Lil B performs in Austin, Texas, March 2011. Photo: Roger Kisby/Getty Images

When Lil B, underground rap’s most divisive star, announced that he would name his new album Im[sic] Gay — his motives unclear — the talking points quickly exploded. Conservative rap fans bore their ugly homophobic side, the gay community raised a tentative eyebrow (with some claiming that it was an empty publicity stunt) and former gender-studies-majors-turned-rap critics simply reveled in the fact that their what to make of homosexuality in hip hop? theses finally had a news peg to hang on. None of that noise matters in the wake of the album’s release. As if the overcompensating, parenthesized subtitle Im Happy didn’t make it apparent enough, Im Gay is not an album about homosexuality. In fact, the topic warrants only a single mention, in true Lil B tongue-out fashion — a single throwaway line asking “Why he call his album that?” His response: “Bitch I do what I want and the tracks is ill.” He does and they are, so it’s hard to argue.

Im Gay is the last thing that the casual observers who have dismissed him as the latest rapper to destroy rap would think B capable of, and exactly what anybody who’s given B more than a passing listen knows to expect from him. There are very few ad libs of “swag,” no boasts of bitches, chants of dance instructions or trunk-rattling low-end madness; instead it’s all hookless spiritual and sociopolitical-minded reflection over mellow, sample-driven production. He’s been doing this periodically over the past two years, sprinkling words, tracks and tapes of insight and enormous personal honesty in between his more vulgar moments. The best of these is 2010′s supremely underrated 6 Kiss album, and this year he’s already released three more projects — Angels Exodus, Illusions of Grandeur and Devil Red Flame – where the production leans more boom bap and the subject matter more cerebral. But the sad truth is that those records simply haven’t been as popular as his more playful ones. “Suck My Dick Ho”: 1.8 million Youtube views. “Cold War”: 306k. Both styles have their merits, but fans and casual listeners are quite clearly paying more attention to his ignorant side. And that’s the genius of the Im Gay media circus — it forces ears in the other direction.

Like just about everything B has recorded in the past few years, Im Gay is defined by a sloppiness of urgency. B is a man who likely never takes a second take in the vocal booth because that’s time that could be put to recording a third song. At this point, calling his style stream of conscious would be like calling Rick Ross overweight. He rambles aimlessly on record, that’s his thing. But the content of Im Gay is notable in that it gives purpose to that stream of consciousness. (Not that he needed purpose before, but he has it now.) He’s got so much trouble on his mind that it’s overflowing. Matters of religion, racism, poverty, fame, fatherless children, technology, violence and haters are all addressed by way of loosely connected motivational platitudes. “You got one life better live it / can’t be a leader if you’re scared to make decisions / live in Tupac and Biggie‘s visions / Lil B – I’m trapped in prison.” There’s a lot of wisdom in those short bursts, along with a fair share of near contradictory gibberish and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories mixed in along the way. But this is how message-oriented rap has always worked. As much as purists would have you think otherwise, not every word out of Rakim‘s mouth offered listeners keys to pure enlightenment. Maybe about half of them did. The rest of the time he was talking about fish being his favorite dish. History tends to only highlight its heroes’ moments of brilliance.

Besides, B’s unrelenting optimism separates him from his more recent conscious rap predecessors. He doesn’t just moan about the world’s problems, he offers a loose template for overcoming them on a personal level. It’s a rap self-help record and, through sheer media prowess, B has hoisted it upon people who otherwise might want nothing to do with a rap self-help record. These, of course, are often the folks who need a record like this the most. If the title was in fact merely a publicity stunt then it’s about as noble a publicity stunt as one can possibly pull.