From every angle, “Lil B.I.G. Pac” — his best release since “Heart of the Projects,” from 2014 — is about his internal tug of war. It’s a vivid album about how the appeal of street life is just as powerful, if not more so, than the appeal of a shot at real fame.

There’s bravado here, like on the petulant “Today,” in which he gripes about wishing he was free of obligations and the spotlight: “I don’t wanna go in front of no crowd/Today, I wanna tote my .40-cal.” But generally, that bluster is cut through with stark reckoning about his personal choices, and also the circumstances that led him to those choices. “I’m not a bad kid, I just didn’t have no guidance,” he raps on “Can I.”

Image The cover of “Lil B.I.G. Pac.”

Several of the most effective songs here are the most tragic, like “Gave It All I Got,” on which Kodak Black, over a melancholy horn riff, laments how those close to him let him down while he was last in jail. And “Purp,” which moves with a slow-seeping shimmer, is a catalog of self-flagellation, and also a self-warning: “I’m trying to keep everybody happy but I just end up hurt/and Lord knows that I’m blessed but sometimes I feel cursed.”

The rappers namechecked in the title aren’t his heroes. It’s notable that the two guest rappers on the mixtape are a pair of Southern elders (both of whom have faced ample legal trouble, too): Gucci Mane, the sly Atlanta rapper embedded into the DNA of almost every Southern rapper under 25, and Boosie Badazz, the Louisiana rapper who for years has been nailing the blend of tough talk and pathos Kodak Black excels at.