Black Ken

Lil B first announced Black Ken in April2010. In the following months, he released singles from the mixtape The preview was released alongside cover art illustrated by graphic artist Benjamin Marra, who also created the cover for Lil B's 2009 mixtape 6 Kiss. On November 24, 2016, Lil B tweeted that he cried while listening to songs from Black Ken. He also said that the mixtape would be released "this month or next month", adding that it was a tribute to Kanye West. The next month, on December 20, Lil B announced that Black Ken was "coming soon" and that it was dedicated to Diddy, He also later dedicated the mixtape to hip-hop artists Iggy Azalea, Vince Staples, Lil Yachty, Lil Uzi Vert, Nas, French Montana, Jadakiss, The Lox, and "the east coast as a whole". A week later, Lil B released the track "My House" as a single for Black Ken. The track, which had been first previewed by Lil B at Rolling Loud in May, was premiered via WorldStarHipHop. "My House" was produced by Metro Boomin and samples "Tha Crossroads" (1996) by hip-hop group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. and in May, stated that it was "100% complete". He also described it as his "first official mixtape", He also shared the mixtape's 27-song track list, which did not include "My House". On August 16, 2017, a day before the planned release of Black Ken, the mixtape was leaked to Lil B's DatPiff account. In a tweet, Lil B stated that he was locked out of his DatPiff account following the unauthorized release. The release was later taken down from the website. A day later, on Lil B's 28th birthday, the mixtape was officially self-released via BasedWorld. It is his 51st mixtape, and unlike most of Lil B's previous work, it was not distributed as free download. Initially, Black Ken was released to SoundCloud and iTunes, before being added to other streaming services such as Spotify a year later. == Composition ==

Black Ken was fully produced by Lil B under his BasedGod alias. He worked with fours engineers and used a Casio keyboard to produce the beats on the mixtape. Black Ken has a runtime of an hour and 39 minutes and consists of 27 tracks. hyphy, Critics highlighted Lil B's stylistic versatility, and considered his rapping and sound on the mixtape more refined than on previous releases. Writing for Pitchfork, Meaghan Garvey said that the first eight tracks "represent [Lil B's] most purposeful block of music since his 2009 opus 6 Kiss". Ross Scarano of Complex described the beats on the mixtape as "retro but not quite," while Angel Diaz called the production "crisp and polished". Pitchfork's Evan Minsker called Black Ken "a defining statement throughout." and features "tight, spaced-out production," according to Tiny Mix Tapes. The next song, "Getting Hot", was described as a "club banger" by Tiny Mix Tapes. The fourteenth track, "Ride (Hold Up)", was described as a "sonic outlier" and "a Clara Rockmore theremin performance interrupted by sepia-toned zaps of Detroit techno" by Garvey. "Zam Bose (In San Jose)", the sixteenth track, contains elements of latin music, and was described as one of Black Ken's "brutal lows" by Pierre. Garvey wrote that the song "resists explanation entirely." Findlay compared the following track, "Go Senorita Go", to Lil B's 2010 song, "Hipster Girls". Garvey compared Lil B's voice on the eighteenth track, "Turn Up (Till You Can’t)", to his voice on his 2012 song, "California Boy". The song was also called a "club banger" by Tiny Mix Tapes. The twenty-second track, "The Real Is Back", saw Lil B "airing out his beef with Soulja Boy", according to Minsker. ==Critical reception==

In a Pitchfork review, Meaghan Garvey described Black Ken as Lil B's masterpiece. with the publication calling it "a more considered and structured statement than B has produced for a long while." Tiny Mix Tapes included the mixtape on their "Favorite Rap Mixtapes of August 2017" list, describing it as "an amalgamation of [Lil B's] past and a sampling of a possible future". In the publication's review of Black Ken, Corrigan B described it as "Lil B’s first capitulation to convention in a decade." He also commented that musically, "there’s no angle by which it stands out within Lil B’s discography", and stated that the mixtape's adherence to convention detracted from its quality. ==Track listing==

All tracks are written and produced by Brandon McCartney. ==References==