November 14, 2010
Lil B is a strange addiction. When I introduce him to friends reactions vary from “this must be a joke” to mild bewilderment. His most famous songs aren’t really his best- “Pretty Bitch” is subpar lyrically (though definitely his party song) and much of his music is performed “based,” the definition of which depends on the context; in the context of rap, an off-the-dome kind of freestyling that reveals one’s “true consciousness,” and in the context of everything else, whatever Lil B wants it to be. At times it’s an entire lifestyle philosophy that encourages a kind of world peace, and peace with yourself; at others it’s about getting drunk; sometimes it refers to a meditative state of extreme ego that allows one to “rap based,” as it were. Lil B is undoubtedly its god and president: his twitter feed is @LILBTHEBASEDGOD. He literally has a song called “I’m God” (and its counterpart, “I’m The Devil.”) He’s a lot of things at once, which makes him hard to categorize and define. A lot of his appeal lies in the fact that he’s not like other rappers. He wears skinny jeans and his twitter feed is a constant party of retweets from ardent fans offering him their girlfriends and proclamations about living in peace with others, not littering and eating healthily, plus quips that rank amongst the weirdest on my dashboard. He calls himself a goon, then a pretty bitch, then finer than Nicki Minaj, then a hustler. He’s so many things simultaneously that it’s almost a surprise with every mixtape and single he releases- who’s Lil B gonna be today? Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. He aims to capture emotions in his songs, and he definitely does; different ways of feeling cocky, lust, hate, the wonder of being alive. He’s only 19 or 20, and in a lot of ways his music mimics the mindset of being in this age bracket; the future so malleable and things different every day. While much of Lil B’s rap is not excellent, he represents a new generation of rap in a post-Soulja Boy era: born into YouTube, where much of the hustling takes place on the Internet and rappers are getting weirder (and weirder rap takes a bigger portion of the available rap market.) It’s hard to imagine the rise of Soulja Boy in 2000, much less five years before that, but that is how fast the Internet has changed the genre and the very face of what we could consider a popular rapper. Lil B is decidedly weird- two minutes with his twitter feed or one run through a mixtape will show you what I mean- but his endless self-promotion (hundreds of myspace pages, hundreds of “#RARE” singles and releases, conveniently organized and maintained on a third-party webpage) has led to a fervent cult audience and at least one certified meme- NFL players are doing the cooking dance in the endzone, and the thought that an NFL player would be referencing an obscure rapper’s dance meme is hard to imagine even two years ago. The current rap market has advanced what were more alternative rappers a few years ago into bigger deals and higher planes of visibility, leaving room for newcomers, new attitudes and new listeners, more receptive to stranger voices and beats. That, probably, is a good thing, and as always, the free market will decide what prevails- in 2 years, we may see more violent, outlandishly rude turns, if the sudden rise of Odd Future is any indication; in any case, it would not be hard to imagine rap taking on much more outlandish angles within a few years, if current trends prevail. BTW: Tumblr for iPhone is not that awesome

Lil B is a strange addiction. When I introduce him to friends reactions vary from “this must be a joke” to mild bewilderment. His most famous songs aren’t really his best- “Pretty Bitch” is subpar lyrically (though definitely his party song) and much of his music is performed “based,” the definition of which depends on the context; in the context of rap, an off-the-dome kind of freestyling that reveals one’s “true consciousness,” and in the context of everything else, whatever Lil B wants it to be. At times it’s an entire lifestyle philosophy that encourages a kind of world peace, and peace with yourself; at others it’s about getting drunk; sometimes it refers to a meditative state of extreme ego that allows one to “rap based,” as it were. Lil B is undoubtedly its god and president: his twitter feed is @LILBTHEBASEDGOD. He literally has a song called “I’m God” (and its counterpart, “I’m The Devil.”) He’s a lot of things at once, which makes him hard to categorize and define.

A lot of his appeal lies in the fact that he’s not like other rappers. He wears skinny jeans and his twitter feed is a constant party of retweets from ardent fans offering him their girlfriends and proclamations about living in peace with others, not littering and eating healthily, plus quips that rank amongst the weirdest on my dashboard. He calls himself a goon, then a pretty bitch, then finer than Nicki Minaj, then a hustler. He’s so many things simultaneously that it’s almost a surprise with every mixtape and single he releases- who’s Lil B gonna be today?

Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. He aims to capture emotions in his songs, and he definitely does; different ways of feeling cocky, lust, hate, the wonder of being alive. He’s only 19 or 20, and in a lot of ways his music mimics the mindset of being in this age bracket; the future so malleable and things different every day.

While much of Lil B’s rap is not excellent, he represents a new generation of rap in a post-Soulja Boy era: born into YouTube, where much of the hustling takes place on the Internet and rappers are getting weirder (and weirder rap takes a bigger portion of the available rap market.) It’s hard to imagine the rise of Soulja Boy in 2000, much less five years before that, but that is how fast the Internet has changed the genre and the very face of what we could consider a popular rapper. Lil B is decidedly weird- two minutes with his twitter feed or one run through a mixtape will show you what I mean- but his endless self-promotion (hundreds of myspace pages, hundreds of “#RARE” singles and releases, conveniently organized and maintained on a third-party webpage) has led to a fervent cult audience and at least one certified meme- NFL players are doing the cooking dance in the endzone, and the thought that an NFL player would be referencing an obscure rapper’s dance meme is hard to imagine even two years ago. The current rap market has advanced what were more alternative rappers a few years ago into bigger deals and higher planes of visibility, leaving room for newcomers, new attitudes and new listeners, more receptive to stranger voices and beats. That, probably, is a good thing, and as always, the free market will decide what prevails- in 2 years, we may see more violent, outlandishly rude turns, if the sudden rise of Odd Future is any indication; in any case, it would not be hard to imagine rap taking on much more outlandish angles within a few years, if current trends prevail.

BTW: Tumblr for iPhone is not that awesome

7:40pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZN9XVy1Tra8M
Filed under: lil b the internet lilbthebasedgod myspace odd future ofwgkta soulja boy rap rappers rapping the future of itel