“It’s a miracle when you wake up and your dream’s right in your face,” Kodak Black sings, about an unforeseen jailbreak, on his fourth mixtape Lil big Pac. and at the end of the song, when he finally dies, “everything went cake,” playing off the standard “everything goes white” story and tying into it the trade that got him killed in the first place. This shit is deep. how is this guy 19? how does he have this kind of insight and wisdom?

And it’s not just street slang—he’s all about the relationships. “If I tell you how I feel, can I fuck?” Dude is funny, smart, has a lazy flow that feels like rope-a-dope…He’s laying back, he’s barely trying.

“I’m not a bad kid, I just didn’t have no guidance…” Kodak’s parents came to the us from Haiti and settled in South Florida—he was born to America’s hard streets, of parents from even harder ones. So it’s no surprise he’s in prison himself. but it doesn’t seem to slow him down, doesn’t stop him from naming his mixtape after three of the biggest rappers in the game. On “Slayed” he seems to out-Wayne Lil’ Wayne, biting his flow but spitting verses tougher than anything we’ve heard from Wayne in five years. Throughout, his street stories are as full of reality and knowledge as Pac’s best stuff. and the cover, well, that’s all B.I.G.

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