Wednesday 9/30: Bfb Da PackMan—"Fun Time" Feat. Wiz Khalifa
Today, we share our thoughts on a new song by the Houston rapper Bfb Da PackMan. Michael Brooks is in this house.
Welcome to Endless Scroll, the brainchild of Eli Enis (he/him) and Eric Bennett (they/them). Since Feb. 2019, we’ve been a weekly podcast about music, the internet, and where those two things intersect. Now we’re, also a M-F newsletter about songs. Our format is simple: a link to a song and a short take from each of us about what we think of it. Each day of the week has a corresponding genre: Monday is indie, Tuesday is punk, Wednesday is hip-hop, Thursday is pop, and Friday is misc.
Today, we share our thoughts on a new song by the Houston rapper Bfb Da PackMan. Michael Brooks is in this house.
Bfb Da PackMan—"Fun Time" Feat. Wiz Khalifa
If you were to take all of my Google searches from the past 12 months and feed them into an algorithm to create a rapper in a lab somewhere, you would probably end up with Bfb Da Packman. Packman, who currently lives in Houston and works for the United States Postal Service, is originally from Flint, Michigan, which is worth noting because his music is heavily rooted in the sound of that area, a slightly darker and more surrealistic take on the burgeoning rap scene in Detroit. On his latest single “Fun Time,” Packman teams up with Wiz Khalifa and continues his streak of hits that started with the excellent “Free Joe Exotic” back in June, rightfully claiming his throne as the internet’s favorite rapper.
It’s not exactly easy to be funny in your music and still be taken as a serious artist, but Packman does it so effortlessly that sometimes you forget that he’s cracking a thousand jokes per minute. He favors a self-deprecating style of humor; he’s one of the only rappers out there right now who can’t get roasted in an Instagram comment section because any joke that you might try to make about him he’s already made and said it ten times funnier in one of his song. But he also likes to reference his own blossoming career, creating this insanely fun mythology around him. Some of my favorite moments on “Fun Time” are callbacks to his other singles from this year, like when he jokes about the feds tapping his phone after doing a song with Teejayx6, or when he says he put a hit on Sada Baby for trying to outdance him.
Oh yeah, Wiz Khalifa is on here as well, but there’s not really too much to say about his verse. It’s not bad per se, but he’s nowhere near as entertaining as Packman and he just feels out of place in Packman’s universe. Does Wiz Khalifa still have that big of an impact on rap fans in 2020? How much did Packman have to pay for his verse? No, I’m serious. How much do you think he had to pay for that feature? Hello? Eli? ELI?!
Eli Enis:
I like how I’ve become the resident fact-checker of this column. Uh, I don’t know Michael, he probably balled out on the money he made from “Free Joe Exotic” streams. But I’ll propagate a less likely theory: Wiz reached out to Packman for the collab. I don’t remember the last time Wiz Khalifa did anything even slightly relevant in the rap game. I’m looking at his Spotify now and it appears that he’s released three projects within the last year and change, including a seven-song project in 2020 (at this point, Endless Scroll readers should hear a feint ding when they see a seven-song tracklist: zoomer bait) with 2017-ass features from Quavo and Tyga. I don’t know who listens to these things and I don’t know why anyone would when you can listen to someone as fresh, exciting, and hilarious as Bfb Da Packman. Maybe Wiz feels the same way.
But like Michael said, Wiz’s presence feels superfluous on “Fun Time”. It’s Packman’s first collab with a supposed A-lister and it’s a largely symbolic of his rising star, and also sufficient evidence that Bfb can’t really be topped by anybody. His rambunctious bars on here are hysterical as ever. “Twitter nigga said he want a brick / I sold him kitty litter” is my personal favorite, but “I fuck on TikTok, not PornHub 'cause I be nuttin' quick” is a close second. The best part about Packman is the manic, paranoid way he raps in his videos. I can’t really imagine listening to a Packman song without watching him pull his shirt up and lumber around like a goofball. That’s another reason why the Wiz feature falls so flat.
Wiz is a stoner rapper whose entire schtick is that he’s a zonked-out, smooth-rappin’ pothead with a measured flow. I guess that could make for some interesting contrast next to Packman’s looney ravings, but Wiz also isn’t very funny or very self-deprecating. On this song, he just ended up reverting safely into flex bars that feel tasteless and unmoving after Packman just finished explaining that he doesn’t get naked when he fucks because he’s fat. I’m happy to see Bfb at a point where he can hang with someone like Wiz without sacrificing an iota of his nonsensical flair. But I hope that as he gains popularity and receives more opportunities to rap with big players, his broth doesn’t spoil.