making Lil Pump himself essentially removeable while experiencing the album, replaceable with a listener’s embodiment of his bravado as the only personal connection to the music. With this the album becomes basically a matter of whatever flavor of banger gets you moving the most. For me, the punchy “Boss”, the distortedly bass-y “D Rose”, the dramatic head-nodding “What U Sayin’”, and the hyped up “Crazy” are probably my favorites, again, with no respect to the lyrical content of the songs, just the vibe. As far as weak points go, “At the Door” is a little bit too low key to me, not really Lil Pump’s strong suit in my opinion, and “Youngest Flexer”, with the annoying hook about $3000 Gucci pants and the Gucci Mane feature, is probably the weakest link on the album.

Besides the content the album holds, its context is also worth noting. The sheer absurdity of the lyrical repetitiveness of tracks like “D Rose” and especially “Gucci Gang” made Lil Pump ripe for meme picking and meme culture has definitely had a field day accentuating the trashiest aspects of Lil Pump’s music, making him undoubtedly the biggest music meme the year has seen. What makes Lil Pump so significant is how representative it is of trap right now in numerous ways. Like I’ve said, the album is carried by its producers while all the limelight falls on its M.C.’s zoned out face, amplifying the current status of trap music right now. Trap is where it is right now because of producers’ ability to apply its sound to a variety of catchy, moody, or aggressive beats with its lyrical figureheads (not all, but many) content in placing style over substance, while riding the wave their studio teams build. This is not a bad thing inherently, as lyrics are not the only thing that matter in music, hip hop included, but it opens up the doors for so much trend hopping by otherwise hopeless bottom feeder rappers with the bar set so low for the job title. As for those bottom feeders, Lil Pump’s sole contextual merit is perhaps his caricaturizing of them. He emulates and exaggerates so many of their ridiculous characteristics: the typical trap rap flows, the silly ad libs inserted after every single bar, the incomplete pronunciation of most of a song’s lyrics due to super mumbled delivery. His presence in the music is practically abstract, a collage of lyrical messes shaped like a Jackson Pollock painting, meaningless on the surface, only holding whatever anyone wants to interpret from them. There’s no way he’s serious about the shit he’s rapping about, and part of me wants to think Lil Pump’s gratuitously dumb lyricism and presence for the sake of making some abstract satire of Soundcloud trap rap is done on purpose, but maybe Lil Pump is just the epitome of it all and he’s the seventh apocalyptic scroll of trap music that’s just been opened.

I’ve definitely gone on way too long about this album, longer than I’ve gone on about albums I much prefer to this one. I’ll reiterate that I do like this album, and when I say I like it shamefully I’m just kidding around with it because this album is just kidding around too. This album is the nacho cheese Doritos of rap right now, definitely not good for you, not even trying to pretend it is good for you, and you still eat the whole bag and go back for another with crumby fingers in your least presentable of states.

Musically, the takeaway is really just the beats. Lil Pump got so lucky with his team of producers, it’s a shame their names (Bighead, Trapphones, Ronny J, Terrotuga, Diablo, FadedBlackid, Danny Wolf, Frank Dukes) aren’t nearly as big as Lil Pump.

In addition, here are a few other hip hop albums from this year that I thought deserved much more recognition than Lil Pump for their production value and/or far more rewarding lyrical content.

Tyler, the Creator – Flower Boy

Uncommon Nasa – Written at Night

BROCKHAMPTON – SATURATION (I, II, & III)

Joey Bada$$ – All American Bada$$

Rapsody – Laila’s Wisdom

Pink Guy – Pink Season

Vince Staples – Big Fish Theory

Jay-Z – 4:44

Wiley – Godfather