From the time she was 16, Bktherula has claimed to exist at what she calls Level 5. The North Carolina rapper told The Face she gave a name to this “egoless” space above the third and fourth dimensions as she was graduating high school; to her, it’s a plane where clout-chasing and self-doubt give way to creative freedom. Since then, she’s made her own name by chiseling aspects of trap, rage, plugg, and bubbly SoundCloud sing-song rap into jagged, psychedelic hedonism. On the average Bk track, ideas flail like neon-colored bike tassels—she can roar about stealing your girl over drums and sirens one minute and sing about relationship problems over Mac DeMarco samples the next. Individual moments are thrilling and unpredictable, though early full-lengths like 2020’s Love Santana occasionally veered off course. Every subsequent Bk album has worked to plant her songs on sturdier ground. On her latest project, LVL5 P2—the second in a series that started last year—Bk imagines a fifth dimension where outré flexes and endless love affairs are enveloped by waves of metallic crunch and mind-expanding guitar.
P2 ups the ante by nudging Bk further toward popular sounds without diluting her live-wire spark. For every romantically wounded interstellar croon session like “Just Make Sure” or “The Way,” there are prickly digital slappers like opener “Code” or “Tatti,” where the boasts are outlandish (“We don’t ride with the stick, we are the stick, we livin’ scarecrow”) and no one’s girl is immune from Bk’s FaceTime call. A foray into the world of sexy drill on “Shakin It,” complete with an airy beat and feature by New York maverick Cash Cobain, makes perfect sense: The duo are essentially trying to out-horny each other. Late-album cut “Woman” is less successful, trying on producer Azure’s buzzy synths and drums and coming up as a colorless drag. It’s a shame because Bk’s kiss-offs to an ex who hears her song every time they turn on NBA 2K are snappy, but the delivery and plodding beat stymie her and guest JID’s verses.
Bk’s writing has become slightly stickier and more memorable since the “Lightweight” and “Faygo” days in 2018, but her songs rise and fall on the flows, ad-libs, and delivery. “Inasne” is built on clichés (money, drugs, women, day ones), but it works thanks to the technicolor bounce of AyeLavish’s beat and Bk’s bunny-hop cadence. It may feel like Carti homage on the surface, but the contrast between the fluctuating melodies and deadpan ad-libs sends the song swinging down to Earth and back up to the stratosphere. Little details like these—Bk racing a half-measure ahead of the beat on “Boi,” the Juvenile-indebted hook on “Tatti,” the way her voice blends with longtime collaborator SimmyAuto’s zig-zagging 808s on “Wishuwasdacrew”—are old tricks that still work wonders. Sometimes, like on “Feathers,” the gambit works a bit too well, rendering Bk as background noise on her own song.
But LVL5 P2’s hits outweigh the misses. Bk’s style has evolved a lot from the minimal, spacey thumpers that established her SoundCloud presence, and she’s spent her tenure at Warner flirting with more palatable textures without sanding down her edges too much. And while not every experiment bears fruit, it never feels like she’s being forced where she doesn’t fit. Bk may not have it fully figured out yet as far as albums are concerned, but P2’s ambition is potent enough to cause a contact high.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
