Mar 28 Lil B: Based God or False Prophet? By Streetz

Who is Lil B?!!! by @Streetztalk

This is a question I get from a lot of people my age, or people out of the loop with new hip hop artists in general. My dude Rahim hit me about writing this article, as he also wanted a breakdown of the artist and my opinion. See, this was a little difficult for me, because I knew of Lil B, but not too much about his music. Even though I had no clue how good (or horrible) his music was, I heard the name. As someone who’s been listening to hip hop for 20+ years, I didn’t want to come off as a hip hop snob, or the typical “old head hates any shit that aint from his era” type of review. I appreciate music from all genres, and all areas, and have no reason to hate the kid, so my opinion is more of a sociology study of hip hop and marketing. As anyone will tell you “there’s no such thing as bad press”, so I decided to give the kid a listen, and check out his material to formulate a fair an unbiased opinion on son, and his music.

For those of you too lazy to go to Wikipedia who need a brief bio of Lil B, it’s simple: Brandon McCartney, from the Bay Area of California, is in a group called The Pack. They hit the scene in 2006, during the strengthening of “the hyphy movement” in hip hop. Hyphy music (signified by people such as E-40), was always big in NoCal, but started making serious dents across the country. I still remember when “Tell Me When To Go” dropped out in NYC. STUPID!! Anyway, they dropped an equally tuff track “Vans”, which gave their group a big buzz. This was actually the first time i heard Lil B, and didn’t even know! I actually heard his name being thrown around with a so-called beef with Joe Budden. I saw their back and forth on twitter, and the dude was so hilarious that even Joey was crying at his threats of destroying him lyrically! Brandon decides to venture off and do solo projects. A few thousand songs, millions of youtube hits, and twitter followers later, Lil B is one of the most talked about “new dudes” of the last year or so.

The fact that he doesn’t have a single that’s tearing down the charts, yet people are still mentioning him, speaks volumes! Therein lies the paradox. Although he has a buzz, it’s split between people who love the dude and his music, and people who absolutely abhor him! The slander and praise I see regarding Lil B is beyond epic, yet to call his movement a cult following is an understatement. Still, I wanted to decide for myself what the f*ck a Lil B was, so I did my research and internalized everything, tried not to judge, and here’s what I think:

Entertainment - There’s no denying that after a few listens from Brandon, you’ll laugh at least once, or find yourself boppin you head to a nonsensical song that you have no business enjoying! Lil B is like a WWE wrestler: he has gimmicks that can hide lyrical weakness, or in a crazy way ENHANCE his weaknesses and turn them into positives! He  calls himself “The Based god”. y’all realize based was a slang term for a hype, or crackhead right?!! He flipped that definition to signify originality, being yourself, and doin what you do (loosely paraphrased by interviews). He has a danceThe “Cookin Dance” that you’ll see random teenagers do out of nowhere!

Lil B is a walking internet meme! I heard people declaring “Thank You Based God!!” for like 6 months before I realized that was from Lil B! He has grown men beggin him to “f*ck their bitches”. the word swagger died, and he Lazarus’d that word, havin dudes shouting #SWAG all over! Think about how many of us wanted to perform euthanasia on the word swagger and now he’s abusing it, with his minions gladly following! I’m even sure the term “Let that boy cook” had something to do with the Based one’s influence.

This dude is the definition of viral. he shoots videoes for every song. His Youtube pages and some of his more popular songs, have a milli + hits! He opened like 150 myspace pages to upload all of his music for public consumption. he has over 160,000 followers on twitter (and follows 100,00+ as well). I never heard of dude from a blog, or a magazine. His name and music was the digital equivalent of Skynet in terminator; it engulfed social media to the point where if you were on long enough, you heard his name at least once. This is to be commended. He’s self-made, and smart enough to saturate the market until people knew the name. that’s how I heard about him, not to mention word of mouth from his supporters.

I checked out the classic songs (Pretty b*tch, Ellen Degeneres, Wonton Soup), and I thought my ears were going to bleed! They are type catchy, but a lot of those songs are HORRIBLE! OK F*ck it, I’m going into hip hop snobbery: I listened to music in an era where lyrics reigned supreme. There was a country for party rap, fun rap, conscious rap, gangsta rap, and others, but to be WACK?! Nah, you weren’t going far. it’s way more lenient now, which i guess is good for those who want to make it in hip hop and bad for hip hop at the same time. Nothig about Lil B’s content seemed complex or clever. his music reminds me of roadtrips with my peoples. We would get into a car and drive x amount of hours to our destination. Along the way, we’d play music of course, and everyone thought they were Biggie, Jay-Z, or Nas! We would freestyle the entire way! Some had that one hook that they wrote and always remembered, of had a hot 4 bars, but 90% of it was so garbage, that you would get hyped and start laughing at the same time. That’s how I feel about Lil B’s lyricism. he seems to be in a state of forever freestyle, and forget about what Jay-Z and Wayne say about not writing lyrics down, sometimes, you need to write those sh*ts out to get better!

I didn’t want to count son out, so I searched for less popular songs like No Peace, Cold War, I’m god, Thank You based God, I killed hip hop, and BOR. These tracks right here were a significant upgrade! While the lyricism wasn’t all the way there, the effort was WAY more cohesive! it seemed like he put time into these rhymes. he doesn’t have to be Mos Def, btu even DMX dropped gems and quality raps in his prime!

I read the comments under Brandon’s videos and of course they were hilarious.  One person had a theory as to why most of his music is horrible and I thought it was interesting, because I had this thought as well: he felt that Lil B was doing this ON PURPOSE! he was making these songs to get a buzz, get people talking, and when he garnishes enough publicity, will start dropping “serious records” that show his true lyrical prowess. I think there’s a thin line between objectivity and stanning, but son did have a point. Lil B is just doing it a different way. We complain about how rappers conform to mainstream by having “a down south record”, “a record for the ladies” and other formulas to try to have a hit album. It’s pretty similar. the only thing is, with how basic his rhyming has been, there’s no where to go but up, but I have yet to see one TRUE glimmer of hope for a crazy lyricist.

My dude Karl had an even crazier theory: Lil B is satirical hip hop. He basically is a magnanimous exaggerated spoof on the negatives in hip hop. Think “The Hip hop Dalmations”. He knows what he’s doing, and will flip it eventually. If this is true it’s genius, but I’m not sure if Lil b is that “complex” to derive this plan. Even though as Karl pointed out, he has hella imagery and subliminals in his videos… I don’t know fam!

I say all of this to say, Lil B entertains me. I think he LOVES hip hop, wants a chance, and likes making music. Who am I to judge or tell someone not to follow their dream? I think he has potential to be good, he just has to really focus on lyrics/delivery/content. Basically, everything. I couldn’t see myself listening to him in the car on through the headphones, his songs may annoy me after a while. I respect his movement and the following he’s built. In his videos he seems smart and knowledgable, and not as ignorant as you think. he definitely has to chill with the million songs and focus on one cohesive project! With a great gimmick you can real far, and he has one and a brand. Only time will tell if he capitalizes and puts out good music, or he becomes another name on the #FallenEmcee list.

At the end of the day, LET THAT BOY COOK!

Streetz

(@Streetztalk)

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