Hate it or love it, Lil B has left a permanent mark on Hip-Hop and the Blue Flame mixtape helped start it all and is one of the most influential projects of the 10s decade.
Here are some of Blue Flame’s accomplishments:
- Blue Flame + Red Flame mixtapes marked the beginning of Lil B’s run as Based God – hugely popular songs like “Wonton Soup”, “I’m Paris Hilton”, “Exhibit Based”, “I’m Miley Cyrus” (ahead of its time with the Miley Cyrus name drop), and “Fuck My Bitch” helped catapult Lil B to success.
- “SWAG” + “WOOP” adlibs in Hip-Hop were pioneered by way of this mixtape (see: “Wonton Soup“).
- Rappers like A$AP Rocky and Young Thug can call themselves pretty (and other adjectives usually reserved for women) and aren’t questioned in Hip-Hop largely because of Lil B and his impact with this mixtape.
- Over-excessive ad-libbing in rap (like Migos, Riff Raff, and Famous Dex) was pioneered on this mixtape. Lil B ad-libbed to the point of exaggeration and satire on songs like the title track “Blue Flame” and it became a trend in Hip-Hop years later and to this day (in Jan.2017).
- Stream of consciousness, 1 take “based” freestyles like what you hear on today’s Lil Uzi Vert, iLoveMakkonen, & Lil Yachty records were pioneered on this mixtape.
- Lil B would go on to later release entire tapes of “based freestyles”. Other rappers would later go on to release their own stream of consciousness “based” freestyle such as Chance the Rapper, Iamsu, and Yung God (“I Think Im Dexter” based freestyle has 2.5m views on Youtube).
- This mixtape eventually led to Lil B’s ambient rap Rain in England project that dropped the next week, which eventually led to his Illusions of Grandeur project, with it’s more airy hip-hop sounds like ambience.
- Illusions of Grandeur and Rain In England‘s airy and ambient vibes in Hip-Hop paved the way for the birth of “cloud rap”, which led to the discovery of Clams Casino (via Lil B) & birth of the Cloud Rap subgenre (Main Attraktionz, A$AP, etc)
Lil B helped break down barriers with Blue Flame the mixtape and this tape was the informal beginning of his run as “Based God“, breaking away from his initial The Pack and SODMG (Soulja Boy’s label) affiliations and becoming a legitimate figure in Hip-Hop, with his style inspiring it’s own family tree of rappers and producers including sexually abrasive stream-of-consciousness rappers like Famous Dex and Ugly God and cloud rap producers such as Clams Casino more.
- Lil B helped popularize dropping rapid fire projects monthly and weekly (and on your own label) and dropping a video for every song on the project.
- Does A$AP Rocky get away with calling himself a “pretty muthafucka” on “Peso” (his 1st hit) if
@LILBTHEBASEDGOD didnt desensitize the word in the Hip-Hop community as an adjective for male rappers 2 years earlier on “Pretty Bitch“? Consider the prevalence of homophobia in Hip-Hop in the early 2010s.
- Does Young Thug get the same acceptance and passes for wearing “women clothes” on the cover of his “Jeffrey” project if Lil B doesn’t break down that barrier first by wearing women’s earrings, hats, and accessories in videos like “Ima Eat Her Ass“? (also ahead of its time, a song about eating ass before the idea became mainstream with Jhene Aiko‘s “Eat the Booty Like Groceries” lyric).
Lil B is extremely influential.
His Blue Flame + Red Flame, Rain In England & Illusions of Grandeur mixtapes birthed lanes for rappers TODAY for their pioneering of based freestyles and cloud rap production.